EFF OFF HEF!

 

This Thursday I attended the Eff Off Hef initial protest at the Press launch of the new Playboy London club. I say initial, because these protesters from both Object and UkFeminista will be demonstrating again on Saturday 4th June, and without a doubt these groups will continue to shout about what they see to be the injustices of the new club. Object and UkFeminista are both feminist groups actively protesting against the objectification as women and porn culture infiltrating society. They have recently held demonstrations against retailers such as WHSmith and Tesco on the issue of porn magazine being placed at toddler level on the stores shelves and as a result Tesco now cover porn magazines in many of their stores. This time they were against the playboy club coming to London, not just because it’s another ‘gentleman’s’ club, but because Playboy as an empire has infiltrated school children’s stationary and bed clothes and because it has seemingly been forgotten that ultimately this is an empire built by a man who keeps a houseful of young women who take it in turn to sleep with him, and dressing up as bunny to serve men really isn’t that cute.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when meeting these young women, I have seen myself as a feminist since I was about nineteen and this was fully confirmed whilst reading Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs about four years ago. Whilst I agree with feminism, the media depicts feminists as so serious, and subsequently feminism has become scored and mocked. These women, (and a couple of men) were serious about their cause, but not serious per se. I was greeted by a group of fun and bubbly people, ranging in age and race, they giggled as they tried on black bunny masks and argued about who should wear the Hugh Hefner costume. These were a group of fun and passionate people, not hippies, not aggressive, and with professions ranging from yoga teachers to roles in publishing. Their leader Anna van Heeswijk was an inspiring, enthusiastic and intelligent young women, she said, ‘the playboy club is presented as classy and sophisticated, but there is nothing classy and sophisticated about objectifying women as animals’.

Playboy clearly didn’t predict a protest on this day, and as the group rounded the corner to the chant of ‘Eff Off Hef, stop degrading women’ over a megaphone the bouncers’ faces were an absolute delight to watch; speechless and gormless, and they remained this way for the duration of the evening as the group stood their ground until around 11pm. Their chants varied, but their energy did not, and passers by were either bemused or encouraging, aside from one man who attacked two of the protesters, pushing them off the pavement for their failure to identify with the fact that the ‘bunnies’ chose to be there and he was not sexist for bringing his wife and daughter to these such clubs. Lucky them. Please see my video footage to identify this guy, as he was apparently ‘too high profile’ to tell me his name.

Two male teachers passing by decided to join in the protest, they told me that they were tired of the impact that brands like playboy have on the young women they teach. One of the teachers described children as young as twelve complaining of the pressure to look sexy and perform sexually. It would be naïve to blame Playboy for this trend, as plenty of publications and media outlets push boundaries further than they do, but promoting the concept of a women wearing a corset and a fluffy tail to serve cocktails and ‘perch’ like a bunny on a roulette table is hardly encouraging young women to be entrepreneurs and doctors.

I know the club will be busy at the opening next Saturday and some will pay little attention to the Eff Off Hef campaign, but if only one man is too embarrassed to return to the club, then they will have had some success. The only good thing to have come out of Playboy’s launch in London is the number or features that have highlighted the dirty truths behind the enterprise:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/may/31/playboy-hugh-hefner-sexism

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/864905-playboy-club-returns-to-london-but-will-it-be-a-nostalgic-flash-in-the-pan

‘Stop serving sex as shit’ the group chanted, with their ‘Hugh Hefner’ shaking a silver tray full of rabbit poo at the club staff. Bring on round two.