Julie Bindel

Julie Bindel
Born	(1962-07-20) 20 July 1962 United Kingdom
Occupation	Columnist, political commentator, cultural critic
Nationality	British
Genre	Advocacy journalism
Subject	Women's rights, feminism, lesbian feminism
Literary movement	Feminism and LGB rights movement
Partner	Harriet Wistrich
Website
www.guardian.co.uk/profile/juliebindel

Julie Bindel (born 20 July 1962) is an English writer, feminist and co-founder of the group Justice for Women, which opposes violence against women from a feminist viewpoint.

A freelance journalist whose work regularly appears in The Guardian, Bindel's work strongly divides readers between admirers and detractors. Her primary areas of interest are lesbian rights, opposition to the sex industry, modern anti-trafficking campaigns and defending female victims of domestic violence. She has been involved in feminist law reform campaigns for victims of domestic violence and originally began writing as a way to get the message across to the wider public. As a lesbian, she has shared her views and been quoted regarding sexual identity and sexual orientation issues and refers to herself as a political lesbian feminist. Bindel though does not support same-sex marriage and believes that it would be preferable to have governments and courts not concern themselves with any concept of "marriage", and only regulate civil partnerships for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

As of 2009 she lives in Crouch End and has written about the area. In August 2010 she entered The Independent's "Pink List" as ninety-eighth of the top 101 most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain. Her first book Straight Expectations was published in 2014.

Early career, activism and research

Julie Bindel was a teenager in Leeds when she became involved in feminism in 1979, through meeting feminists who were then campaigning about sexual violence and the complacency of the police at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. "The Yorkshire Ripper case was my reason for becoming a campaigner against sexual violence". Sutcliffe was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1981 for murdering thirteen women between 1975 and 1980. She states, "I was angry, like many others, that the police only really seemed to step up the investigation when the first 'non-prostitute' was killed." Bindel was angry about the police's advice for women to stay indoors although many had jobs which required them to be out after dark; she was also not happy about the police's assertions in 1979–1980 that sex workers were the killer's target even though, from May 1978 onwards, all the victims were not sex workers by trade. Bindel took part in feminist protests against the killings including flyering mock-up police notices for men to stay off the streets for the safety of women. She continued campaigning against sexual violence, and worked as an unpaid feminist activist working for women's rights.

In 1990, Bindel was a co-founder of Justice for Women (JFW), a group which opposes violence against women from a feminist viewpoint. "Justice For Women is a feminist organisation that campaigns and supports women who have fought back against or killed violent male partners". They are concerned with issues of mariticide arising from domestic abuse. JFW offer welfare advice, campaign on domestic violence, abused women who kill violent partners, immigration rights, and the dangers women face with the rise of religious fundamentalism. JFW "campaign for changes in the defences to murder so that they encompass and reflect women's experiences of domestic violence."

Bindel's writing on cyberstalking, where a victim is humiliated or threatened with unwelcome email messages at work or to professional associates, has been cited by academics. In 2006 Bindel wrote of a personal pact regarding rape and how rape victims are re-victimized by being "identified, vilified and even criminalised." She shared that if she were raped at the time she would likely not report it to the police because of these concerns.

Bindel's activism is reflected in her contribution to research and writing on feminist issues, violence against women, and prostitution; she was a researcher at both Leeds Metropolitan and London Metropolitan Universities, being the assistant director of the research unit on violence and abuse at Leeds Metropolitan.

Journalism

Bindel's journalistic writing began while she was Assistant Director of the Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations at Leeds Metropolitan University. She was first published by The Independent newspaper in 1998 concerning prostitution in the UK. According to her writing, the life and death of her friend Emma Humphreys in 1998 led her into journalism. Bindel had campaigned for Emma to be acquitted and released from prison following Emma's conviction for the murder of a violent pimp.

In 2001 she began writing an occasional column for The Guardian, from the start covering gay and lesbian issues, child protection, prostitution and violence against women. From October 2003, her contributions in The Guardian became more frequent, and she wrote about the main themes that concerned her: rape, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, men who murder women, men who murder partners, child protection, sex offenders, prostitution, gay and lesbian issues, broader LGBT issues including transsexualism and gender reassignment surgery, human trafficking, sex tourism, women who murder violent men, and lesbian issues. Her style is often controversial. During her time at The Guardian, Bindel also broadened her range of topics to include vegetarianism, Barbie, Sylvia Pankhurst memorial, and wrote columns on Andrea Dworkin, Sheila Jeffreys and Louis Armstrong.

Domestic violence and murder

Bindel's writing on the issue of violence against women in domestic and personal relationships with men has featured in her journalism from the start, and continues to do so.

In 2008 her activism and writing coincided when the issue she had campaigned on for over a decade became the focus of government legislation. Since the death of Emma Humphreys, who she helped to get released from prison, Bindel had sought to get a law changed that had historically protected men and penalised women. If men murdered a partner in the heat of the moment, an appeal to 'provocation' had been admissible in mitigation. Such an appeal was not practical for women trapped in violent relationships, because murders carried out in the context of ongoing subjection to violence tended not to occur in the heat of the moment, but would be often be calculated as a solution which provided an escape from violence. Bindel's campaign against violence against women on the one hand sought to resist the mitigation men could appeal to when partners were murdered, and allow the sustained violence women could be subjected to act as a mitigating factor if they murdered their partner. Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, was of a similar mind on this issue, and legislation was proposed that would change the law to this effect. Bindel explained her support for this legislation in her column. Erin Pizzey, one of the early founders of women's refuges, was critical of the new law, and other newspapers leveled their criticisms at both Harman and Bindel.

Using titles like "Why I hate men" and "Why men hate me", Bindel has discussed her views on men, violence, and the way men relate to women, and what is revealed in their comments about her writing.

Sex work, trafficking and sex tourism

Bindel has written and worked on issues concerning prostitution and sex work since 1998, and this is reflected in her writing for The Guardian.

In 2008 Bindel co-wrote a report commissioned by the POPPY Project on British brothels, named Big Brothel (a play on the title of the Channel 4 reality TV programme Big Brother). The report on 921 brothels found that penetrative sex was available from £15 to £250, with an average of £62, 2% of brothels offered unprotected penetrative sex for an extra £10 to £200 payment. The brothels operated as legitimate businesses across every borough in London; a number of the premises involved offered "very young girls", but denied any were under age, and many of the women were from Eastern Europe and South East Asia. Bindel wrote about the findings in her Guardian column, describing experiences such as those of a young woman having sex with twenty men a day, and discussed Harriet Harman's (UK Minister for Women and Equality) plans to make paying for sex illegal.

The report was criticised by 27 leading academics involved in sex work research, claiming that the report was carried out without formal academic ethical approval, without acknowledgement of existing sources, and co-written by a journalist with anti-prostitution views. The POPPY project responded that the report was one they produced independently, that the POPPY project was not an academic institution, and because significant media attention was usually lacking in this area of research it was important to provide a counterbalance to the positive media focus on the sex industry.

Transsexualism and transgenderism

Bindel's writings on gender reassignment surgery, transsexualism and transgender issues have upset people in transsexual and transgender communities, particularly a piece published in 2004 which cast transsexual people as ungenuinely transitioning while ridiculing their experiences.

Bindel's first published article on transsexualism was a December 2003 Sunday Telegraph Magazine report; it was the first example of coverage of a narrative of 'transsexual regret' in the UK media. Bindel interviewed 'Claudia', a post-operative transsexual, who regretted her decision to have surgery and felt that the psychiatrist involved did not take sufficient care in reaching a diagnosis. Bindel questioned the medical approach in the article.

A month later a piece, "Gender Benders, beware" was printed in The Guardian concerning her anger about a rape crisis centre's dispute with a transsexual rape counselor; the article also expressed her views about transsexuals and transsexualism. Many considered the language used to be offensive and demeaning. The Guardian received more than two hundred letters of complaint from transsexual people, doctors, therapists, academics and others. Transgender activist group Press for Change cite this article as an example of 'discriminatory writing' about transsexual people in the press. Complaints focussed on the title, "Gender benders, beware", the cartoon accompanying the piece, and the disparaging tone, such as "Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease" and "I don't have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it does not make them women, in the same way that shoving a bit of vacuum hose down your 501s [jeans] does not make you a man."

Four responses were published. Julie Hesmondhalgh, an actress who played transsexual character 'Hayley' in the ITV soap Coronation Street commented: "Men in dresses with birds'-nest hair chopping off their meat and two veg in order to enjoy the privileges of using the women's bog or snogging their same sex partner without fear of ridicule?! Can someone please inform the intelligent and compassionate Julie Bindel, whose amazing work for Justice for Women I have long admired, that Les Battersby is using her name to masquerade as a Sun [tabloid] reporter? And that the Guardian is accidentally printing his column?"

In response to the complaints, The Guardian's readers' editor Ian Mayes wrote that the newspaper received about 200 letters, and noted that international lobbying did not account for all of these, and that most condemned the views expressed in the column, The Guardian for publishing it, and the illustration accompanying it. Twelve of the letters were complaints. Mayes commented: "Dismay at the piece was registered not only by transsexual people but by doctors, therapists, academics and others involved in the field." Referring to her as "a lesbian activist for the rights of women and children [ ... ] a rare kind of writer who puts her money where her mouth is," he explained that Bindel understood that there were problems with the way the article was written. He echoed the sentiments of one therapist in concluding, "This column, which obscured any argument in discriminatory language, [...] abused an already abused minority that The Guardian might have been expected to protect."

Bindel expressed her views about transsexualism and gender reassignment surgery three years later in the context of psychiatrist Russell Reid's censure by the General Medical Council due to his treatment of some transsexual patients. Reid was the private psychiatrist who had treated Claudia, and her second Guardian article on this topic followed a series of more than 20 reports in The Guardian focusing on transsexualism, Russell Reid and approaches to treatment from the time of Bindel's first article in 2004, when Reid began to be investigated, and his censure and hearing in 2007. The second article appeared after the results of the hearing were announced, and contained interview material with Claudia, and Bindel's views on reassignment surgery.

In the summer of 2007, Bindel was invited to present her views on transsexual reassignment surgery on BBC Radio 4's Hecklers, a series in which someone argues a provocative thesis, and a panel of speakers challenges them. She proposed that "sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation". The panelists who opposed this were Professor Stephen Whittle (Law professor and trans activist), Peter Tatchell (gay activist), Dr. Kevan Wylie (psychiatrist) and Michelle Bridgman (therapist and trans activist). She wrote about her appearance on the show in her column the same day, and summarised her position on transsexualism. On his website, Tatchell endorsed Bindel's criticism of "traditional male and female roles and the social pressure to conform to cultural expectations of how men and women are supposed to behave," recognising these as "often profoundly oppressive." But he criticises her for "putting gender theory and ideology before the happiness of individual human beings who feel out of place and unhappy in their birth sex." A year later, in 2008, Bindel's apology for the 2004 piece was noted by Christine Burns of Press for Change when she interviewed her in 2008, and Bindel repeated her apology for the tone of the original piece.

In autumn 2008 Bindel was nominated for the UK LGB rights organisation Stonewall's 2008 "Journalist of the year" award. Stonewall's nomination was protested by independent trans and queer groups. Bindel put out a release via the London Feminist Network, There was a picket of the awards ceremony on 6 November 2008 with mixed support from attendees of the event. Bindel attended, although she did not receive an award. Bindel responded to the protest in a piece in The Guardian which covered the way the LGBT movement had developed since her early days as a radical lesbian feminist. She suggested that the protest was as much about "Stonewall for refusing to add the T (for transsexual) on to the LGB (for lesbian, gay and bisexual)." She detailed her frustration with the bullying tactics of those involved, how she was expected to be part of the LGBTQQI movement, yet was criticised for expressing opinions on trans issues while at the same time being told to be inclusive to trans people and issues, concluding that she wanted nothing to do with it. The protest did not receive mainstream press attention, but was covered in the UK gay press. A spokesperson for the protest confirmed that the protest was about Stonewall rather than Bindel herself: "'We're quite happy to leave her alone,' said Zoe O'Connell from the London TransFeminist Group. 'The protest was very much against Stonewall and not Bindel.'"

Bindel is reported as still maintaining that "people should question the basis of the diagnosis of male psychiatrists, 'at a time when gender polarisation and homophobia work hand-in-hand.'" She argues that "Iran carries out the highest number of sex change surgeries in the world", that "surgery is an attempt to keep gender stereotypes intact", and that "the idea that certain distinct behaviours are appropriate for males and females underlies feminist criticism of the phenomenon of 'transgenderism'." Following the Stonewall protest Whittle invited her to debate these issues again with Susan Stryker, a trans academic and activist from the USA, in front of an audience at Manchester Metropolitan University on 12 December 2008; the debate was broadcast live on the internet.

Lesbian feminism, gay and lesbian

Bindel began writing about lesbian issues as a radical lesbian feminist before her entry into journalism; her time with The Guardian saw her interest on lesbian and feminist issues come to include gay issues, scientific theories about sexuality, the way gender roles are taught to children, the cosmetics industry, cosmetic surgery for women, the media portrayal of lesbian chic, and lesbian child-bearing.

In her November 2008 piece written after the Stonewall protest, Bindel talked about her frustration with being in a movement that insisted she accept trans people, yet resulted in her being criticised whenever she spoke on trans issues. She said that as a longtime active member of the lesbian community she felt uncomfortable with the increasing inclusion of sexuality and gender-variant communities into the expanding LGBT 'rainbow alliance': "the mantra now at 'gay' meetings is a tongue-twisting LGBTQQI". "It is all a bit of an unholy alliance. We have been put in a room together and told to play nicely." "I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by 'odd' sexual habits or characteristics." "I just want to be left alone. I am not in your gang, I did not ask to be, so please don't tell me I am one of yours, and then tell me off for offending your orthodoxy." In January 2009 she wrote about the radical lesbian feminism of the 1970s and 1980s, and her desire to return to those values. She concluded with an invitation to heterosexual women to adopt lesbianism, saying "Come on sisters, you know it makes sense. Stop pretending you think lesbianism is an exclusive members' club, and join the ranks. I promise that you will not regret it."

Rape

During her time as a Guardian contributor Bindel has begun to write more on issues about rape, such as drug rape and date rape. She is critical of how difficult life is made for women who report rape, how the investigative and legal process ends up with women being dealt with more like the offender than the victim in an environment where some appear to think it is more important to safeguard the rights of men who might be accused maliciously than women who are victims. Bindel responded to the difficulties of reporting and prosecuting rape by saying she would not report it herself, "we may as well forget about the criminal justice system and train groups of vigilantes to exact revenge and, hopefully, deter attacks. Because if I were raped, I would rather take my chances as a defendant in court, than as a complainant in a system that seems bent on proving that rape is a figment of malicious women's imagination." Her writing on rape has appeared in newspapers in the Middle East and India, and her views have been reported by the BBC.

Child protection and sex offenders

Bindel has written about child protection issues, the way sex offenders are dealt with and biological theories about what drives sex offenders.

Other topics

Bindel has written articles that depart from themes central to her lesbian feminist background, such as vegetarianism, Arsenal, and questioned the point of gender-neutral toilets at the BFI Southbank, at the expense of one of the women's toilet facilities there.

Personal life

Bindel's partner is Harriet Wistrich, a lawyer.

Bibliography

Bindel has written for the Telegraph, Independent and Guardian newspapers, including more than 160 columns for the Guardian, featured in the online 'Comment is Free' section, as well as the books and articles listed below.

Lesbian feminism

• Bindel J, 'Neither an Ism nor a Chasm', in All the Rage: Reasserting Radical Lesbian Feminism, Women's Press, London 1996

Domestic violence

• Bindel, J. and Wistrich, Harriot (eds) The Map of my Life: The Story of Emma Humphreys. Astraia Press, 2003 (ISBN 0954-6341-0-1)
• Bindel, J. "Women Overcoming Violence and Abuse: Information Pack on Topics Covered at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Women's Citizenship" (Research Paper No. 15, Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK) 1996
• Bindel, J & Fleming, J. Women Overcoming Violence and Abuse: Information Pack on Topics Covered at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Women's Citizenship. University of Bradford, Violence, Abuse & Gender Relations Research Unit, 1996
• Bindel, J. "Violence, Abuse & Women's Citizenship: An International Conference, Brighton, UK, 10–15 November 1996" Press Pack, Leeds Metropolitan University Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations, Leeds Metropolitan University; Published by Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations, 1996
• Kelly, L; Bindel, J; Burton, S; Butterworth, D; Cook, K; Regan, L. Domestic Violence Matters: An Evaluation of a Development Project, Home Office Information and Publications Group, 1996

Sex work

• Bindel, J. Profitable Exploits: Lap Dancing in the UK, London, Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit of London Metropolitan University, 2004
• Bindel, J & Kelly, L. A Critical Examination of Responses to Prostitution in Four Countries: Victoria, Australia; Ireland; the Netherlands; and Sweden, Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit of London Metropolitan University, 2003
• Bindel, J. 'Flushing the Johns' Trouble and Strife, No. 38, 1998, pp. 35–36
• Bindel, J. 'Press for Change'; A guide for journalists reporting on the prostitution and trafficking of women, CATW, 2006
• Bindel, J; Atkins, H. Big Brothel – a survey of the off-street sex industry in London, POPPY Project, 2008

Other works

• Griffin, G. Feminist activism in the 1990s pp. 65–78, Taylor & Francis, 1995; ISBN 0-7484-0290-X
• Plante, R. F. Sexualities in context: a social perspective; Westview Press, 2006; ISBN 0-8133-4293-7
• Kinnell, H. Violence and Sex Work in Britain, Willan Publishing, 2008; ISBN 1-84392-350-5
• Gupta, R. From homebreakers to jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters; Zed Books, 2003; ISBN 1-84277-441-7
• Marsh, I & Melville, G. Crime, Justice and the Media; Taylor & Francis, 2009, ISBN 0-415-44490-X
• Anderson, I & Doherty, K. Accounting for Rape Psychology, Feminism and Discourse Analysis in the Study of Sexual Violence; Routledge, 2006; ISBN 0-203-08754-2
• Jeffreys, S. The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade, Taylor & Francis, 2008; ISBN 0-415-41233-1

Bindel's first book Straight Expectations was published in June 2014.

See also

• Lesbian feminism
• Radical feminism

External links

• Justice for Women (Official site)
• Column archive at The Guardian
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