Why can't we just ban page three?

[Dragontamer]

Brilliant points raised by Clare Short in The Independent. To summarise:
You would think that the relentless sexism in the media would come up against 'media ethics'. However, Lord Leveson says that this topic goes beyond his remit. It is not ok to have lewd pictures of women on the office wall or before the watershed, why then are these images allowed in a widely circulated, national newspaper?

Having just had a daughter, I am anxious about what messages she will receive from this type of constant negative bombardment about women's bodies.

When Short has attempted to challenge this she has been bombarded by the snide remarks about her own body and criticised as being 'jealous'.

So, could this be a new campaign for mumsnet? Let me know your thoughts...

Sexualised image of boobs? What a female topless? Seriously? And what is the difference between "leering" and looking/appreciating?

Teahouse how would you feel about page 3 showing more hardcore images - pants off legs spread toys and so on?

page 3 is a sexualised image of a woman with her top off. The photo is intended to sexually arouse heterosexual men. You have trouble grasping some pretty basic ideas sometimes, eclectic. Was it you who didn't know about hovering as well?

Women and men are sexual and so are our bodies, faces, voices, intellect. This banning idea is seriously barking up the wrong tree and is far too authoritarian for my liking. How would you apply your train of thought about this topic to other issues like racism? Wear makeup to appear white?

Sq, that's for being so rude towards me. I think you have me mistaken for someone else. Hovering? My opinion does not indicate I and missing some basic principles.

Thanks even. Opinion is subjective, There is no right or wrong answer. This is a debate. If you don't enjoy debating or see the benefit on it, don't do it.

Why is sexualise always seen as a bad thing. It's another loaded term on here but there is nothing wrong with sex or being desired.

Can we try no to make this personal. It's a debate. Why do people always resort to the personal rather than argue their point. Not very useful.

This is in the Feminist Activism section of MN with an OP saying why can't we just ban page 3.

All of the responses saying "why, it doesn't bother me" are out of tune with both the thread OP and the topic.

Like going into the religion section of MN and a thread about baptism and just saying why bother. It's peculiar behaviour.

No you're right it wasn't you eclectic, with teh hovering.

i still find it odd that you can't see the difference between general nudity and sexualised images / porn.

Oh well, I can't get my head around some of your posts. Horses for courses.

Apart from anything else it's just so embarrassing. I honestly thought it must have been banned years ago.

Can you really not see the difference between a woman BF and a page 3 picture?

can you really not see the difference between a person quietly thinking someone sitting near them on the bus is good looking, and a person ogling someone - looking them up and down, staring at their bottom or breasts?

do you really believe that a girl of say 13 who is upset by a man on the tube staring at page 3, then staring at her chest, and then staring at page 3, needs educating? Educating how, exactly? Rather than not having to be in that position in the first place?

Sq, that's not what is said. Re read my posts, I think I've been quite clear. Night.

SardineQueen Sat 21-Jul-12 20:41:33
Bans do work.
I have not seen anyone looking at hardcore porn on the tube or bus. Certainly not in the morning rush hour.
Which is as it should be IMO.

I think you're wrong. I still don't think many people (if any) would watch hardcore porn on the bus even if it were allowed. Sitting in your office clothes thinking about work doesn't really put one in the mood to watch hardcore porn, I imagine most people would wait until they got home where they could relax more.

Here's a question- cannabis is banned in the UK. Did that ban work? (funny how almost everyone seems to either smoke it or has at least tried smoking it).

Yes this is feminist activism SQ, but I object to the idea that because of that we have to all behave here in a certain way or hold certain beliefs.

This section is somewhere we can discuss what we think is the best course of action for various subjects. That does not mean we have support this idea of a ban for this subject or any other. It means that if we have issues with certain things we can explore different ways of tackling them. We do not have to blindly agree with suggestions here. It means we can critically say why we feel it isn't the best course of action.

To my mind the problem isn't page 3 at all. Its the mentality that creates a demand for page 3 behind it, and why newspapers think that it helps create profit.

I personally think its about wider issues in the press - ones that women themselves buy into with celebrity culture, beauty products & bitching about other women rather than a pair of tits.

I'd rather focus my energy on tackling that, trying to encourage positive body image and two fingers at conformity and authoritative directives that more often than not end up being a complete mess as they are handled badly, misused and send out the wrong signals.

As a rule, I'm very anti-censorship and against laws that could be used against freedoms of expression as they tend to end up being in areas it was never intended. Anti-terrorism laws have been abused to a massive extent by the police and authorities in general. I would hate to see our press, for all its failings, end up with 100s of restrictions and regulations as a result of Levenson. We would end up losing far more than we would gain.

"Sitting in your office clothes thinking about work doesn't really put one in the mood to watch hardcore porn, I imagine most people would wait until they got home where they could relax more."

People sit in their office clothes looking at softcore porn. I think maybe you over-estimate people. It should not be socially acceptable to look at softcore porn on a train when you are sitting next to young girls, but it is. Also acceptable to eye them lasciviously while perusing the soft porn. if page 3 were allowed to show harder images I do not imagine for a second that the behaviour of these people would change.

hmm so what is your 5 point plan for quickly putting an end to page 3 then?

I don't believe you can change attitudes quickly. I think it takes time... thats half the problem. You want quick fixes and I think quick fixes are rarely fixes.

Well banning page 3 and soft porn in all daily papers would be a good start.

you will be waiting forever if you want attitudes to change first - over the last couple of decades more explicit images in public have become more acceptable, not less. Without legislation things tend to the lowest common denominator. that is why the press is being looked at, that is why we have laws. To think that laws need to apply to everything in life, to curb the worst of human nature, but not to soft porn which is detrimental to women and children, is naive at best and disingenuous as worst.

What about the argument that children shouldn't be exposed to adult sexuality, then? Which is the anti-titillation in public stance.

Banning pg3 won't stop people fancying each other. I'm pretty certain the species will survive without it.

slug Thu 09-Feb-12 11:32:24
"We cannot just ban page 3 or any other image or text that is offensive to some but not the majority of the public."
Last time I looked women were 52% of the population. That makes us the majority.

Just noticed this post and wanted to point out feminists do not speak on behalf of all women. Women may be 52% or whatever of the population, but noone has the right to say "it offends all women". The models themselves (and likely their families and friends) probably won't object to page 3. There are plenty of "sex positive" feminists who do not advocate banning page 3. Then of course there are plenty of women who don't really care about page 3- women who aren't so easily offended as feminists (or simply have bigger things to worry about).

What about the argument that children shouldn't be exposed to adult sexuality

To answer this I would say we should stop being so prudish about the female body and acting like breasts have to sexual (which they don't). If parents don't fuss over nudity neither will children. Next time you watch TV and there is an accidental female nipple slip for half a second don't jam the phonelines with complaints just let it go- it's only a nipple so what it's not going to harm your children.

IMO it's not nudity itself which harms kids- it's all the fuss made by their parents which gives them an unhealthy attitude.

Nothing quite normalises the objectification of women like page 3. I'd love to see it gone. It's nowt to do with freedom of the press because 'women have tits' is hardly news.

I personally think its about wider issues in the press - ones that women themselves buy into with celebrity culture, beauty products & bitching about other women rather than a pair of tits.

I agree there are wider issues but I think rather than blaming women it's worth looking into why they buy into celebrity culture and policing each others' bodies. Internalised oppression is a handy concept here:

"Internalized oppression is not the cause of our mistreatment, it is the result of our mistreatment. It would not exist without the real external oppression that forms the social climate in which we exist.

Once oppression has been internalized, little force is needed to keep us submissive. We harbour inside ourselves the pain and the memories, the fears and the confusions, the negative self-images and the low expectations, turning them into weapons with which to re-injure ourselves, every day of our lives"

Page 3 is sexual. The only time women's breasts are allowed to be shown in public is if they are sexual. If you BF in public you have to do it 'discreetly', even if you're in the same fucking room as some bloke ogling page 3.

I also think those who would ban page three have not addressed the serious legal challenges that other women will bring up to and including the European court of human rights to be allowed to earn a living in a lawful and legitimate way. As well as the legal challenges brought by the freedom of speech advocates and the long list of people who would not support a ban because of the slippery slope argument.

If only we could solve issues by merely banning something then I suspect a whole raft of social issues would have been solved long ago. It is just not enough to say that something is bad, or good for that matter. Consider the parallel of banning people from using mobile phones when driving, a law that is widely flaunted and has a very low approval raing amongst the public. Is the law justified, hell yes it saves lives and should make people better drivers. In comparison when the enforcement of seatbelts was brought in it took some years for the law to be as widely observed as it is now, even more so once the majority of people saw the sense of it. I would suggest that the banning of page three will never have the majority backing that it deserves so it will never be brought in to being.