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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

No More Page 3!

172 replies

Whoreandpeace · 20/01/2015 06:56

No big announcement but apparently The Sun featured its last 'bare breasted beauty' on Page 3 last Friday. If so, well done to the No More Page 3 Campaign, which I signed when MNHQ first made me aware of it.

The cynic in me tells me that this 'surrender' will just be a test. If sales go down then those babes will be back in all their pouty nakedness, I'm sure.

But for now I am celebrating, even though those naked images will most likely be replaced by young women in underwear and swimwear, because fully clothed women are still not doing anything newsworthy enough for The Sun.

OP posts:
Dawnywoo · 20/01/2015 07:30

We will hopefully look back in a few years time and go 'can you remember when there used to be topless girls in newspapers?' Crikey. Can't imagine that now.. I would like to think we would be saying back to ourselves.

CateBlanket · 20/01/2015 07:33

Plenty of breasts to be found on the Daily Mail online Angry

LumpySpacedPrincess · 20/01/2015 07:35

That would be great Dawn, it really would. I'm in my early forties and sexism in some ways is more extreme and damaging than it was when I grew up and that scares the shit out of me. Every society seems to be queing up to tell women to undress or cover up, it would be lovely if we could decide, wouldn't it.

But this is a victory, even though one form of objectification will be replaced with another.

It was a great campaign and I hope it keeps going and tackles more sexism in the media.

RoyallyFuckedOff · 20/01/2015 07:42

I'd believe it if they were willing to make am announcement. This sounds to me like, "wait and see if it affects sales". Which it may very well do. I doubt people who have supported the boycott will go back to reading it now they read other papers and know how shit it is (dh for example)

Seff · 20/01/2015 08:10

They're a bit dim if they think people don't want to read that crap because of page 3, rather than the fact that it is crap and Murdoch owned.

kim147 · 20/01/2015 08:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

epicurian · 20/01/2015 08:58

Very pleased that popular opinion has been strong enough to bring an end to Page 3, even if it does turn out to be temporary.

This was being discussed on the telly, here in Australia, this morning. I was very annoyed when one of the (female) presenters said "it is a win for feminists". This is a win for the whole population, not just those that identify as feminists.

Bakeoffcakes · 20/01/2015 09:01

Very glad to hear this and agree with Lumpyfaced "It was a great campaign and I hope it keeps going and tackles more sexism in the media"

MoanCollins · 20/01/2015 09:07

Never really got the fuss over this. Given the absolutely horrendous material that can be accessed online this day I never really saw what was wrong with a pretty bare breasted girl smiling.

To be honest I think the energy spent on this campaign could have been better targeted on online porn which shows absolutely appalling violence and degradation.

katsnmouse · 20/01/2015 09:21

I'm pleased but it is only the beginning in my opinion.

IsItMeOr · 20/01/2015 09:22

I'd be up for a page 3 picture of a pretty bare breasted girl feeding her baby...

LikeIcan · 20/01/2015 09:31

MoanCollins, I agree that the amount of online pornography is worrying ( particularly because it's so easy to access ) but the degradation of women starts with things page 3. Can a woman only make the newspapers if she's half naked? that's the message it was sending out & I'm glad it's gone. Sexist 70's crap.

Well done to all those who campaigned.

Middleoftheroad · 20/01/2015 09:32

My two little boys saw Page 3 (we were collecting the holiday tokens) and asked me why there was a lady without her clothes on. A very good question indeed.....

MoanCollins · 20/01/2015 09:44

To be honest, really, given the images that young men are exposed to these days I think that the image of page 3 almost verges on the positive. Given that they're probably a click away from images of women tied up with their breasts in clamps, covered in clothes pegs having objects apparently forcibly inserted I can't particularly get myself worked up over page 3.

LikeIcan · 20/01/2015 09:57

Yes, but you have to look for that stuff on the internet, I know it's only a click away ( sadly ) but you still have to look for it - it's specialist porn for adults who are into S&M - page 3 was making the degradation of women normal & acceptable.

BeyondDoesBootcamp · 20/01/2015 10:28

Wow, how have i not seen this til i spotted it in dotd?! Congratulations nmp3!! Its a start :)

magicpixie · 20/01/2015 10:32

I will celebrate when it's permanent and not a trial

TyrannosaurusBex · 20/01/2015 10:33

I'll be very pleased if it's gone for good.

Original poster
Whoreandpeace · 20/01/2015 10:59

MoanCollins - some women feel uncomfortable when a stranger is looking at a pouty naked woman in a 'newspaper' next to her on the train or see a couple of guys looking at this soft porn in a cafe when they just want to sit and have a coffee and not be exposed to such rubbish. As a young woman I certainly did feel uncomfortable in these situations. It made me feel as if that's was all I was supposed to be - a pair of perfect boobs. As someone older and wiser now I don't give a toss. But I have 2 DDs and I would like them to feel comfortable as they walk down the street and not have to feel that men see them purely as sex objects. My 18 year old DD is already subjected to sexist comments in the street and on public transport. She's still at school FFS.

Naked girls on page 3 of a national newspaper every day says a lot about how our society views the two sexes. In fact The Sun really does view women very differently from men. We are, apparently, purely decorative and for men's delight and our achievements are not noteworthy unless we have the perfect body which we are happy to flaunt in little or no clothing.

Click on the link I have pasted just below. The No More Page 3 campaign cut out pictures of all women and all men from The Sun for 6 months and compared how each sex is portrayed. Women are young, gorgeous, in standing-still positions and pouting. Not one is a sportswoman despite a rather impressive tally of women collecting medals for this country at many sports at world level. Very few normal older women (except the Queen and Mrs Brown, the latter a man in drag). Men are just normal men doing all sorts of jobs and just being normal men. Not one of them is without all their clothes on. Scroll down and watch the video.

i100.independent.co.uk/article/one-side-has-women-the-other-side-men-the-result-is-a-snapshot-of-the-media--xJ7brPyqdx

The reason this campaign is important is that until we treat all women as being as valuable as each other and as interesting and valid as men then we are not going to be treated equally in our wider society. It may not bother you, but I want my girls to grow up allowed to be themselves, say what they think and feel, believe in their talents and go reach their potential. The removal of these images from a national newspaper, visible to children (the next generation) at every supermarket, is a marker in the sand along the path to true equality. It is important.

OP posts:
VitoCorleoneAgain · 20/01/2015 11:06

Oh no, all then poor men wont be able to drool over topless young women in the paper every day, the poor things.

Thank fuck its gone.

forago · 20/01/2015 11:07

permanent according to recent reports - about time!!

I was born shortly after it began and am so glad to see it gone and that my children's generation won't have to put up with it.

VitoCorleoneAgain · 20/01/2015 11:08

No more pictures of breasts. Just pictures of celebrities in bikinis. Because men need to have their daily fix of women's bodies

It really is a mans world isn't it Angry

mypoosmellsofroses · 20/01/2015 11:11

It's the very innocuousness of P3 that's the issue for me. The fact that it is just a bare breasted woman and very bland in comparison to a lot of porn has made it easy for people to defend it as "harmless" "just a bit of fun" or even "a celebration of youth and freshness"
Having this huge image, so prominently, has been a drip feed for years, sending the message that women should be decorative, available and passive.
In an age where there are calls to educate children from an early age to the dangers of pornography, this muddies the waters considerably. So we try hard to get across the message that pornography is harmful, but the tits on page 3? Yeah, that's fine, that's "different" somehow.
Normalising this kind of "starter porn" makes it harder to deal with the rest of it.

VitoCorleoneAgain · 20/01/2015 11:11

Never really got the fuss over this. Given the absolutely horrendous material that can be accessed online this day I never really saw what was wrong with a pretty bare breasted girl smiling

Why not just have a pretty girl smiling, why does anybody need to see her breasts?

Thumbwitch · 20/01/2015 11:17

I'll celebrate when it becomes definite and permanent.
But it's a start :)