Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

302 replies

JessinAvalon · 16/02/2011 11:30

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

OP posts:
Unrulysun · 17/02/2011 09:47

IntergalacticHussy too true :( I was thinking of inviting him over to the feminism thread so we could feed him peeled grapes examine his arguments in rigorous detail Blush

LadyOfTheManor · 17/02/2011 10:12

unruly that's my point. WOmen can't tell other women what to read/look at/buy/do for a living as that goes against a woman's choice. There isn't a hierarchy and there damned well shouldn't be; but I can see some desperate women wanting one.

PlanetEarth · 17/02/2011 10:25

LOTM, you just don't get it do you? The "choice" of these women affects all other women. (Men too, come to that, and though they may not all see the ultimate effect on them as negative, I do).

LadyOfTheManor · 17/02/2011 10:46

So are feminists supposed to do? Remove the "choice" from some women and not from others?

Crispmonster · 17/02/2011 10:47

I couldn't care less about page 3. It's their choice to do it and I always sigh when I hear about these campaigns to ban things. Sex is everywhere these days. Get over it. Men get treated as objects on lots of things as well. Just as equally in my opinion.

PlanetEarth · 17/02/2011 10:54

But this "choice" affects me, my daughters, and all other women. Why can the Page 3 apologists not see that?

If you choose to have eggs or cornflakes for breakfast, I couldn't care less. If you choose to leave your husband and kids for a life sipping cocktails on a beach, I might disapprove but ultimately it's nothing to do with me. But Page 3 is!

I and others have said it so many times here but we're just not getting through. I'm thinking some of you who claim to be feminists haven't got beyond Spicegirls Girlpower Confused.

bumpsoon · 17/02/2011 10:57

The main reason we still have it is because there are women who like to viewed as sex symbols , if no women felt that way it would no longer exist .

bumpsoon · 17/02/2011 11:01

I also cannot summon the energy to feel demeaned by something someone else has chosen to do .

chibi · 17/02/2011 11:06

Can anyone explain how anything a woman might choose to do is by definition a feminist act?

Does that not trivialise what it is to be a feminist?

a woman might choose tampax over lillets, to never take a dump at work, to put a kitten in a bin fgs, and because she is a she, these are all feminist acts? Really?

LeninGrad · 17/02/2011 11:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Katiepoes · 17/02/2011 11:13

Getting my boobs out would be a feminist act. It would show the world what E cup post baby 37 year old breasts look like. They aren't too bad if I say so myself but they don't look like Tiffany from Teeside's perky triple Gs. (Who said they are natural earlier? Are you blind?)

chibi · 17/02/2011 11:13

I was thinking pasta for lunch, but now I reckon I'll choose to fry some potatoes with some bacon

Wheeeeeeeee look at me choosing my lunch, feminist style!!!!!!!!!!!

chibi · 17/02/2011 11:15

In fact I will also choose to eat my potatoes in the nuddy to make it extra empowerful

Katiepoes · 17/02/2011 11:18

Chibi it's only empowering if you eat in a sexy pouty come-hither way. Ideally while looking over your shoulder.

PlanetEarth · 17/02/2011 11:18

Hee hee Grin, like it.

LeninGrad · 17/02/2011 11:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SardineQueen · 17/02/2011 11:20

"WOmen can't tell other women what to read/look at/buy/do for a living as that goes against a woman's choice."

Stopping page3 is not the same as banning topless modelling. You don't need to worry, men will still be able to get their daily dose of breasts in publications such as nuts and zoo, playboy and that ilk, and I believe they can even find some on the internet if they try. Women will still be able to make money from displaying their bodies to men. You don't need to worry on that score.

However, what happens to my choice not to have to have men waving "sexy" pictures of naked women all over the place when I'm sitting on the tube with my girls? Why is my choice not to have that so totally irrelevant? Why does a man's desire to look at some tits first thing on the way to work over-ride my desire not to look at tits?

PlanetEarth · 17/02/2011 11:26

And by the way, I don't think that consenting to something automatically makes it OK.

How about the German cannibal Armin Meiwes, whose victim consented to be murdered and eaten? Did his consent make the whole scenario OK?

Treats · 17/02/2011 11:28

I'm another one who's bemused by this choice argument.

Women have always used their bodies to make a living - often through the lack of any other choice - and have always been hypocritically condemned for it, by both sexes.

What feminism has always been about is widening the number of choices available to women, so that they have the freedom and opportunity to earn a living however they choose, and not to have to resort to selling their bodies.

Which is why feminism is not about giving women the choice to parade their tits if they want to, but about giving them the choice NOT to have to rely on their bodies as a source of income.

Anyone who's claiming that women using their bodies to earn money is somehow 'feminist' or 'empowering' has been brainwashed by the patriarchy.

NigellasLoveBuns · 17/02/2011 12:49

I hate Page 3 and all it stands for. If I had a daughter I would hope that she would aspire to something better and earn her money without taking her clothes off. It not only demeans the woman herself in the picture, but supports the idea that women are only of any worth if their breasts are worth ogling.
Makes me sick.

JamieLeeCurtis · 17/02/2011 14:20

Page 3 has earnt lots of otherwise virtually unemployable girls earn loads of dosh.

Invision

If you weren't joking (which you may be), there's an assumption right there about these girls' intelligence, which is the result of them getting their clothes off.

I don't assume page 3 girls are unintelligent - they are pretty switched on when it comes to milking the soft-porn market (Eeew- bad imagery there). Shame they couldn't use their smarts for the forces of Good.

JamieLeeCurtis · 17/02/2011 14:30

Lady - when people do something damaging to other people, is it not right that we restrict their "choice"? We restrict people's choice to incite racial hatred, murder, shit in the street etc etc etc

JamieLeeCurtis · 17/02/2011 14:33

Me again - really good pint chibi

"Can anyone explain how anything a woman might choose to do is by definition a feminist act?"

hymie · 17/02/2011 14:37

I'm a bloke but I can see the point that some of you are making.

Tits don't really have to be in a newspaper do they? If I want to look at the female form i'll buy a magazine fit for purpose.

Some of the models in the paper are very young maybe that's a relevant point of order too?

begonyabampot · 17/02/2011 14:39

katiepoes, 'I once worked in a printers - one of the machines was covered in Page 3 pics, I hated going down there. Some of them didn't even have heads, just the boobs.'

sorry, just spat my coffeeout but this is one of the funniest things I've read for a long time. Says it all really.

Swipe left for the next trending thread