to be fed up that we still have Page 3 in 2011?

[JessinAvalon]

If you are too, please vote for 38 Degrees to take it on as a campaign.

38degrees.uservoice.com/forums/78585-campaign-suggestions/suggestions/1492713-banning-page-3-as-it-symbolises-the-sexism-misogy?ref=comments

"But what is wrong with valuing a (not all) woman because of her sexuality? Woman can be valued because of their intelligence, or their sense of humour,and lots of other things, surely their sexuality is just another part of that, another part of them?

If I see a woman being revered because she is brainy/funny etc I don't feel intimidated so I don't think we should feel intimidated by sexy woman."

DrNortherner IMO the danger is that some parts of society only value women because of their sexuality, and that things like Page 3 contribute to this. In particular I'm thinking of teenagers- my experience at secondary school (as a very unsexy teenager!) was that I was bullied because I wasn't willing or able to conform to how girls should look- I didn't wear make up etc. I know full well that this could and would happen without page 3, but I think Page 3 and the countless images we see in the media do normalise this view. Whatever else women are or choose to be, they must be sexy, or else seen as weird and practically worthless.

Just to clarify, I was laughing at the words sued to describe "vigorous cunnilingus actions" not at the action of someone doing it to a child/teenager. I know exactly the actions she meant, just never seen it written in words...

What I am trying to say is that we often blame these images for the way some men behave. When in actual fact, I believe these kind of men will behave badly regardless, whatever images are out there.

Nowadays semi nudity is main stream, and whether that is right, wrong or indifferent, pictures of David Beckham topless in his Y fronts with his package bulging is surely just as 'objectifying'?

And do we really think decent men will base their assumptions of women on some girl with her baps out in a paper and not their intelligent Mum, or their feisty classmate/colleague or their kick arse sister?

A teenager of course doesn't have a load of porn hidden under his bed , he only reads the Sun

So its OK to have women bearing their tits in a porn mag then aslong as it is hidden out of view . All very clear - girls can still show their tits but not in a newspaper.

Men must be cleverer than women after all... Not only have women/girls been socially conditioned to think that it is just fine to be an object of male lust, but actually, doing so is 'standing up for my rights as a woman'.

No. Some how reducing our importance to the sizes of our breasts is emancipation. Really. Sometimes the rot is really well hidden. Sometimes it is far more obvious. It doesn't change the fact that it is rot.

Never does anyone any harm...

Except raise another generation of girls who think they are exercising their "rights" by showing off their mammories. Go girl power!

(and despite having mammories so small men would need a magnifying glass to see, I am not jealous... I don't need men to fancy me to feel self assured.

AND I wouldn't necessarily object to a society that saw men and woman topless as an equality thing.... but while it is made 'special' THAT is never going to happen

I'm confused now.

Page 3 is not, as it is a newspaper and some woman feel intimidated sitting on the bus with a guy reading The Sun. Right?

Page 3 objectifies woman and perpetuates the myth that we must be sexy to be valued?

But porn, in porn mags is OK?!

How the hell does that work then?

Page 3 is not OK that should read.......

Page 3 tits out in a 'newspaper' if you want to call it a newspaper is a small drop in the ocean compared to all the porn media out there .

The argumnent on here has been men seeing women as sexual objects - so porn in mags and DVDS which cannt be policed as easy is OK but not the Sun which is out in the open.

Men who are so sexually depraved couldn't care two hoots about page 3 . If you dont have it there they find it elsewhere.

I would rather my boys when teeangers look at page 3 , which is rather tame ,then get hold of some porn magazine - but no doubt they will

hello - just to say dear original poster - good on you - have signed the petition - don't be out off by the nasty,small minded thick,misogynist comments you will get on this sight if you raise a feminist issue.
I have raised stuff several times in vain and been totally bullied.

well done - i totally agree with you.
Emaline Pankhurst would be spinning in her bloody grave if she was around now.

Diddl I acknowledge that not all men are like that but I do think our society is like that.

And yes there is a difference in something being freely available in a newspaper - we presumably wouldn't want The Sun to give away knives, or alcohol, or cigarettes because we wouldn't want our children to have casual access to those things. I think pornography, even very 'soft' pornography, should be equally carefully treated.

I fucking hate page three.

As a 12 year old with D cup tits, I spent the vast majority of age 12/13/14 being leered at by men ten years older than me when I was still, in essence, a little girl.

And the phrase I heard most

"Wurrrrrr, fucking 'ell, tits like page three!"

At foureen I learned to shout back "I'm eleven, you fucking paedo, I'm telling my dad!" (lie - I wasn't eleven and there was no WAY I'd have told my dad)

They always disappeared.

Thanks ShazzG - and I agree. I don't think the suffragettes chained themselves to railings and went on hunger strikes, nor do women march at the Million Women Rise march so that Kelly, 22, Essex can get her tits out on Page 3.

DerangedSybil - that's really horrible. I'm sorry that you had to put up with that. The thing that bugs me about Page 3 is that basically it gives men (and women) permission to objectify women because it's all just a big joke...obviously. And having it in a freely available newspaper gives out the impression that it's harmless.

And if you don't just shrug your shoulders, you're seen as frigid or jealous. It's all ironic now, apparently, because women have achieved equality (apparently). Yet the irony is there is no irony - the joke is on women for putting up with this crap for so long.

And I do wonder why more men don't feel insulted at being seen as "lowest common denominator". Are we really all so used to this that we don't even question it anymore?

I was heartened to read a comment from an Aussie on the 38 Degrees site that Australia banned page 3 years ago. Australia isn't exactly known for being a feminist country. Are women so afraid of being called names that they don't want to speak out against Page 3?

yes people are afraid to say what they think (or even to think what they think) because we've ben fed a diet of 'it's empowering for women to strip etc bla bla bla'

if the country was as blatently racist as it is sexist people would be horrified but sexism is sooo acceptable in soo many ways.
all a bit depressing really.
ps .dr northener go fuck yourself .

Getting rid of page 3 will not stop stupid comments made by men leering at women .

I will not deride people if they say they want to get rid of porn (it will just go further underground and become more hard core and exploit women more than ever ) but on this thread page 3 is not acceptable but other porn is - alot of this other porn is freely avaiable to see on the top shelf of newsagents and supermarkets - you dont have to buy the magazine to see it .

I just have boys - so what ?

Getting rid of page 3 may not stop stupid comments but it will stop it being less acceptable culturally for men to treat women as a sexual object. Having a pair of tits in a daily newspaper with no corresponding image for women to leer at reinforces the attitude that that's what women are there for.

Page 3 is the "acceptable" face (ahem) of porn. It makes it ok to objectify women and it makes it even more ok because 1. women are apparently choosing to get their tits out because it's empowering (is a man getting his cock out in a newspaper ever called empowering?) 2. and many women are seemingly ok with it so you know, if it was really that bad, we'd all be up in arms, wouldn't we?

Or is it that we're just all so desensitised that we don't even notice these things anymore?

I walked into my local Co-op the other day and saw the usual photo on the front of the Daily Sport of some barely legal girl bent over, pouting seductively showing her crotch - all displayed where anyone could see it easily. And I thought, when the hell did people become so desensitised that we go to buy a pint of milk and we see a photo of a girl like that and no-one (except for angry feminists and some parents) gets pissed off about it?

Ok, if you look at it from another angle (not literally of course :o)

What purpose does page 3 serve? What's it there for?

I agree that we are perhaps desensitised but I really dont see that getting rid of page 3 will lessen men seeing women as sexual objects when it is still avaialble in supermarket when you go in and get a loaf of bread and pint of milk !

What purpose page 3 ? - Circulation figures only - there's no news in that paper !

Well, hopefully that is something that is going to be changed too - there are campaigns going on on this subject and it was a recommendation in the Home Office report last year (the Sexualisation of Young People review) that something is done to tackle the sexually objectifying images that we are subjected to on a daily basis.

I'm sure that most people would agree that it's not ok for people who don't want to see this stuff to be subjected to it or for their children to be subjected to it.