Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.43
Object Name
banner
Title
'95% child sexual abuse is commited by straight men yet they call lesbians perverts + "unfit" mums. Smash Section 16!! Crush Clause 25!! Expose the hypocrits!!'
Place
Manchester, Stockport
People
Feminist Webs
Events
Never Going Underground Section 28 protest
Description
A white banner backed on dark green fabric. The edge is bordered with woman/Venus symbols. The text of the banner is interspersed with pink triangles. Text reads '95% child sexual abuse is commited by straight men yet they call lesbians perverts + "unfit" mums. Smash Section 16!! Crush Clause 25!! Expose the hypocrits!!' (Typos in this text are direct quotes.)
This banner was made by the Stockport feminist collective Feminist Webs to protest several pieces of legislation enacted or considered by the Conservative government in 1989-1990. 'Smash Section 16' is likely to be a reference to Paragraph 16 of the 1989 Children Act which functionally excluded same gender couples from being recognised as parents by specifying that "parent" included any person married to a child's biological parent. Before the introduction of civil partnerships, this would exclude all same gender couples. At the time, lesbian mothers who left mixed gender marriages were often denied custody of their children purely due to their sexuality, with a perception by many family court judges and social service departments that lesbians were unfit to parent. The banner's text shows how hypocritical the activists in Feminist Webs felt this was, when heterosexual men were the most likely population to be convicted of abusing children.
'Crush Clause 25' is likely to be a reference to Section 25 of the Criminal Justice bill debated in 1990 which would have increased the penalties for the crimes of soliciting, procuring and indecency. At the time the definitions for all three of those included chatting someone up in a club and then kissing them or going home with them, but only for men who had relationships with men, not mixed gender couples. LGBTQIA activists in organisations like Outrage protested this disparity and discriminatory legislation with demonstrations like 'kiss-ins' where same gender couples would kiss en masse and challenge the police to arrest all of them. A note attached to the banner says that Feminist Webs also used this banner at the Never Going Underground anti-Section 28 rally in Manchester in 1988.
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