How can any woman NOT support the No More Page 3 campaign?!

[DoctorRobert]

This is inspired by a thread about the No More Page 3 campaign on another forum I'm a member of. Some of the attitudes over there (all by female posters) are just depressing.

So many women who don't see a problem with Page 3 & describe it as harmless fun...the old chestnut that "there are worse things in the world to worry about" (maybe, maybe not, but I can think about more than one issue at once)...Page 3 being defended as tradition...and a complete inability to see Page 3 as part of a bigger picture of objectification and inequality. Posters denying that there even is inequality. Posters saying they would support their daughters if they wanted to topless model.

So my question is, how can any woman in 2013 think that way?

Is it normalisation? A lot of the posters also recount their parents buying the Sun and seeing Page 3 from a young age. Has objectification been so deeply ingrained into them that they just can't see why it's a problem?

Or is that it's too uncomfortable for some women to acknowledge that we don't yet have equality? Perhaps on some level they do realise there's a problem with Page 3, but facing up to that isn't an easy thing to do?

Yes, a Facebook group is definitely massively convincing evidence that supporting page 3 is a good thing. where did i say it was? i was just making a point about freedom of choice.

The petition requests that the editor removes the page, and does not want a legal ban. It takes half a minute to sign. the petition has been around since August last year, and i imagine the same people have signed it multiple times now. Isn't it about time they actually handed it to the Editor?

^no one can possibly defend it that has even one insy winsy tinsy brain cell

no one

and that means anyone defending it on this thread

please feel free to take offence^

I don't take offence, I just feel depressed that you think insulting other women is an appropriate way to make you point.

Are you?

Goodness how sad

still a little depression is a small price to pay to stop the wholesale abuse of half of humanity

And photos of tits is part of it. it normalises seeing women as sex objects

can't believe I'm having to point this out in 2013...

What Hully said

"and I imagine the same people have signed it multiple times"

It takes one to know one, Libertarianj. This puts the whopping 2400 signatures on your "Keep Page 3" petition in a different light.

is there a petition to KEEP page 3? Argh that is FUNNY and it hurts to laugh

really, why would you do that?

The models do it by choice no-one is holding a gun to their head!! You get offended by it? So you buy the paper to be offended?
I do t see the problem with page 3 at all!! But that's just me!

Erm, no planned I don't buy the paper because I find it offensive not just the page 3, mind you

'Noone is holding a gun to their head'

oh thank FUCK

I really thought they were (will stop here in case I turn myself on)

Can we stop calling the Sun a newspaper? Its an oxymoron

Agreed, op. I was very slightly involved in Clare Short's original book Dear Clare, This Is What Women Think About Page 3 which was published in the early 90s.

I have to say I find it even more puzzling that there are many women who don't object to pornography of all kinds being no more than 3 clicks away on the internet. And then there are those who are willing, even happy, to make their living from performing in it.

I love the campaign to get rid of Page 3 and to put the lads mags behind covers in the newsagents. Love them both. But it seems, sadly, pathetic in the face of the millions of images of rape and violence available on every device that can connect to the internet, with very flimsy controls available, which depend entirely on someone making the decision "not to look".

What's the general consensus then on the argument that pg3 gives women who want to be glamour models/ work in the industry the chance to get noticed - so who are others to deny them that right?? I think it's crap but couldn't explain why when I was arguing about pg3 with someone the other day.

Since when is there a right to have a platform to get noticed in order to further individual careers? Even if you think that page 3 offers this platform (I doubt it, where are all the hugely successful page 3 girls? I think most of them do some modelling to top up a day job) there certainly isn't a right that a mainstream newspaper has to offer it.

Even if it does benefit some glamour models' careers, in my view these benefits are outweighed by the harmful effects to other women in terms of negative self-body image, the idea that women's purpose is to sexually please men, the idea that women are newsworthy for their boobs rather than what they do, etc etc.

It is institutionalised casual sexism, and even if some women benefit, it needs challenging if we ever want to live in a world free (or free-er) of sexism.

what creeping said. no one is owed a living, especially at the expense of their own sex. Who cares if it gives then a "career", and I disagree that it does.

put it this way, as a society we regulate all kinds of potential harm. I can't sell endangered animals just because I need the money. I can't sell raw meat out of my uncle airconditioned van. What I do has to not cause others harm before I can do it. Page 3 feeds in to the idea that women can be bought in the most casual of ways and be seen as nothing but a pair of tits. This is a part of the rape culture we live in and the culture of breasts being only for men which is why women can't feel comfortable topless at the beach or feeding their baby.

Totally agree OP. I have no idea why any woman would want to defend it. And I don't think the number of women buying the Sun equates to number of women 'approving' of page 3. Some female readers might actively like it (though I really believe very few indeed), some might not care one way or the other and would hence still buy it, some might dislike but not enough to think about it too much, some might actually loathe it but buy the paper for other reasons and therefore grudgingly put up with it. And we have no way of knowing how many of its female readers fall into which category.

A YouGov poll did show that 49% of the population want page 3 gone (19% didn't know), and 24% of its readership wanted it gone (16% undecided). Data not available for Sun readers by sex.

d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6jyst3v95o/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-021012-Page-3-girls.pdf

I absolutely loathe page 3 type of stuff. But if other women don't then that's up to them. I don't really subscribe to this view that how on earth can anybody think such and such when it's quite obvious that a lot of people do.

For those saying boobs are not news, well i would argue that 95% of the Sun paper is not 'news'. So that is not really much of an argument against it, is it?
and objectification? Seriously what a ridiculous concept? back on planet earth there's this natural thing called sexual attraction. So please stop trying to re-badge it and make it out as something sinister. It's not!

Just because a person finds a photo of a page 3 model attractive does not mean that they think of them as a mere object. Everyone has their own mind, own thoughts, own interpretation of things. What makes you think that you can predetermine what other people should think?

In response to more recent posts, I think the difficulty with the Sun having this content as a "family newspaper" means that people feel it is acceptable to read / look at it when out and about in the way that they would not so much with a publication of another sort eg nuts/zoo (are they still going? it's been a while) or a porn mag or whatever.

the consequence of this is that you get men ogling tits in the paper while on the tube in the morning, on the bus, a thread on here said in teh playground etc. As it is a newspaper and therefore fine.

i have always felt really uncomfortable sitting on public transport with men who are ogling breasts. Often legs are touching etc and TBH it was when i was about 14 and a man was looking at page 3, sitting next to me leg pressed up, looking at me up and down lingering on chest and back to paper again. And it was horrible but what can you do? As apparently society says it is OK for men to ogle topless women while sitting on the tube next to children. And guess what it does make many women feel they are being reminded of their position in socity.

What would the reaction be if I sat on the tube looking at pics of men stroking big erections through their pants? Or if massive blokes sat next to schoolboys looking at pictures like that? Take it from me the reaction would not be good. So why is it OK the other way round? Well I know the answer as I post in the fem section! But it BOGGLES me that people think this is OK.

^For those saying boobs are not news, well i would argue that 95% of the Sun paper is not 'news'. So that is not really much of an argument against it, is it?
and objectification? Seriously what a ridiculous concept? back on planet earth there's this natural thing called sexual attraction. So please stop trying to re-badge it and make it out as something sinister. It's not! ^

This is branded as a family newspaper. You are choosing to ignore the fact that it gives away toys and children's dvds which means it is Ok for men just men to ogle women on a daily basis. That is what we are there for. It can be brought in to schools it can be read by dads in front of daughters.

It is only for men to ogle women.

And should you genuinely be that naive as to see it as not objectifying. let me remind you of the little blurb above the girl's head (and yes we are talking about teenagers so I will say "girl".

The blurb is "news in briefs".

Now maybe Keeley from Colchester really does believe that "Architecture?s place in the metropolitan sprawl is a fascinating topic. I?m a deconstructivist at heart and Frank Gehry?s design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is a triumph. There?s something about curves we all love.?

But that isn't the joke is it? the joke is that here is a pretty naked girl and look wouldn't it be funny if she had an opinion on something?? hee fucking hee. Lets's look at her tits and laugh at her.

Please tell me if we did this with any other maligned group would it still be funny? Why not a black guy of the day? Let's stick a picture of a black man... let's drop him down to every shitty stereotype of a black man and then put a little blurb about the news over his head.. Because ha ha black guy with an opinion! Hilarious...

Really that would be OK in your mind? Really? How about "gay of the day" let's find a gay man and then post a blurb with DIY directions over his head, because get it...gay guys can't build stuff!

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/royals/2841876/Prince-Charles-makes-Page-3-confession.html

No one here is offended by breasts. We all have them. I should be able to whip them out with out whenever without worrying that I will be given dirty looks because they "are for men" I should be able to feed my kids as soon as they start crying but I can't and many many women struggle because they wont leave the house while breast feeding because stupid fucking ignorant people see them as fuck toys.

NiceTabard sorry to hear about your uncomfortable incident on public transport, but is it fair to judge all other blokes who enjoy page 3 by the odd behavior of this certain individual? Surely it's not the publication that is at fault but the individual? He could have been looking at the young models in the fashion section of the Guardian and looking you up and down in the same way.
Using that logic we would have to ban virtually everything and that would lead to a 1984 style Orwellian state. This campaign is just the thin end of the wedge.

I think it is fair to judge all men who think objectifying a girl as young as 17 is OK