Why ban page 3?

[jackburton]

Hi, this is my first post, please be gentle :) . I'm looking for some thoughtful discussion on page 3 and the objectification of women, my wife suggested posting here. Any recommendations for good articles or feedback would be great.

My main issue with a lot of the traditional discussion on this issue is that there seems to be an implicit assumption of passivity and conformity in women that I can't really relate to as a man (or feel is present in many of the women in my life). I don't particularly worry about my son seeing body building or gay lifestyle magazines or other fetishised representations of men because I see them as part of a range of different types of lifestyle that he could adopt. I would think it quite alien that the occasional image of men in this way would significantly affect me (or him). In contrast, advertising and lifestyle magazines aimed at women seem to impose a very disturbing level of conformity and one that I feel would not be acceptable to most men. Frankly a lot of female targeted products seem to objectify (in the sense of judging purely by appearance) and be misogynist (in the sense of appearing to gain pleasure from and dwelling on the humiliation of women, particularly if their superficial appearance is non-conformist). In contrast most pornographic products aimed at men include a great diversity of female personality types, some are passive but many are not, Jordan being a classic example. They aren't treated as objects in the sense that their desire is critical to their appeal, sex dolls are relatively undesirable. While there is certainly some pornography and lifestyle discussions that appear to encourage pleasure in the suffering of women I feel this is in the minority with most magazines presenting their female models as stars who are the centre of attention and whose happiness and desire is an important part of their appeal.

My initial feelings about the campaign against page 3 is that these images are being judged assuming they were present in the kind of magazine targeted at women i.e. they are a conforming image and that they would lead to humiliation of those that didn't conform. I think the majority of male culture is not oppressive in that way. Personally I find mainstream female culture to be much more of a problem for women's liberation than these products. What am I missing?

lib you couldn't define minimal interference. What is your understanding of agency? Please don't let this be another choosy-choice / two dimensional understanding.

Of course, when a man is ogling a picture of a woman nobody knows what he is really thinking. Linda Lusardi said that most of the letters she received from Sun readers said that her best part was her smile. Some of the men who ogle outside La Senza and Ann Summers probably fancy wearing the lingerie but haven't got the bottle to buy it. Sabrina, I would not even attempt to defend how those men treated you and you are perfectly entitled to feel that their behaviour was unnecessary, inapropriate and basically out of order. Just a further point, people have raised the matter that children ask their parents why The Sun has Page 3. Aren't there also children who ask their parents why Lady Gaga sings and dances in her bra and knickers?

Lib, re: your car analogy "what function does anything serve?"

Well, I get what you were trying to argue with your car analogy - that cars damage people yet we still have them. Thing is - the not-so-subtle difference between cars and p3 is that cars are tolerated by society because of the function they serve (transport) and any people that abuse their use of their car (by dangerous driving) are committing an offence punishable in law.

Page 3 neither serves any real function in society (except making money for Rupert Murdoch), nor gives any redress to the girls and women who are belittled or made uncomfortable by it.

There are plenty of other publications and online ways for men to look at women's boobs. Nuts, zoo, pornhub. Seems eminently sensible to me to either put the Sun on a high shelf and restrict the sale of it to adults only, or for them to consign p3 to the past. Either way, the men that want to, still have the dubious "civil liberty" to leer at women's tits.

As far as I am aware Page 3 girls are not employed by The Sun, but paid per photograph, so no-one will be losing their jobs libertarianj. They maybe losing an opportunity, but as it stands there are plenty more of those.

But again, this isn't about the models, this is about men's behaviour. As Sabrina says what function does Page 3 serve other than to feed men's entitlement? I want to live in a world where this doesn't make sense, either to men or to the women who model. This isn't about morals or religion libertarianj (although there is nothing wrong with having morals). Nothing we have said on this thread indicates that is our argument. You are just making things up. Just like you are making it up about it being a few bigots opposing this. It isn't bigoted to want women to be valued for more than there looks. It isn't bigoted to want a newspaper to print news. It isn't bigoted to not want to see women in sexualised poses unexpectedly, in inappropriate aettings. It is bigoted to presume that is all OK.

In addition, this whole minority thing is based on dodgy premises. A lot of people probably are ambivalent about it. And fair enough, we live in a society where it is normalised. People are bound to just accept things the way they are. But they probably wouldn't care if was there or not. You seem to be putting them on your side of the fence for some reason. Even if it is a minority, it is a significant minority. Women do matter.

Well said scallops. For me this is not a moral issue, I have no problem with nudity at all. For me it is a gender issue, it is about the way women in society are viewed. It is about my right to sit on a train or a bus without having pictures of nearly naked passive women in my face.

As far as being bigots - I know I am not a bigot I just want women to be valued and seen for more than just being a body.

As far as choice is concerned. If someone needs that type of entertainment let them find it. What about my choice of not wishing to see it everytime I go in a supermarket.

A glamour model claims that both men and women both objectify the opposite sex, it is a biological imperative essential for human survival. Go into the supermarket and there are plenty of sexual images of men, abet popular and famous men. Or am I talking about a completely different thing.

Well she would say that, wouldn't she, ged?

I don't see sexual images of men in a daily newspaper, gedhessian, on a daily basis. I don't see sexualised pictures of men on the front of magazines in supermarkets.

Just because men maybe objectified on the very odd occasion doesn't make the objectification of women OK. That is a rubbish argument.

Well running, what she said is what ANY anthropoligist will tell you , though she doesn't quote any sources. I did ask a psychologist friend of mine and he quoted Aping Mankind by Ray Tallis. Would you tell her anything to the contary, running? Scallop, daily newspapers have pictures of popular actors, sportsmen, pop stars and even politicians where they are judged on their desirability with women. I remember when they showed a pic of David Walliams with the Page 3 model Keeley Hazell and gave him a "sexuality rating". Is there a difference between sexualisation and objectification? Newpapers do make sexual references to men.

Look at how stars are dressed on the red carpet for an excellent lesson in whose job it is to be eye candy in our society.

Even going to work the difference in male and female attire and "look" is just amazingly stark. It's amazing really that people can pretend it's not there

I looked through the evening standard today on the way home and there were pictures of scantily clad women on most of the first 10 or 15 pages. I didn't spot a scantily clad man. And I would have noticed - anthropology and all that dontchaknow.

I think a lot of people don't notice as that's how it is all the time and they're used to it.

If there was a day when it was all reversed people would be so confused and upset they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

That's got to be an "if" they become like KP, really, and it's a pretty huge "if".

Don't start with all the evo-psych shit ged - it's always wheeled out to excuse poor behaviour.

Sure do

£30. I didn't know that. I would have guessed a couple of hundred.

Was David Walliams posing like this?

Have you ever seen a man posed like that?

Actually I can quite easily imagine david walliams posing like that

But your point is quite right of course.

stickemup yes I am sure the sun have professional photographers who aren't unsafe, but that should be the standard rather than so unusual it's worth mentioning.

Mmm yes maybe the Walliams would

As far as I am aware Page 3 girls are not employed by The Sun, but paid per photograph, so no-one will be losing their jobs libertarianj. They maybe losing an opportunity, but as it stands there are plenty more of those.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_(profession)#Glamour_modelling

It doesn't sound like there are plenty of opportunities at all for glamour modelling and the best paying jobs for this genre are in Page 3. With average earnings of £30K and potential of up to £100k. So i think your claims of no one losing their jobs are just a tad optimistic. Remember at the same time uk feminista protesters are trying to get lads mags removed too. A double whammy for the models, oh and the photographers, the make up artists, the hair stylists, the model agencies etc.

And yet an actual person has spoken to a real life page 3 model and said model has stated that she has earned £30 for a shoot. A £30k paycheck from £30 payments is a lot of shoots. The model also stated that she is NOT employed by news international, so unlikely she would lose her job.

Apart from Wikipedia, which lets face it, isn't the most reliable source, do you have evidence of these earnings from page 3? Or the employment status of the models?

It doesn't say average earnings are £30k at all! It says average earnings for models on their books and that there are very few models on their books.

So I'll rephrase, a few very well paid models will lose their jobs, with The Sun. I don't want them to lose their livelihood but I don't want 51% of the population to be objectified by men and their value measured in what their body looks like.

But your objections to this have nothing to do with women losing their job. You have shown time and again that you don't have any interest in the welfare of women, so I'm not responding to this derail any more.

Given that girls will send their pics in for free to some of the "lads mags" I am not surprised that a nominal fee is paid for page 3

From the POV of the aspiring model she is getting a huge amount of exposure (no pun intended) and thus may make headway with her career. I doubt that the sun are short on models wanting to do it. So with it being the paper that is giving the model a high profile job, I'm not surprised that it pays what probably amounts to costs.

I think that there is this myth in general that papers pay high prices for stories (although this isn't a story obviously which is part of the point of objecting to it).