Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask you all to sign the "No More Page 3" petition?

466 replies

UnrequitedSkink · 17/09/2012 21:18

It's a bit of a no-brainer really. How are we ever supposed to show our kids that women are more than just sex objects when Page 3 exists? It's archaic and totally unnecessary. It's also an anachronism and offensive. Please sign if you believe that pictures of topless girls don't belong in a so-called family newspaper.

More info here and a facebook page here

Fantastically, the petition has gone from 2,000 signatures yesterday morning to over 16,000 today!

OP posts:
SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 26/09/2012 12:07

Goldship- it's not like a photo of a fat person. It's soft porn. You can see ordinary fat people on the street any day of the week. You cannot see women with their tops off on any street- and if any of us did walk around town topless we would probably be arrested for indecent exposure.

Plus can you think of it being acceptable to put a 'daily fat person' on page 3 - For people just to gawp at- with no related news story? No way would that be seen as acceptable.

GoldShip · 26/09/2012 12:08

Yep like emcwill says I can indeed see why people want it out. I just don't agree and feel our time and efforts are needed elsewhere.

GoldShip · 26/09/2012 12:09

sabrina the point I was getting at was it isn't the papers fault you feel you were harmed. They used it as a tool to ridicule, just like a photo of a fat person could be used.

We're not talking about the porn issue, you said it harmed you. I said it didn't.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 26/09/2012 12:11

Why don't you think a paper had a responsibility when it is printing gratuitous pictures of topless women goldship?

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 26/09/2012 12:12

And why are you the judge of what harmed me?

emcwill74 · 26/09/2012 12:14

GoldShip you do bring up important points about the media in general such as the women's mag industry. None of my campaigning on the page 3 issue negates that or is any attempt on my part to belittle you. I would happily support any efforts you or anyone else could employ to help tackle that. The media is pretty rotten in general in how it presents women and encourages them to view themselves, and we can attack all of these issues to varying degrees depending on where we are coming from to build a better society for all. We don't need to accept the divide and conquer policy that the tabloids use to try to pit woman against woman.

GoldShip · 26/09/2012 12:15

You aren't getting what I'm saying.

It's like saying if someone hits me with a brick its the manufacturer of the bricks fault.

And I'm not the judge. But if men leered at you, it's their fault. No one else's. They harmed you. Don't blame their vile actions on anyone else.

GoldShip · 26/09/2012 12:17

emcwill if I had more time, I probably would devote some to such causes. I bought a girlie mag the other day, and I laughed most of the way through it. But a younger girl could maybe see this as a bible of being,. GET SKINNY IN TEN WEEKS!!!! TEN POSITIONS HE'L LOVE. What about what YOU'LL love. :(

Grrrrr.

GoldShip · 26/09/2012 12:19

In fact if I had more time and money I'd start a magazine for women who don't give a shit what we're expected to look like. And I'd have pages of foooood.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 26/09/2012 12:25

I don't think that's comparable at all. The fact that those men can leer at women's breasts (a woman they dont know) every day in a daily newspaper normalises men leering at breasts. It makes it somehow acceptable that women are there to be leered at. That's certainly how it felt to me in that staff room.

Page 3 has no practical use (unlike a brick) - it is purely a gratuitous topless picture.

emcwill74 · 26/09/2012 12:26

GoldShip completely and utterly agree with what you say about the mag, it is so imbalanced. I know so many people who feel as you do about what we are expected to look like etc.

But I also agree with Sabrina that the Sun does bear some responsibility for perpetuating a culture in an inappropriate broadcast media, rather than a more niche adult one, that page 3 presents an unrealistic of what womanhood is, defined in one dimension alone (sure some women have nice bodies that they are proud of, especially if they have worked to lose weight/keep fit, but that is not all that defines us, just one part), does define what we are supposed to look like, and is then often used to sneer at those who don't measure up. Sure, the brick isn't at fault, but the brick wasn't advertised for that purpose. Page 3 is a sort of false advertising for women. I have to concur with her point that whilst a pic of a fat person could be used to make fat people feel bad, that isn't in the paper daily to rally you on in your jeering at fat people.

I really out to go do some work.

emcwill74 · 26/09/2012 12:28

PS Totally forgot to say: Hollie I LOVE LOVE LOVE your performance poem. So do LOADS of people on twitter! Wine Brew Thanks take your pic Smile

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 26/09/2012 12:52

I'm not sure if this is better or worse, emcwill, but the incident I referred to wasn't holding me up to unrealistic ideals of what a woman's body should look like- (although i agree page 3 does do that) I was young and attractive. I was being told to stop wasting my time in that job and that I should be getting my tits out for the lads. When they held up page 3 they were telling me that I wasn't a valued and equal colleague - but just a pair of tits to be leered at - for that I blame the sun.

emcwill74 · 26/09/2012 12:56

Yes Sabrina, I do too. Sure, those men were particular arsewipes, and not all men are, but nonetheless, the Sun is endorsing it, and encouraging it, whether directly or indirectly. It could very easily choose not to.

BeanieStats · 26/09/2012 13:03

Dear Sun Editor.

Please create a commercial risk for your newspaper by removing a perfectly legal part of it.

Yours,

A bunch of people who never have and never will read your newspaper. X

emcwill74 · 26/09/2012 13:10

Do you really believe readers will drop off in their droves because they get to see one pair of tits less per day when they can see them in a miriad of other non-national newspaper contexts? Do you really think that is the main reason people buy it? Could it not be that a significant proportion won't care either way? It might even pick up a few readers.

Just because something is legal, doesn't make it right. Doesn't mean it isn't time to move on and get with a more 21st-century way of portraying women as good for something other than decoration.

BeanieStats · 26/09/2012 13:25

I have no idea what it might do to the readership and neither do you. I expect the Sun might have a better idea but you're missing the point.

Why would they take the risk? Especially when the pressure comes from people who aren't even in the Sun's target audience?

There is absolutely no reason for them to listen to you.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 26/09/2012 13:40

I dunno, maybe some sun readers would like to be able to turn over the front page in public and not be confronted with bare boobs.

DadDancer · 26/09/2012 14:03

emcwill74

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.)

It's a little thing called spice of life and variety. Yeah of course the women modelling can keep their clothes on too, but why the issue with having their clothes off? Why do those Britians next top model programmes always feature a nude photoshoot for one of the weeks assignments, for variety of course. Also i think that there is a lot of skill involved with shooting someone nude and being able to pose, even page 3. It' not just a case of get yer kit off and i'll take the happy snaps. Job done. Maybe some people just can't appreciate that.

Yeah I understand the concept of the objectification argument but i don't agree with it. For reasons i stated above like gerneralisation. I would have thought most decent persons would realise that just because somone is posing nude, that they are still a human being with equal rights as anyone else at the end of the day. The objectification argument is assuming everyone one to be the lowest common denominator which is why it is flawed.

I also have no problem with persons saying the don't like page 3 and i respect their right to say so but for me it's about balancing censorship, which i feel is at the correct level for the vast majority of people in this country as it stands.

I agree we are never going to agree on this, however I respect the points you have made and thank you for your time spent debating this with me.

farewellfigure · 26/09/2012 15:33

emcwill74 your piece was brilliant. Thank you for making it even clearer why p3 should go. Hats off to you.

DadDancer, if it's all about 'variety', how about having David Cameron naked on one page, and then a nice tasteful pic on p3 of a lady in her clothes? Obviously the photographer would have to make sure David Cameron's pic was artfully taken. I'm sure it would take ages to get the lighting right.

flyingspaghettimonster · 26/09/2012 16:53

I don't have a problem with page 3. I don't see The Sun as a family friendly newspaper - I wouldn't ever buy it, but I don't see it as exploiting the women who do the photos. I can't think why any feminist would want to buy it. Plus it is the only way my grandfather gets to see porn - I bet he would never buy a porno and they have no internet. I bet there are lots of old timers out there or whom it adds a bit of spice to life.

DadDancer · 26/09/2012 17:04

farewellfigure
Yeah the accompanying headline could be something like 'David Camer-Moon!' Not sure he'd be up for it though, although I reckon Boris Johnson probably would.

StrawberrytallCAKE · 26/09/2012 17:30

BINTM has the girls modelling in a very tasteful way not in a newspaper with their names, age and size underneath as if they are for sale.

'Yeah of course the women modelling can keep their clothes on too'

This is a very offensive statement. Modelling and glamour modelling are two different things and so are the people who earn a living from them.

StrawberrytallCAKE · 26/09/2012 17:34

BTW Daddancer I have really enjoyed reading this thread but feel like you may have lost any valid points you made when you started discussing your boob size preference.

Loving your work emc

complexnumber · 26/09/2012 17:46

emcwill74, I have little doubt that I would be in complete agreement with your opinions with regards P3 were we to meet

However I chased a link you made earlier that made claims atributable to Olly Mann:

I?ve asked my source at News International [with regard to the 'News in Briefs' editorials on Page 3 in The Sun]? and my source says the deputy editor who?s in charge of Page 3 decides the topic and then one of the subs writes it. The girls have nothing whatsoever to do with it, because apart from the one with a degree, they?re as daft they look.? ? Olly Mann.

I'm not sure it comes from a source i would describe as reliable.

emc's link

the-sun-lies.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/page%203

This links to:

answermethis.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/episode168/

I think most people would agree this does not appear to be a particularly reliable or serious website.

Please let me stress, I despise the Sun.