The Consenting Adults Action Network (CAAN) have just published a book (booklet?) by Jane Fae Ozimek (one of the last projects written as John Ozimek) - Beyond the Circle. I got my copy of it the other week and have read it over the past couple of days (the joy of a nicely timed work commute). I promptly lent it to someone else so this review is from memory and I look forward to reading it again in more detail.
The book, to me, presents two themes:
- That our current approach to discrimination is counter-productive and needs replacing
- That approach to discrimination has led to a mass loss of privacy and expectation of any form of private life in both societal and statutory spheres
The first of these is the most interesting from my perspective. I have long believed we need to move away from the artificial divisions present in the "LGBT community" and look more at what unites us - non-hetronormative sex. This idea should therefore be as wide as possible and should seek to include rather than exclude. This book advocates going one step further - discrimination shouldn't require a person to define or be defined into any particular category before receiving protection from discrimination and harassment. The 'protected categories' from the Equality Bill should be seen as examples rather than a definitive list. The book highlights a number of clear examples of discrimination which, because they don't fall into one of the categories, are legally and socially sanctioned. The new model proposed - where the emphasis changes from the 'victim's' identification to the perpetrator also means skewering Harman and Labour's current love affair with quotas and other 'positive discrimination' measures which are insulting, patronising and ultimately failing to deal with the problem.
The examples bring us to the second of these points. Many of the laws being discussed I had previously seen as damaging to the private life. The transition from banning activities, to images of activities is a worrying trend. The examples highlighted did show new sides to the damage. Nor does Ozimek limit herself to parliamentary legislation - The Equalities and Human Rights Commission comes in for attack as do professional standards bodies such as the General Teaching Council for England who's intrusive new Code of Practice seems to suggest that teachers should be more goodie two-shoes than Dungeons and Dragons' Paladins (which I know has caused at least one FE Teacher I know of to leave GTCe (not as far as I know for reasons like the examples in the book) in favour of a more reasonable standards body - many other teachers in mixed (non-FE only) settings do not have this option).
These examples also feed into another pet area of mine which didn't feel so explicit in the book - the re-drawing of public and private lives. Our current model provides public and private but the extension of the internet and social networking is changing that. Unfortunately statutory bodies and legislation relies on the old model which is being moved away from and that seems to suggest that anything that is in any way public on the internet (particularly social networking sites) is fair game for public/professional interest - for example (off the top of my head), a case of facebook photos of a teacher at a kink festival leading to the teacher being sacked raises not just questions of discrimination, but also just what role privacy and publicity play in our new world which has a new public-privacy which needs exploring fully - it may be we need to add a new axis to the privacy model - professional and personal and the state and media needs to start recognising and respecting that.
I think this is a wonderful book and should be read by anyone interested in equality, privacy, civil liberties or liberation. You can buy it here for the measly sum of £6.50.
Alex
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