Meeting of the Parliament 24 November 2015
I thank the member for bringing that to my attention; I was completely unaware of it, but it sounds absolutely disgraceful and it deserves to be condemned.
We do not know who is viewing or contributing to the websites and, even though they are hosted in the US, we in Scotland must not be complacent about our attitudes to women and girls. We might welcome the fact that three of the five party leaders in the Scottish Parliament are women, along with half the Government front bench and half the Opposition front bench. That is good and I hope that it sends out the message that politics is female as much as it is male. Women and girls here do not suffer the same inequalities in education, opportunity or fertility control as they do in other parts of the world, but everything is not okay here and it is not sorted.
Far too many young men, and possibly young women, learn about sex through internet-based pornography, some of which might be violent and all of which objectifies women. That presents a perception of sexuality that is not based on mutual respect and equality of esteem but on female sexuality as a commodity to be used and exploited. Counteracting that view is possibly more important than it has ever been because of the availability of that type of image. Many men of all ages are completely signed up to the respect agenda, and their voices are very important in counteracting those attitudes.
More could be done in this Parliament as in any other. In November 2013, my colleague Jackie Baillie led a member’s debate specifically on the need to do away with page-3 type portrayals of women by some of our newspapers. There were many excellent contributions from all parties in that debate but, two years on, we have failed to take action in a number of areas relating to violence against women and girls. The point was made during the passage of the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Bill and is being made again during the discussions on the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Bill.
Sex education in schools needs to be updated to reflect the exposure of children and young people to pornography on the internet. It should focus on respect and consent and on addressing the malicious influence of some material that is available through social media. In my view—and this is not Labour Party policy—those aspects of sex education should be mandatory because all young people are at risk of being exposed to those influences.