Apologies to everyone else for a long post but here is my reply to DadDancer. I'd really like to be able for us both to just agree to leave it there to honest.
By signing the petition I am not belittling the models. I'm sorry you can't see that or even explain why you think I am.
Using the 'objectification argument' does not belittle the models either. I am stating what I think is obvious. If you deny that Page 3 objectifies women then I think you simply fail to understand what objectification is, here is something to help you with that:
thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/07/02/sexual-objectification-part-1-what-is-it/
If you want to know where page 3 fits within these definitions I would highlight the quote 'What is sexual objectification? ...objectification is the process of representing or treating a person like an object (a non-thinking thing that can be used however one likes)...' Bear in mind this is exactly what News in Briefs underlines: it pretends to represent what the models think on a given subject, but actually puts words into their mouths that are supposed to look incongruous next to a woman who does this job, meanwhile they are depicted as passive, decorative things. Further she can be used however you like since she is laid on for you in your paper and if you download the iPad app you can view her from any angle of your choosing and make her 'pirouette at your command'.
Further, if page 3 does not objectify models then how do you explain the number of comments I come across at the bottom of articles on the subject saying things like 'everyone has a right to melons'. (I'm thinking specifically of one I saw at the bottom of a Huff Post article a week or two back, but these comments are everywhere). Note, he doesn't say 'a right to Hollie from Manchester and her sparkling personality', but to 'melons'. There it is right there - the models are interchangeable with the breasts he is entitled to. (Go back to that article above and see 'a sexualised person as interchangeable' - any melons will do.) Again and again women who voices feminist/anti-page 3 arguments on the internet are insulted as to their appearance and/or told to shut up and get their tits out. (Lucy who started the petition gets it constantly. So nasty and unnecessary.) Each time you hear a man say 'look at the tits on that!' he is reducing a person to a 'that'. This is objectification. Both of these simply prove the point that Page 3 reflects society's view that women's appearance and how sexually available they present themselves to men are prized above all, and women are to be to silenced and controlled, especially if, God forbid, they want to take the right to melons away. (Whatever next! They'll be wanting to be treated as equals next!)
If you really, truly see these women of more than objects/pieces of meat then why must they be naked? (I've asked you this before and you didn't answer.) If you see these women as rounded individuals you want to engage with as people then surely their having clothes on is no bar to that? In fact the choice of clothes we wear is an important part of self-expression: do we dress smartly, casually, to align ourselves with a movement like punk/goth etc. Further, why are you clothed and the women you look at naked? That seems to me a particularly uneven power relationship. (This is more pertinent to when you visit a strip club of course.) And anyway, even if they did have clothes on, why should a newspaper interrupt the news to act as a sort of 'women catalogue' - whether you are judging her personality or tits? It's not a dating opportunity! Hollie from Manchester is not actually doing this because she wants you to be her boyfriend!
No it wasn't me that used the term 'female chauvinist pig'. I appreciate this a long thread now but if you can't be bothered to trawl through it then don't attribute half-remembered quotes to me, it undermines what you say.
It's an obvious point but the number of people who have signed the petition does not simply equate to the number of people who would like page 3 gone (or aren't bothered either way, so won't mind if it goes), just as the number of people who buy the paper doesn't equate to the number of people who feel passionately that page 3 shoufd remain. The numbers of signatures is still increasing and not everyone (particularly those who don't use the internet and/or social media much) knows about it. Only today a friend who has just come across it sent me a link to it!
I'm not distancing myself from Object and never said that! I simply pointed out they aren't relevant to this petition. You don't need to point me to their campaign. The document they presented to Leveson was an extraordinary exposé of how misogynistic our tabloid press is, constantly showing men, clothed, going about their business of running the country or their profession of playing sport; whereas women are depicted as decorative, passive onlookers/objects. (Male sportsmen analysed in the sports pages, women jockeys shown in their undies. Rooney has an affair but is given his name, the woman he slept with [whose father they reported was dying] was reduced to 'his tart' and so on and so on.) You probably know that the document, despite being entirely gathered from newspapers on the main news stand and available to anyone to buy with no age restriction, had to be censored before it could be shown to adults in a court of law? And that many of the images would be illegal to be shown in a place of work under present equality/discrimination laws?
I know I will never change your mind and am getting so tired by the negativity of all this. It's interesting that so much of the response to this campaign is in the form of 'you shrill, hysterical "wimmin" who are so stupid to think this is important, no one cares what you think' or 'shut up and get your tits out' 'or just cos you're fat/ugly/jealous/minging/insecure/got no tits and we wouldn't want to see you on page 3' etc etc. It is relentless nastiness and vitriol that comes down to shutting women up, controlling them, stopping them having a voice and keeping the tits coming. The No More Page 3 campaign, by contrast (check the twitter feed) is a stream of joyous positivity. Yes! We are better than this! This is great we can finally speak up! I really want my daughter to grow up feeling she is a valued and respected and equal member of society, whatever her body size/shape etc and not looked at and controlled in this way. I want my son to grow up not being told to treat women like this and should he ever wish to say he thinks this is wrong to not be sneered at and told to hand in his man card or that he is gay (as though that is a terrible insult!) (And this is what happens to men that defend the arguments against it, I can assure you.)
I don't see any point at all in us other going on at each other like this. It is totally draining me, and boring for everyone else. Even GoldShip, who as a page 3 model has an obvious interest in defending it admits she can understand why people don't want this in the paper and says that's fair enough. That's all we are asking for. Get it out of a paper you don't even regularly read. You can get your tits elsewhere.