[5][6][7] A former visiting researcher at the University of Lincoln (2014–2017), and former assistant director of the Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations at Leeds Metropolitan University, much of Bindel's work concerns male violence against women and children, particularly with regard to prostitution, stalking, religious fundamentalism, and human trafficking.

[9][10][11] Bindel and her two brothers (one older, one younger) grew up on a council estate in Darlington, north east England, after moving there from a terraced house that had coal fires and no indoor toilet.

[16][18] Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was still at large; mainly in the Leeds and Bradford area from 1975 to 1980,[19] he is known to have murdered 13 women, some working as prostitutes, and attacked seven more, leaving them for dead.

She ran into a pub to escape from him and reported what had happened to the police, who either asked her to complete a photofit or dismissed her account because her pursuer had a Yorkshire accent.

[24][21] One officer, because her accent resembled the north-eastern man, later found to be a hoaxer, made light of Bindel's evidence by claiming she "was just trying to cover up for my dad".

[22] The following day or following week[24] the body of Sutcliffe's final victim, a 20-year-old student, Jacqueline Hill, was found less than 1⁄2 mile (800 metres) from where the man had followed Bindel.

[20]During late 2006 when the perpetrator of the Ipswich serial murders was still active, Bindel again found the police were advising women to "stay off the streets.

[6] JFW was launched in solidarity with Southall Black Sisters, who were campaigning for the release of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, convicted in 1989 of murdering her husband.

Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, was of a similar mind on this issue, and legislation was proposed that would change the law to this effect.

[39][40] While working at Leeds Metropolitan University in the 1990s, she coordinated the Kerb Crawlers Re-education Programme, a John school in the city.

[41] Her position is that it is "inherently abusive, and a cause and a consequence of women's inequality ... a one-sided exploitative exchange rooted in male power".

While working for the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University, she co-authored a report in 2003 on prostitution in Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

[44] They wrote that 85 percent of the brothels were in residential areas—nearly two-thirds in apartments and one-fifth in houses: "Wherever you are in the city, the likelihood is that buying and selling women is going on under your nose.

[45] Bindel wrote about the findings in her Guardian column: When Frank rang a brothel in Enfield, he could hear a baby crying in the background.

[47] The POPPY Project responded that the report was one they had produced independently, that they were not an academic institution, and that it was important to provide a counterbalance to the positive focus on the sex industry found in the media.

[48] Bindel writes for The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph magazine, the New Statesman, Truthdig and Standpoint, and is often interviewed by the BBC and Sky News.

[39] In 2001, she was given an occasional column in The Guardian, with more frequent contributions from 2003, after she wrote a longer piece about female sex tourism in Jamaica.

[52] She has also covered gender-neutral toilets,[53] "Why I hate vegetarians",[54] Barbie and Ken—"a 1950s pre-feminist monstrosity, resplendent in her passivity" and "a drippy, pathetic man who appeared to have no penis"[55]—and Arsenal football club—"I went to bed with a smile on my face.

She argues that the investigative and legal process treats women more as offenders than victims, and that people think it is more important to safeguard the rights of men who might be accused maliciously.

[62][63] She wrote in 2006 that she would not report rape herself: "We may as well forget about the criminal justice system and train groups of vigilantes to exact revenge and, hopefully, deter attacks.

While men were out drinking, embarking on fishing trips and generally enjoying their freedom, women were stuck cooking for them, cleaning for them, and running around after children.

"[16] Bindel does not support the idea of marriage, which she calls a "patriarchal and outdated tradition" stemming from a time that women were viewed as the property of their fathers, then of their husbands.

She cited, as successful feminist campaigns, Justice for Women's work to change the law so that "nagging" was no longer a defence for husbands who killed their wives, and the efforts devoted to outlawing marital rape.

'"[84][85] A 2004 column by Bindel titled "Gender Benders, beware" printed in The Guardian caused the paper to receive more than two hundred letters of complaint from transgender people, doctors, therapists, academics and others.

[87] Complaints focused on the title, "Gender benders, beware", the cartoon accompanying the piece,[88] and the disparaging tone, such as "Think about a world inhabited just by transgender people.

[85] Because of her views, she has been no-platformed by several student unions, including that of the University of Manchester in 2015, where she had been invited to discuss: "From liberation to censorship: does modern feminism have a problem with free speech?".

[93][94] In July 2020, Bindel sued PinkNews and its editor Benjamin Cohen for libel in relation to an article concerning gender-critical feminism that she argued defamed her.

[98] A long-active lesbian feminist, she expressed discomfort with the inclusion of sexuality- and gender-variant communities into the expanding LGBT "rainbow alliance": "The mantra now at 'gay' meetings is a tongue-twisting LGBTQQI.

"While it was known that the event was going to be from a feminist perspective, no information around the speaker's views on transgender rights was brought to the Library Service's attention.

We did not want the use of one of our library buildings for this event, taking place during Pride month, to be seen as implicit support for views held by the speaker which fly in the face of our position on transgender rights.