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the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843

CONTENTS 169 NO 2 3 Children robbed of their childhood 4 The Armed Forces Bill and human rights 5 A tale of two worlds Howard Wright 6-7 Prison stories Jamie Wrench 8-9 Letters 10-11 Roses at The Retreat Bronwen Gray 12 Rowntree birthplace in York – rediscovered Bridget Morris 13 Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Harvey Gillman 14-15 Darlington’s doors open wide again Michael Wright 16 Q-eye 17 Friends & Meetings

Corrections and apologies: • Ernest Hall of Clacton-on-Sea Meeting was the author of

‘Christmas: myths and truths’ (24 & 31 December 2010) not John Hall. We apologise to them both. • In ‘Quakers and the New Year’s Honours List (7 January), Sheila

Hancock is from Hammersmith Meeting not Hampstead. • In ‘A Quaker view from inside the “Kettle”’ (7 January),

Diktynna Warren is a secondary school teacher, not a college lecturer.

Cover image: Stairwell of Rowntree birthplace on The Pavement in York. Photo courtesy The Rowntree Society. See page 12.

Images on this page: Top: One of the regulars at the 3D centre at Darlington Meeting House. Below: Sheila Dunstone accepts her coffee. Photos: Michael Wright. See pages 14-15.

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Editorial

Editor: Ian Kirk-Smith Articles, images, correspondence should be emailed to editorial@thefriend.org or sent to the address below.

the Friend 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ Tel: 020 7663 1010 Fax: 020 7663 1182 www.thefriend.org Editor: Ian Kirk-Smith editorial@thefriend.org • Sub-editor: Trish Carn trishc@thefriend.org • News reporter: Symon Hill news@thefriend. org • Arts editor: Rowena Loverance arts@thefriend.org • Environment editor: Laurie Michaelis green@thefriend.org • Subscriptions officer: Penny Dunn subs@thefriend.org Tel: 020 7663 1178 • Advertisement manager: George Penaluna, Ad department, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL Tel: 01535 630230 ads@thefriend.org • Clerk of the trustees: A David Olver • ISSN: 0016-1268 The Friend Publications Limited is a registered charity, number 211649 • Printed by Headley Bros Ltd, Queens Road, Ashford, Kent TN24 8HH

the Friend, 14 January 2011 News

Children robbed of their childhood

Mothers’ Union campaigns against commercialisation of childhood

Retailers are robbing young people of their childhood by making them feel valued for what they own and not for what they are. That’s the claim of the Mothers’ Union (MU), whose campaign against the commercialisation of childhood is putting pressure on business to change advertising practices.

The MU’s campaign, ‘Bye Buy Childhood’, aims to challenge children, parents, guardians and families to think about consumer habits. But the MU also want to engage with ‘the commercial world’ and ‘challenge instances of inappropriate marketing or selling’.

The MU says that ‘childhood has become a marketing opportunity’ worth £99m annually in the UK.

‘Are children allowed to be children?’ asked Fleur Dorrell, head of faith and policy for the MU. She told the Friend that, while both children and adults are targeted by advertisers, ‘children are more vulnerable’.

As an example, the MU’s report points to ‘advergames’ on the internet, which ‘draw children to a product or brand through interactive entertainment, taking advantage of the fact that younger children in particular are less able to distinguish between what is advertising and what is core content’.

The ‘Bye Buy Childhood’ report accuses retailers and advertisers of encouraging children to pressurise their parents into spending money. The MU suggests that the culture of consumerism can make people feel like ‘bad parents’ if they do not spend lots of money on their children.

A number of campaigners have welcomed the MU’s stance, but some have warned that the problem of consumerism should be placed in the context of wider issues of economic injustice.

‘The commercialisation of childhood reflects a society with a growing gap between rich and poor, where we are all valued by what we own and driven to consume more and more,’ said Liam Purcell of Church Action on Poverty.

He told the Friend, ‘We need to challenge the structures that keep us all trapped in this way, and build a society where everyone is valued equally.’

The use of sexual imagery in advertising is one focus of the MU’s campaign. Fleur Dorrell told the Friend that ‘sexualisation is something we’re very concerned about’. The MU refer to cases of ‘goods aimed inappropriately at children, such as pole-dancing kits, Playboy-branded goods and padded bikini tops’.

A Home Office review last year reported ‘a dramatic increase in the use of sexualised imagery in advertising’ as well as ‘a significant increase in the number of sexualised images of children’. A campaign called ‘Let Girls be Girls’ was launched by Mumsnet, a networking website for parents. They say that a growing number of toys, clothes and accessories ‘encourage children to enter the world of adult sexuality’ too early.

The MU say that ‘concern about the effect of this on children unites a broad spectrum of people, from conservatives to feminists’. But criticisms of ‘sexualisation’ have sparked a negative reaction from the feminist writer Laurie Penny. ‘“Sexualisation” is a troubling piece of cultural shorthand,’ insisted Penny in response to the Mumsnet campaign. ‘It suggests that sexuality is something that is done to young women, rather than something that they can own and control.’

She argues that the problem is not young people’s sexuality in itself, but the way that it is commercialised in ‘a world where our sexual impulses are stolen and sold back to us’.

Quaker children’s author Sally Nicholls told the Friend, ‘Children should be allowed to develop sexually at their own pace, and should neither be made to feel ashamed of their sexual feelings, nor forced to think of themselves as sexual beings before they feel able’.

Symon Hill the Friend, 14 January 2011

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