Mary Whitehouse programme

She certainly was a formidable woman! And what she achieved (i.e. rattling their cages to the extreme) was quite amazing. The amount of paperwork was astonishing. You have to admire her devotion to the cause.

However, she was far too extreme in her views and tried to make the rest of society conform to them. I always thought she was picking on some very minor issues as if they were major issues. But as the permissive society grew and flourished her cause was doomed I suppose.

Watched that programme and it confirmed everything I remembered about this horrible woman. She was a total reactionary about everything. Spent more of her time hating so much and so many (a truly christian attitude). She was dangerously sactimonious, and felt that she and she alone could be the arbiter of good taste and also be the censor. She would have been extremely happy in Hitlers Germany!!!

Yes I agree and I think there was lots of other problematic stuff in terms of her views, but I remember being highly irritated with her critique of Dennis Potters work at the tine, but looking at some of that work now I have very conflicted feelings about it.

Galaxy would not disagree about the harm that is done by pornography..especially since it has been accessible on line... but still feel MWs style was off putting for many..including me!

That may be true but I think pornography has created more problems than Mary Whitehouse ever did. Pre covid there was going to be a review of its impact on young people, if that ever happened I for one have never seen any information about it.

It was later on in the program easybee. Some neighbours complained because of the way the postman was delivering the letters to her first, something like that.

Postman?

Whilst I would not condone exploitation, violence, etc within the sex industry( or elsewhere!) Mary Whitehouse's style of indignant Mrs Middle England probably created more defenders of pornography than she ever intended!

I hope they weren't the neighbours who complained about the postman easybee

Ladyleftfieldlover

There was a ‘sex’ shop near my office in Oxford. You wouldn’t have known as there were no window displays! I thought Mrs Whitehouse was an appalling woman especially as she didn’t actually attend a lot of the stuff she complained about.

We often pass one that just says ‘Private Shop’ - nothing in the window.

As an aside, when on holiday in Portugal many years ago with very little dds, we became friendly with a family with one little dd of about dd1’s age.

The bloke drove a Rolls, and eventually dh got around to asking what he did.
‘I’ve got 20 sex shops in Soho.’
He was perfectly open about it.

I haven't watched it, but may catch up with it. In retrospect I'm not sure what I think of her. At the time she appeared quite indiscriminate in her campaigning almost everything seemed to be encompassed into her interminable utterances of "absolute filth, ban it!" so much so she became a figure of fun and I felt she lacked an objectivity even though at times she certainly had a point. In the cold light of day having moved on sometimes I wish we could turn the clock back to those milder times so far down the road are we in the availability and ease of access porn today, shocking! and from everything we read extremely damaging, how many perpetrators of sex crimes against women are found with umpteen and often horrendous pornographic images on their computers/phones? How many young people are damaged viewing it.

I watched part of the programme but found it, and her, rather tiresome,
Much of what she said and did was the result of a sincere conviction, but she was clearly revelling in all the attention and far too fond of telling everyone what to do, which was exactly the view of my late in-laws who at one time knew her as neighbours.

I watched the program last night and it was very good. Looking forward to the second part next week.

She was, I as I had thought, a controlling sanctimonious old reactionary who wasn't quite the everywoman housewife that she liked people to think she was.

New respect for Giles Brandreth though!

I will try to watch this programme on Catch-up. I detested everything that this woman stood for and said back in the day. Do not think I am likely to change my mind about her now.

She also tried to prevent teenage girls getting contraceptive advice from their GP's without the knowledge of their parents, etc. Was against abortion. Horrible woman IMO

there are sex shops here still but the internet is very slow

NB the porn thing was absolutely nothing to do with my family

Iam64

I was part of a group of women who demonstrated against, then outside the Adult shop that opened in our town in 1979. It seems s less terrifying now, men had to make an effort to find porn. Now it’s on their smart phones. It’s also routinely more violent towards women. Normalising choking, hitting, beating as just a bit of rough sex

I remember the SU picketing a local newsagent that had a 'top shelf'. TBH, I think it was singled out because it was conveniently close to the university, rather than because it was a particularly heinous example.

I was, and remain against 'page 3', but my memories of MW are that she muddied the waters by wanting to ban poetry and literature as well as exploitative photos.

There was a ‘sex’ shop near my office in Oxford. You wouldn’t have known as there were no window displays! I thought Mrs Whitehouse was an appalling woman especially as she didn’t actually attend a lot of the stuff she complained about.

Yes, I would have picketed but not ‘named and shamed’

I wrote a letter to Mary Whitehouse when I was 11; I really admired her. She was very brave.

I was ‘accidentally’ exposed to porn when I was a little girl, and it really affected me.

My username elsewhere is MaryWinehouse

I was part of a group of women who demonstrated against, then outside the Adult shop that opened in our town in 1979. It seems s less terrifying now, men had to make an effort to find porn. Now it’s on their smart phones. It’s also routinely more violent towards women. Normalising choking, hitting, beating as just a bit of rough sex

They could have demonstrated outside with their placards but threatening to shame members of the public who are not doing anything wrong, is just not on, IMO.

Volver - I think that, as much as they were opposed to the type of shop generally, it was more the fact that it was near a primary school and most of the children attending the school would have to pass the shop. I do know they objected at the planning application stage to no avail.

I think that judging her by today's standards is pointless.

Yes, porn is a negative force, and yes, a lot of what is available online is probably dangerous. But what she stood for was an attempt to inflict one very narrow religious view of right and wrong onto everyone, whether they believed it or not. It was a very arrogant perspective, and I really don't see her as perceptive. There was no internet then, and TV and film were regulated quite closely. I would have had more respect for her if she had campaigned against sexism and racism in comedy as well as nudity or references to sex. She was very selective in her disapproval.

I will watch the programme, though, and be open to having my mind changed. I was very young when she was campaigning, so my perspective may have been coloured by immaturity.

I would dance a very happy dance if we could go back to adult shops rather than the abusive porn that is floating around now. I would by crying no tears if that type of business was shut down.

So a group of ladies were threatening to publicly shame a group of people, probably men, and possibly expose them and their families and children to ridicule, and they may have caused a perfectly legal business to shut down. All because they didn't approve of what they were doing.

That's not very admirable, in my opinion.