No More Page 3 petition about to hit 80,000 signatures. What do you think about this? Have you signed it?

[ashesgirl]

www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dominic-mohan-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3

[Creeping]

I signed the petition when it was 3 weeks in existence. We really need to stand up to the sexist way women are portrayed in the media and Page 3 is a prime example of that!

To people like Startail, who don't regard is as a serious enough problem, but would sign a petition against a more serious example, I would say yes, of course there are more culprits and worse culprits, but Page 3 is a phenomenon, it's an icon of the objectification and sexualisation of women. It's a perfect place to start!

Breasts are natural parts of women, but the way Page 3 and its cronies present them, they are the parts that define women. Women are reduced to their tits: "Look on the knockers of that! I'd have some of that" The woman as a person doesn't exist anymore, but is just regarded as wank fodder. I for one am not happy about that being presented as a normal (because it's in a newspaper, perfectly okay to buy one of them, daily) representation of women.

[Startail]

but they are just tits!

Rather pretty, if probably sometimes fake tits. I find them impossible to get worked up about.

As I say the actress X is to fat, to thin, showing her age written by women for women, I do find very easy indeed to find worrying.

Even on MN we get these chose a woman celeb to bitch about threads.

When a woman politician says every article is more interested in her clothes than her policies, then I get very angry indeed.

You cleaver ladies on the feminist board can connect all this together, I'm sorry, but most of the population can't and won't they'll just think is just tits and laugh.

[Startail]

Clever women (sorry ladies probably isn't allowed either).

(Fuck it however stronger family you are if you are a 45 year old scientist not a 30 year old liberal arts student your always going to get it wrong!)

[Creeping]

I don't get worked up about tits. I don't have a problem looking at them, to the point that I don't understand why some women would go somewhere private to feed their babies. It's natural, they're not offensive.

But I do get offended by Page 3. Not the tits themselves. They are quite nice. It's the fact they exist in a NEWSpaper and are presented not as just tits, but as a proxy of the sexual adequacy and availability of women.

They shouldn't be in a newspaper. (Please don't start with the argument that the Sun is so bad it's hardly a newspaper. 2.5 million people (their customers) think it is). It makes it NORMAL to view women as tits! Like nothing wrong with! There is nothing wrong with tits, but it is to view women as just their tits! And that's what it does! The women are not there because of what they've done or achieved, they're there because they've got nice tits. They're not newsworthy, they're perfectly interchangeable, they are just tits. Objects. Sexual objects. And it being in a popular newspaper makes it NORMAL to view women like this. And it shouldn't be.

[LadyBeagleEyes]

Can I ask a probably stupid question?
Why is it on threads like this women's breasts are called tits, but when they breastfeed they're called breasts?
And personally, I have boobs, I don't think I have ever referred to that part of my body as tits.
So is it just page 3 girls and porn stars that have them while the rest of us respectable people that discuss it have clearly only got breasts?
I hate the word tits, I never, ever use it, but clearly if we have to refer to those 'little tarts' that display them, lets just describe their bodies in a derogatory manner.
In fact, just like the menz.
Sisterhood? There's a joke.

[MidnightMasquerader]

A quick flick back through the thread seems to show that it's mostly the pro-Page 3 side of the debate (and of course men) that refer to breasts at 'tits'.

I don't see a single person who's anti-Page 3 talking about the women who model in a derogatory manner, using phrases such as 'little tarts'.

[TidyDancer]

I agree with Startail and Chandon, and will subsequently not be signing this petition or encouraging others to do so.

[Heather12]

The "don't like it, don't buy it" or "don't let your kids see it" idea doesn't really work when The Sun are advertising free Lego toys on the front cover and your kid is trying to grab it in Sainsburys. Other countries that are fine with porn magazines find it really weird that we mix advertising kids toys in a "family newspaper" sat next to photos of topless women to excite men. I do too, which is why I've signed the petition and turned up to protests

[curiousgeorgie]

That's weak. If your kid is trying to grab every chocolate bar do you let them??

Ever heard of no??

My 2 year old knows no.

[Heather12]

curiousgeorgie it's not about being prudish, it's about the context of it. So I'm fine with nudity of breasts in images of breast feeding / documentaries about African tribeswomen etc, but not with putting Page 3 in a "family newspaper". It's like saying seeing bare breasts on a beach in Europe (which is perfectly fine) is the same thing as seeing bare breasts in a strip club (which is not fine to expose your kids to). Obviously you'd be fine letting your kid see one but not the other. Does that break it down for you?

[Heather12]

Curiousgeorgie - yes of course I've heard of no, but can't you see the innapropriateness/mixed messages of mixing Lego toy adverts alongside Page 3? It's funny that you mention above in response to letting your little one become a Page 3 girl when she grows up, that you can't imagine that happening. What would your response be if it actually happened?
Please have a look at the reasons behind NMP3 on this link and it may help you understand where we're coming from m.facebook.com/NoMorePage3?v=info&refid=17&ref=stream

[ashesgirl]

Guess what Heather's saying is, it's the context that's the problem. There's no real editorial justification for having a woman pose topless and sexily in a newspaper.

Whereas on a article on a medical issue or at a push, breastfeeding, there might be.

The editorial justification for the Sun having it is that men like to ogle topless women.

This justification bugs the people opposed to it.

This is why you don't see topless women posing sexily on television. Because OFCOM regulates television and says that sexual nudity needs to be justified by the context. And certainly any sexual nudity before 9pm will be highly unlikely to pass

OFCOM can fine TV channels for breaching this sex and nudity code. By contrast, newspapers are free to do what they like.

[ashesgirl]

If Lord Leveson 's proposals go through, page 3 may go anyway under new regulation. He said:

?Page 3 tabloid press often failed to show consistent respect for the dignity and equality of women generally, and that there was a tendency to sexualise and demean women.?

In particular, he accused The Sun, The Star and The Sport for being guilty of grossly objectifying women, and commenting on the potential this had to escalate beyond basic news-telling.

?Of greater potential concern to the inquiry is the degree to which the images may reflect a wider cultural failure to treat women with dignity and respect and/or a practice which, intentionally or not, has the effect of demeaning and degrading women.?

And he noted that most women, if not all, were ?reduced to the sum of their body parts?.

[Creeping]

I personally call tits breasts. I was calling them tits to be in line with the discussion above, and if you're interpreting it as "Page 3 models have tits, real women have breasts, or boobs" or something that signifies derogation for the models, then that is certainly not how it was intended.

It's true though that subtle differences creep into our language. I will watch my language more closely in future.

[Rollercoasteryears]

Of course I've signed it. It's not about the breasts or nudity per se and if the women want to pose nude, I don't care. But the problem is the inappropriate location - in a so-called newspaper - which is hard to avoid, even if you don't buy it.

And even if I do manage to avoid it with my children, it cannot but affect the attitudes of children who grow up in households where it's the norm for dad to look at page 3 at the breakfast table. It's not just about my children, but about helping to create respectful attitudes in the next generation of boys and self-confidence in the next generation of girls.

And the fact that this vacantly smiling half naked woman is given a "humorous" thought bubble about some serious topic, as if it's inherently funny that a woman like this should have an opinion, is adding insult to injury.

The argument that there are more serious issues is ludicrous. Of course there are, but the same can be said of any issue that doesn't involve genocide. It takes 30 seconds to sign the petition, what's stopping people from signing this AND doing something about the issues they consider more important?

[StairsInTheNight]

Done, and sent on to anyone I think might also sign.

I think in ten years we will look at Page 3 and be amazed that it was acceptable. Well, I hope we will anyway!

[ChairmanWow]

To all those saying that there are more important issues out there, I presume you haven't taken the two minutes to sign this because you're so busy fighting for equal pay, or against FGM then...?

I get sick of hearing the argument that the 'girls' enjoy it and are treated nicely (how generous of the photographers) so it must be fine. I've seen the same argument about lap dancers on another thread. And of course there's the Belle de Jour happy prostitute myth. This isn't about individuals, this is about the wider context of how women are viewed. How many of you have had comments made ( positive or negative) about you appearance by complete strangers? And how many times have you shouted similar comments to men you don't know? Can't you see there's a serious imbalance? Have a look at #everydaysexism on Twitter if you want to see how women are reduced to just their bodies day in, day out.

Sadly I think this aspect of Leveson will be ignored. Women being pushed aside yet again while the big boys argue about the more 'important' issue of regulation.

We won't end objectification of women with this petition, but it's a start. There's much work to be done, particularly with young men and women, before any serious headway is made. But we can't do nothing.

[StephanieDA]

The issue is the fact that it's in a daily 'family' newspaper, not the morals of whether it's right or wrong for young women to do it. People will have different opinions on that, but for me it's about the context of these images. Legally defined 'indecent' images of women are displayed for the purpose of titillation daily in a newspaper, amongst images of fully-clothed men. Naked amongst clothed always = loss of power, and this daily message about women I think conditions us all in subtle and not so subtle ways. It normalises and reinforces a 'look at the tits on that' attitude towards women, giving men a culturally-sanctioned right to treat women as objects. And it's in the public space, you can't avoid it - you don't know when someone is going to open the paper next to you on the train, in a cafe, on a park bench, anywhere in public.

[ashesgirl]

YY to looking at everydaysexism on twitter. There's no better demonstration of how women are viewed and treated every day by certain men that this twitter feed.

20,000 women have now submitted their experiences over the last 8 months - of harassment, cat-calling, work-place sexism and so on.

[StephanieDA]

I remember the day I first saw a topless woman in a newspaper in my own home in the Seventies, as I was just entering puberty. I remember vividly the huge humiliation I felt. In that moment, for me everything my parents had told me about my worth and the value of education was exposed as a lie. I was confused and felt degraded, like I'd learned a secret that everyone else knew. I wondered if my dad looked at me in that way. I wondered why my mum never said anything. It had a huge impact on my self-image - not just body image, but what I was really valued for as a woman, as a human being. It was like being suddenly told 'that's all you are'.

I had seen pornography being passed round at primary school, and that had no impact at all, I think because we all knew it was 'secret' and therefore wrong in some way. When you see it in a newspaper it's clear that your culture sees you in that way and values you most for that.

Young women wanting to be glamour models don't make these 'choices' in a cultural vaccuum. They too see clearly what their culture values women for, so that's what they want. I think we are selling our young women the idea that this is 'empowering' and I hate how whenever I hear the word 'empowering' related to women it always means taking your clothes off in public. I don't think it's empowering, and it was certainly the opposite for me as a young girl. I signed the petition because I don't want any other young girl being made to feel as I did.

[DebbieLovesDallas]

I signed it a while ago, when it first started. Have shared it many times on FB and Twitter.

I honestly don't understand women who don't sign it. Do they enjoy being repressed? If they walk down the street and some bloke shouts "Get your tits out love," do they oblige because of course they think it's the right thing to do? Man says "do this, do that", woman "yes of course, master". Do these women some how think they're inferior to men in some way? So ingrained in them is the patriarchy that they some how think supporting page 3 is the right thing to do for their gender? Bloody hell if I ever thought along those lines I'd be ashamed to call myself a woman!

[countrykitten]

Signed and very at those women who don't see what an important issue it is. Reminds me of the lap dancing thread.

[ExpatAl]

I don't read the sun but don't really understand the point of this petition. Are the women coerced? Do you feel under pressure to pose topless because they do? There is a huge amount of women living terrible lives and those I would fight for but page 3 girls? Seems a bit bossy to me.

[TheOriginalLadyFT]

^Of course I've signed it. It's not about the breasts or nudity per se and if the women want to pose nude, I don't care. But the problem is the inappropriate location - in a so-called newspaper - which is hard to avoid, even if you don't buy it.

And even if I do manage to avoid it with my children, it cannot but affect the attitudes of children who grow up in households where it's the norm for dad to look at page 3 at the breakfast table. It's not just about my children, but about helping to create respectful attitudes in the next generation of boys and self-confidence in the next generation of girls.

And the fact that this vacantly smiling half naked woman is given a "humorous" thought bubble about some serious topic, as if it's inherently funny that a woman like this should have an opinion, is adding insult to injury.

The argument that there are more serious issues is ludicrous. Of course there are, but the same can be said of any issue that doesn't involve genocide. It takes 30 seconds to sign the petition, what's stopping people from signing this AND doing something about the issues they consider more important?^

Excellent post from rollercoasteryears particularly the point about the bubble quote. It reflects perfectly the link earlier on to the comments made in response to a porn actress asking people not to illegally infringe copyright. Basically, "what value do your thoughts and opinions have, woman? You're just a pair of breasts/vagina that happens to be attached to a human support system"

[ExpatAl]

I saw it when I was young and thought what a load of vacuous rubbish which is the role model I got from my mum. I am tired of these first world problems which get up the nose of the professionally offended.