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So Willow, tell me, what was the driving force
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What was the tipping point that made you all try to do something about this? So our campaign previously, so our book club previously campaigned to get better access to period products in school
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After we succeeded with this campaign, we heard about another school's campaign to ban school uniforms in sex shops and were appalled that this was even allowed
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Then we then discussed the possibility of campaigning to ban school uniform in pornography
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and then when did it become something that the four of you and perhaps others who aren't talking
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today actually decided to to really drive forward with this this the campaign that you're that you're
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running maybe rose can try and answer that well i think it was after we did some deep dive research
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into school uniforms in pornography and how it's affected people in the daily lives and how it
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continues to affect us in our daily lives and our past experiences. So we decided to go to the
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parliament and it was a Tools for Change event and we promoted the idea there and from then on we've
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been having interviews and so on so forth to promote the campaign and to really spread the
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idea of school uniform and pornography and how damaging it is on the children in society
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and and may it's not going to be easy is it to and possibly not even going to be possible given
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the huge scale of pornography in this world particularly online um it's not going to be easy
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to get any ban on people using school uniform type costume or imagery but is is your ambition as much
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as anything to change attitudes to it to wake people up to how common this is and how it trickles
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down to the lives of girls like you when you're going to school? Well, yeah, obviously baseline, we just want to stop the normalisation
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So then we feel safer in public. But we do know that we can ban it in pornography if we hop onto a piece of legislation Yeah but we do know that we can stop people from dressing up as school uniform
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So the way that we see it is that we need to change the advertising of school uniform
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so it's not the sexy schoolgirl or sexy Catholic schoolgirl. It's just uniform
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And I think if we do that, then it will really hone in that it's just a uniform and it shouldn't be sexualized because we are just children
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No child should have to feel like something that unites them is something that they can be objectified in
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Through regulation platforms, if we latch on to the Crime and Policing Act by adding a second bit of legislation
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we can get it to be not shown on those platforms themselves whereas you're saying about how we can't
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stop people buying the uniforms whereas we can change the marketing and hopefully we can stop
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it from being shown within that content itself so that people can't perceive it and and would you
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want um online companies to be more alive to this as well what's on their sites their platforms
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I think 100%. I think it's important that everybody works together to regulate this because
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it's just so much deeper than just a uniform. I think school uniform, it's in the name. As a child
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school is such an important thing in my life. And I would argue a school uniform simulates what it
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is to be a child. And I think that we're trying to get the message across that it's not just a
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uniform it's symbolic of what it is to be a child and I think that currently as you've mentioned it's
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so normalized that that is now inherently sexual well that's what what the school uniform is it's
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inherently a child and it's certainly not respectful of girls like you is it and and
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Rose I wonder whether you can tell us from conversations you've had either with your
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peers that I speaking with you today or just other kids at school or friends how this whole element of school uniform being sexualised in the way that you described
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does it make you guys feel a bit less comfortable in yourself as you go about your business
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to and from school? Does it make you feel a bit less safe maybe
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It has personally has made me feel less safe in my school uniform. As I have been quoted in many
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interviews now, I no longer wear a skirt in my school uniform because there is so much potential
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as to what people will perceive in me wearing that. For example, when I used to walk up the
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stairs and they would have to hold my skirt down from behind because there was the chance that
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people may look up it. Or when I would have to worry about the color bra that I was wearing
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under my shirt in case it would see through and then people would have an idea from it. When
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really you're not supposed to have any idea i'm just wearing my uniform and i'm just going about
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my day and i'm being bothered by a person with a warped view may also has lots of experiences on
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that so i will also hand this over to her go on me i mean from the age of 12 i kind of knew this
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was a thing because not of people looking at me in a certain way but from actual media that 12
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year olds are allowed to watch um big bang theory for example in one of the episodes um a woman puts
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on a catholic schoolgirl outfit to turn on one of the males and i look at that and i think tomorrow
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i'm gonna go outside in a uniform that looks exactly like that and think that's what's gonna
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get me like get you noticed and and and in the wrong way get you noticed and that you mentioned
5:56
big bang theory for people who aren't familiar with it that was a huge huge series almost as
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big as friends say wasn it for your generation probably really big series um and what about your mums and dads are they are they happy i sure they happy for you to do this or you wouldn be doing it um but they supporting you in this are they they
6:15
understand how you feel about it yes i remember going home after the first day of hearing this
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campaign i remember it so vividly talking to my mum and even she was abroad she was so confused
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as to why this was even allowed in the first place i think that really reflects how normalized it is
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in society and that's why we need to make a change and that's why we need people to sign our petition
6:37
and you're all really articulate girls and you're i know your teachers are supportive of this and
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everything and i remember being your age i remember being a school girl obviously and for me it was
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mostly you know there's all kinds of things out there in the world aren't there but for me almost
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almost entirely it was an incredibly free experience to be a school girl you know it's a freeing
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interesting enjoyable exciting thing to be a school girl and and that's what you want isn't
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it that's what you want from your schooling isn't it willow and from these years you want to be free
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of all the complexities of adult life yeah i think that maybe may can answer this question about how
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it's not really in school it's more out of school experience yeah back and forth to school yeah go
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on go on me i mean in school i feel really comfortable i it's because we're all wearing
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the same thing. I feel safe and I feel unified. Outside of school, I don't even wear it anymore
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I go home, I take it off and I don't wear it at all. Because in those five minutes of walking
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home, I'm thinking, are people looking at me in a way? Have they seen something that's going to
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make them look at me in a certain way? And I think it's just outside of school that I feel the least
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safe. I think it's about a kind of mental security, isn't it? A psychological security
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so that you're just free to be and enjoy life. And that's what you should have, definitely
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So listen, I wish you the very, very best with the campaign. So do keep in touch with us about it, won't you
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Yes, definitely. Now go and do your homework. Thank you for joining us
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Take care, girls. Thank you so much
