I’ve heard about this! It sounds really good. A friend texted me about it from Clapham the other day :)

I (or anyone else reading!) really should nip down with a camera and send the pics in to the Found Feminism feature we started up on here recently…

How about this for an alternative scenario. Somewhere in the bowels of the council, a bunch of dudes around a table were brainstorming ways to get more money out of taxi drivers, since the unlicensed ones don’t have to pay baksheesh. “I know”, one of them says, “lets convince the ladies that if the car they pick hasn’t paid for a stamped piece of paper, that they have not thereby Taken Precautions”.

And thus, victim blaming posters. And the money rolled in.

It’s a fantastic photo, thanks for taking it! Glad you don’t mind me using it – I remember seeing those stickers and wishing I’d photographed them myself for our “Found Feminism” feature. When I get in (I’m at work, and Flickr’s blocked from here!) I’ll stick a link in the pic caption so people can actually click through to Flickr and read the discussion thread…

It took me a while to really realise how blamey the ad campaign was myself. My initial reaction when it came out – it’s been out a few years now – was “Ugh, that’s a bit gritty” but at the same time, I’m a former Crown Court stenographer and I have covered unlicensed minicab assault cases. On the other hand, those very trials were absolutely relentless for victim blaming cross-examination techniques – all the stuff you read about on feminist blogs, like clothes being exhibited with questions like “You were wearing this halterneck! You were up for it!” – I’ve seen. When friends of mine began to comment on how triggering they found the posters, that’s when I really realised the extent to which the campaign really is a bit of an own goal – in seeking to warn women, I think it alienates them. The new campaign, without the visual of the screaming woman, and the rather ‘you’ve only yourself to blame!’ “please stop” slogan, is a lot better, I think.

By “love” I mean “loathe with a fiery passion”. See, I was serious for a whole post AND I INVENTED THE WORD ANNIHILATIVE.

I actually ended up having a protracted argument with a dear friend of mine in the photo’s comments section, about why exactly I hated those ads so much. It put the victim in the criminal’s place, I thought, which is definitely in victim-blaming territory. He didn’t agree and thought that all ads which could possibly make women safer are justified, even if they use questionable tactics to achieve their aim. It was all very interesting.

The snow is a matriarchal conspiracy, yes. All minicab firms know this, and strive to defeat me. However, if they strike me down I shall become more powerful than they could possibly &c &c. ;)