Please respond to the UK surrogacy consultation - 5 minute response here! The UK government is holding a consultation on surrogacy, one of our 5 key issues. The consultation is biased and does not call into question the ethics of surrogacy. The proposed aim of the law ‘reform’ is simply to make it easier for ‘intended parents’ to attain children, at great cost to the rights of mother and child. Please respond to voice your OBJECTion to surrogacy. Here are OBJECT’s suggested answers to key questions that you may copy and paste.

Michelle Kelly recently spoke out about her experience of being exploited for 7 years in prostitution and pornography. As expected, she received vicious backlash from sex trade lobbyists. They bullied, threatened, 'doxxed' and intimidated – terror tactics designed to silence her and deter other survivors from coming forward. This gaslighting and victim-blaming is re-traumatising - and it is deliberate. When women speak out about men's violence and abuse, we are told to shut up, to distrust ourselves, to always give our abusers the benefit of the doubt lest we say something 'unkind' about men. But as Michelle points out, the women and children still in the sex industry have no voice. Only those who have escaped are in a position to speak out. We must continue to OBJECT to men's violence even (or especially) when we are told to shut up.

We are excited to announce the launch of the OBJECT essay competition 2020! This competition is open to young women aged 17 - 30. We hope to inspire and encourage young women to develop an interest in feminist theory and activism. Our topic this year is surrogacy - the essay title is “How do ‘altruistic’ and commercial surrogacy affect the rights of women and children?” We are looking for well researched, evidenced-based essays with a feminist perspective (<6000 words plus references). The winner will receive £400 (runner-up £200) and the opportunity to do an internship with OBJECT. Good luck!

Do the cows in the field know they are shut in? As they shuffle painfully into the milking parlour, do they know there is another way to live their lives? No. Cows are farmed but do not know it. What about us women? Surely it is different, we are human, we have choices. But do we? Are we, surreptitiously and without realising it, subject to the same techniques as the cows, the sheep, the goats? While of course being ‘fed’ the line that we are human and equal to men? History, archaeology, language, sexual politics and the arts all tell the same story: Women are farmed!

Last summer, Janice Williams took part in the ‘Get The L Out’ protest at London Pride 2018, OBJECTing to the destructive impact ‘LGBT community’ has on lesbians (e.g. pressure on lesbians to have sex with men). After the event, malicious ‘transactivists’ scoured the internet in a ‘witch-hunt’ for information on the brave women who dared to speak out in defense of lesbians. Someone discovered that Janice worked as a funeral celebrant at Humanists UK. Her employers received a complaint about her involvement in the protest, accusing her of ‘transphobia’. Humanists UK launched an investigation despite lack of evidence, ignoring company policy and breaching their own complaints procedure. Read Janice’s full account of the ‘witch-hunt’ here.

OBJECT has been campaigning against the London Porn Film Festival, alongside #NotBuyingIt and London Anti-Porn Women. The films due to be screened were advertised as containing extreme violence, including necrophilia. We reported this to Camden Council, prompting an investigation and forcing the pornographers to switch venues last minute. On Saturday 27th April, we protested outside the grotty pub where the event took place. The organisers generously gave us a faux 'invoice', informing us how much money they'd lost due to our efforts! Pornography comes at the cost of women's lives, dignity and hopes of liberation. Helping to fight and OBJECT to porn is priceless.

On 26th April 2019, it was 'Lesbian Visibility Day'. This was invented by 'LGBT' activists in 2008, so it can be assumed that the type of 'lesbian' to be celebrated is the penis-bearing variety. The campaign to bring visibility to these new male 'lesbians' has arguably been a great success! 'LGBT' organisation Stonewall UK held a conference to mark the occasion. OBJECT and others gathered outside to protest against Stonewall's erasure of lesbians and their promotion of 'transgenderism'. One intrepid OBJECT representative entered the conference to remind Stonewall that lesbians don't have penises! Read her report here.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently reduced the maximum testosterone level that men must fall short of in order to participate in women's sports. Male athlete Joanna Harper claimed credit for this in The Guardian, feigning an interest in “equitable rights for all” and stating that the original limit was set too high. This article by Helen Saxby reveals that Harper was in fact responsible for the previous high testosterone limit. So who really influenced the International Olympic Committee? The pivotal moment occurred at Harper’s open lecture in Brighton, attended by Helen Saxby, Stephanie Davies-Arai (TransgenderTrend), Ali Ceesay and Sheila Jeffreys (OBJECT board member).

A ‘London Porn Film Festival’ is due to take place from April 26th-28th at The Horse Hospital, an independent arts venue in London. This 'festival' involves the screening of violent pornography. There is a panel event encouraging pornography use in schools. Another event is called “Sex Work is Work.” This is advertised using the hashtag “necrophilia”. Can a dead woman consent? According to The Horse Hospital, “sex work is work” even if the woman being raped is dead. We OBJECT. View our letter to Camden Council, write your own and join us in protest. Let's stop this celebration of men's violence against women.