Feminist Jugs - Sink the Sex Trade!
Feminist Jugs
I love this picture of the my two new sgraffito ware jugs, photographed together, leading the fleet. Paired up like this seems to inject energy - they could almost be sailing. I'm particularly delighted with the way the handles look. They're in the shop now. Go and have a look!
FiLiA - the Feminist Conference
The one on the right is called, 'Sink the Sex Trade!' It was commissioned by Filia - the feminist conference which takes place annually in Autumn. Every year it's in a different city - the past three have been in port cities: Portsmouth, Cardiff, and Glasgow so the ship motif feels particularly appropriate. The one on the left is, 'On Hartlepool Docks,' and has no slogans but has the same rhyme as 'Sink the Sex Trade.'
Nautical Jugs
Nautical jugs and bowls often featured ships associated with trade, particularly around Bristol and Liverpool which were centres of the slave Trade. The global sex trade, as it is now, is deeply rooted in the slave trade and colonialism - they are close relatives.
About the Rhyme
The words of the first verse come from Jo Costello, who was quoted by Julie Bindel in her most recent book, 'Feminism for Women.' The words for the second verse are from Rachel Moran, an Irish survivor of the sex trade who wrote, 'Paid For,' and campaigns for the abolition of the sex trade and for improved services to support women leaving the sex trade.
I turned them into a jug rhyme that might pass as a sea shanty or ballad. I'd like to show them with other nautical themed jugs and bowls. The Liverpool Museums have some lovely ones.
The rhyme is a follows and features on both jugs:
On Hartlepool Docks
'I’ll swallow the lie
That sex work is work
When it’s made a career choice for the Cheltenham Ladies.
But it working class girls expected to give away
Blow jobs for a fiver on Hartlepool
Docks.
So spare me the sermon
That a woman can do
What she wants with her body - the punters couldn’t care less
They’re paying to do what THEY want with the bodies
Of teenage girls groomed to suck off their
Cocks.
Filia used the image of of Sink the Sex Trade and made it into posters and cards. You can find it in their shop here
Materials etc:
The two jugs are slab-built, earthenware/stonware mix, with white slip, sgraffito design, blue underglaze and clear glaze. The rims and handles are edged in copper lustre.