How can any woman NOT support the No More Page 3 campaign?!

Hullmum i agree with you.

have you read the whole thread attempted to see what the problem is? informing yourself isn't a bad thing

YY Hullmum. There is a scene in comedy series Porridge which was made in the 1970s where Ronnie Barkers character Fletch is looking at Page 3 and he reads out her name and her AGE. 23.
So Hullmum the young women posing for Page 3 have been getting younger like you have mentioned.

I don't want to campaign against it - i couldn't care less! If men want to look at breasts and women want pictures taken of their breasts then that's up to them. I really struggle to see the problem.

why doesnt the fact that significant portion of women feel degraded and abused matter? why do people have to stare at tits all day long and whistle at women?

And while im on the subject does anyone remember More magazine in its heyday (before it became a celebrity rag) I do. I remember a politician accusing their editor of "peddling filth to the masses" I remember John Stapleton devoting a whole show of The Time The Place to discuss the "filth" in More.
Now back in the 90s it was an informative magazine for young women with intelligent articles about low wages and articles about the discrimination against lesbian mothers.
With quite a few articles about sex including safe sex.
But i havent seen whole chat shows dedicated to slagging off FHM the Sun etc.
Because mens sexuality is seen as ok and "a bit of a laugh" while womens sexuality is seen as "filth"

how do you think women manage without having cocks available in print for our enjoyment?

oh I get it now. tasteful. right. breast in a news story ok. breast for "because men are attracted to women" not ok. although thanks for mansplaining what attraction means earlier, none of us would have understood otherwise, having obviously never been attracted to anyone. I'm not going to campaign to make an offensive throwback not look as offensive. Although can you at least admit news in briefs is offensive or have you never noticed amidst the wank fodder.

no names its not just wolf whistles though is it? What about women who get nasty comments shouted at them when they are out and about because they dont meet the "standard" the men have been looking at on Page3 or FHM/Loaded?

It can be quite difficult for a woman to be taken seriously in this world- in any situation - in comparison with a man. Be it work, politics, boardroom. Girls, from a young age, at school are socialised over many years to learn that they are somehow less important than men. That how they look is of utmost importance, that how attractive they are to males is of utmost importance, that having a boyfriend is the be all and end all.

Page 3 perpetuates this - it's not the only thing that does - but it plays a part. What's dangerous is that it is not in the "magazines where you can ogle naked women" niche (FHM etc), it's in the "family newspaper" niche (ie widely available with other newspapers, can be sold to children). Because of page 3, any man, woman or child can buy a "news"paper and be confronted with a full size picture of a pair of naked boobs there for 50p.

This makes men ogling naked boobs "ordinary." It normalises it. It endorses it. It perpetuates the myth that women are just around for the titillation of men. And that's not ok. Not for women, not for our daughters. It's all part of the same thing that leads to the many stories on everydaysexism - ie your teenage daughter being groped on the tube.

Considering the opinion polls posted upthread, and RM's own (apparent) feelings on matter, I'm quite surprised it's still going.

I would object if the girls were forced in to it, its really quite simple don't buy the paper if it offends!!

Are you the women who issue law suits against builders wolf whistles too!

So Hullmum why not just campaign for the Sun to ditch the 'news in brief ' bit if the nudity isn't the problem? From buying the sun over the last couple of weeks the poses were pretty natural and there weren't any teenagers, mostly 25+. Most of them were shot in an exotic beach type location, all very tasteful.
As far as kids are concerned page 3 is nothing compared to the rest of the paper, such as the graphic photos of all the violence that goes on in the world on a daily basis. Then you have got Dear Deidre which can't be fairly explicit too.

Again you are making assumptions to peoples thoughts and reactions.

I do not support page 3 but I don't support banning it either. Life is not that cut and dry. I just don't think banning page 3 will change the way anyone thinks about women in this country. Sexism has gone too far for that. Page 3 gets banned and then...? Everyone (by which I mean MPs and so on, not campaigners) feels like they've done their bit, pats themselves on the back and goes back to their business.

It's treating a symptom and not the cause. I believe the "treatment" (education) needs to be done in schools and/or the work place. I work in a school and had to explain why I thought a topless firemen calandar in the women's staff toilets was inappropriate. The government needs to commit to this reeducation for years and years, not a knee jerk banning of one photo in one paper.

Also, banning page 3 still leaves FHM, Nuts and so on..... Let alone the world of advertising.

Well

To address your points

He is not the only man who has ever sat near me on public transport or when out and about ogling page 3. It is a common occurrence. And why not? It is, after all, a family newspaper. It always makes me feel uncomfortable and I am quite sure I am not alone in that.

If a man was looking at general pictures of clothed people, it would not be obvious what he was thinking about, if he was fantasising. Therefore not so upsetting / offensive.

Lots of images are banned. For instance, I know it is illegal to show an erect penis in a newspaper, or even a mainstream magazine. I suspect a newspaper would not be allowed to show an erect phallus being stroked through pants, on a daily basis. Why is that, I wonder.

Do you think it would be OK for big blokes to sit next to young boys on the tube and look at soft-core gay porn? Just out of interest. What about on the bus next to 4yo boys? OK? If not, why not? If so, why so?

Interested to hear your views

I think it is fair to judge all men who think objectifying a girl as young as 17 is OK

NiceTabard sorry to hear about your uncomfortable incident on public transport, but is it fair to judge all other blokes who enjoy page 3 by the odd behavior of this certain individual? Surely it's not the publication that is at fault but the individual? He could have been looking at the young models in the fashion section of the Guardian and looking you up and down in the same way.
Using that logic we would have to ban virtually everything and that would lead to a 1984 style Orwellian state. This campaign is just the thin end of the wedge.

^For those saying boobs are not news, well i would argue that 95% of the Sun paper is not 'news'. So that is not really much of an argument against it, is it?
and objectification? Seriously what a ridiculous concept? back on planet earth there's this natural thing called sexual attraction. So please stop trying to re-badge it and make it out as something sinister. It's not! ^

This is branded as a family newspaper. You are choosing to ignore the fact that it gives away toys and children's dvds which means it is Ok for men just men to ogle women on a daily basis. That is what we are there for. It can be brought in to schools it can be read by dads in front of daughters.

It is only for men to ogle women.

And should you genuinely be that naive as to see it as not objectifying. let me remind you of the little blurb above the girl's head (and yes we are talking about teenagers so I will say "girl".

The blurb is "news in briefs".

Now maybe Keeley from Colchester really does believe that "Architecture?s place in the metropolitan sprawl is a fascinating topic. I?m a deconstructivist at heart and Frank Gehry?s design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is a triumph. There?s something about curves we all love.?

But that isn't the joke is it? the joke is that here is a pretty naked girl and look wouldn't it be funny if she had an opinion on something?? hee fucking hee. Lets's look at her tits and laugh at her.

Please tell me if we did this with any other maligned group would it still be funny? Why not a black guy of the day? Let's stick a picture of a black man... let's drop him down to every shitty stereotype of a black man and then put a little blurb about the news over his head.. Because ha ha black guy with an opinion! Hilarious...

Really that would be OK in your mind? Really? How about "gay of the day" let's find a gay man and then post a blurb with DIY directions over his head, because get it...gay guys can't build stuff!

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/royals/2841876/Prince-Charles-makes-Page-3-confession.html

No one here is offended by breasts. We all have them. I should be able to whip them out with out whenever without worrying that I will be given dirty looks because they "are for men" I should be able to feed my kids as soon as they start crying but I can't and many many women struggle because they wont leave the house while breast feeding because stupid fucking ignorant people see them as fuck toys.

In response to more recent posts, I think the difficulty with the Sun having this content as a "family newspaper" means that people feel it is acceptable to read / look at it when out and about in the way that they would not so much with a publication of another sort eg nuts/zoo (are they still going? it's been a while) or a porn mag or whatever.

the consequence of this is that you get men ogling tits in the paper while on the tube in the morning, on the bus, a thread on here said in teh playground etc. As it is a newspaper and therefore fine.

i have always felt really uncomfortable sitting on public transport with men who are ogling breasts. Often legs are touching etc and TBH it was when i was about 14 and a man was looking at page 3, sitting next to me leg pressed up, looking at me up and down lingering on chest and back to paper again. And it was horrible but what can you do? As apparently society says it is OK for men to ogle topless women while sitting on the tube next to children. And guess what it does make many women feel they are being reminded of their position in socity.

What would the reaction be if I sat on the tube looking at pics of men stroking big erections through their pants? Or if massive blokes sat next to schoolboys looking at pictures like that? Take it from me the reaction would not be good. So why is it OK the other way round? Well I know the answer as I post in the fem section! But it BOGGLES me that people think this is OK.

For those saying boobs are not news, well i would argue that 95% of the Sun paper is not 'news'. So that is not really much of an argument against it, is it?
and objectification? Seriously what a ridiculous concept? back on planet earth there's this natural thing called sexual attraction. So please stop trying to re-badge it and make it out as something sinister. It's not!

Just because a person finds a photo of a page 3 model attractive does not mean that they think of them as a mere object. Everyone has their own mind, own thoughts, own interpretation of things. What makes you think that you can predetermine what other people should think?

I absolutely loathe page 3 type of stuff. But if other women don't then that's up to them. I don't really subscribe to this view that how on earth can anybody think such and such when it's quite obvious that a lot of people do.

Totally agree OP. I have no idea why any woman would want to defend it. And I don't think the number of women buying the Sun equates to number of women 'approving' of page 3. Some female readers might actively like it (though I really believe very few indeed), some might not care one way or the other and would hence still buy it, some might dislike but not enough to think about it too much, some might actually loathe it but buy the paper for other reasons and therefore grudgingly put up with it. And we have no way of knowing how many of its female readers fall into which category.

A YouGov poll did show that 49% of the population want page 3 gone (19% didn't know), and 24% of its readership wanted it gone (16% undecided). Data not available for Sun readers by sex.

d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6jyst3v95o/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-021012-Page-3-girls.pdf

put it this way, as a society we regulate all kinds of potential harm. I can't sell endangered animals just because I need the money. I can't sell raw meat out of my uncle airconditioned van. What I do has to not cause others harm before I can do it. Page 3 feeds in to the idea that women can be bought in the most casual of ways and be seen as nothing but a pair of tits. This is a part of the rape culture we live in and the culture of breasts being only for men which is why women can't feel comfortable topless at the beach or feeding their baby.

what creeping said. no one is owed a living, especially at the expense of their own sex. Who cares if it gives then a "career", and I disagree that it does.

Since when is there a right to have a platform to get noticed in order to further individual careers? Even if you think that page 3 offers this platform (I doubt it, where are all the hugely successful page 3 girls? I think most of them do some modelling to top up a day job) there certainly isn't a right that a mainstream newspaper has to offer it.

Even if it does benefit some glamour models' careers, in my view these benefits are outweighed by the harmful effects to other women in terms of negative self-body image, the idea that women's purpose is to sexually please men, the idea that women are newsworthy for their boobs rather than what they do, etc etc.

It is institutionalised casual sexism, and even if some women benefit, it needs challenging if we ever want to live in a world free (or free-er) of sexism.

What's the general consensus then on the argument that pg3 gives women who want to be glamour models/ work in the industry the chance to get noticed - so who are others to deny them that right?? I think it's crap but couldn't explain why when I was arguing about pg3 with someone the other day.