As much as I dislike lots of the things the Sun newspaper does in the name of journalism, and as much as I generally like Caroline Lucas, something about Ms Lucas wearing a 'No More Page 3' t-shirt in the House of Commons yesterday irked me.
As much as I dislike lots of the things the Sun newspaper does in the name of journalism, and as much as I generally like Caroline Lucas, something about Ms Lucas wearing a ‘No More Page 3’ t-shirt in the House of Commons yesterday irked me.
Not the wearing of the T-shirt as such, but rather what she said afterwards when she was rebuked for breaching House of Commons dress regulations.
Lucas referred to the ‘irony’ of being told her No More Page 3 t-shirt was offensive considering, presumably, that Page 3 is pretty offensive to some women.
Ok, fine so far, she has every right to feel ‘offended’ by what she reads in the press.
But she then called on the government to take action if the Sun’s editors do not stop publishing daily pictures of topless women on page three by the end of the year.
As a liberal, it’s here that I find I have a problem. Do I think Page 3 is silly and out of place in a newspaper that purports to be just that – a ‘news’ paper? Yes, absolutely.
Do I want the government to intervene in the editorial decisions of our papers based on what may or may not be ‘offensive’? No, I most certainly do not.
The argument that Lucas and others have started to use in proposing government regulation of the press over Page 3 is also strikingly similar to the old arguments used by social conservatives when they said that societal violence was a consequence of violence on television.
“A government-commissioned sexualisation of young people review found there is evidence that suggests a clear link between consumption of sexualised images, a tendency to view women as objects and the acceptance of aggressive attitudes and behaviour as the norm,” Lucas said.
In other words, we should censor the media because people may thoughtlessly act out what they see in the newspaper.
There is plenty of evidence that this just isn’t true. The widespread decline in violence in the West despite the boom in violent action films for one thing. Also, after over sixty years of research, the fact that evidence of the direct effect of the media on behaviour has not been clearly identified should at the very least act as a warning against state intervention in the press on that basis.
As David Gauntlett has pointed out, this approach to the media is a bit like
“…arguing that the solution to the number of road traffic accidents in Britain would be to lock away one famously poor driver from Cornwall; that is, a blinkered approach which tackles a real problem from the wrong end, involves cosmetic rather than relevant changes, and fails to look in any way at the ‘bigger picture'”.
A problem with the No More Page 3 campaign is the very premise it appears to be based on – that pornography is inherently sexist. In a sense this represents the triumph of authoritarian elitist feminism over its sex-positive counterpart.
It’s also surely about interpretation: who says a person looking at a picture of a half naked woman (or a man – remember page 7 which, tellingly, was dropped because it wasn’t very popular?) is ‘objectifying’ that person? If looking at a half naked woman does constitute objectification, does this mean that any man who finds a woman attractive based purely on what she looks like is a raging sexist?
Sorry, but I don’t buy it (in both senses of the word). And neither should you, if you don’t like the Sun newspaper that is. Don’t buy it. It’s really that simple.
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32 Responses to “The problem with No More Page 3: Right on authoritarianism is still authoritarianism”
HerbyAttitude
So would you be in favour of a national family newspaper being allowed to print an image every day which showed black people in positions which imply that they are stupid, lazy and there to serve white people? You’d support that and say that the solution to it was simply not to buy the paper, ignoring the context of black kids being murdered at bus-stops, black people being regularly discriminated against in the workplace and in housing and the generalised wariness that black people need to adopt in certain areas because they know that they are a target of violence simply because of their ethnic group and / or skin colour?
Because that is the position that women are in vis a vis Page 3. Lefty boy invariably throws women under the bus and your blog post is no exception. 1 in 4 women will experience rape or sexual assault in their lifetimes. 2 women a week are murdered by their partners or ex partners. Women still earn 17% of men’s wage purely because we are women, women are discriminated against in the workplace and legal system, I don’t know one woman who has never experienced an incident of sexual harassment at least one time in her life.
That is the context of our lives. That is the context of these images of us which are printed every day in a family newspaper and allowed to be publicly displayed on public transport, in our workplaces, everywhere we go, to remind us that we are there to be assessed by men and the most important thing about us is whether we have male approval and that we’re not yet considered quite as human as men. You wouldn’t support this if it were happening to any other traditionally marginalised group, but you support it against women because sexism just isn’t that big a deal, is it? Way to throw women under the bus – again – Leftyboy. Gah.
Kevin Hall
I have to say that I’m broadly in agreement – Page 3 needs to be left to
wither on the vine, like an anachronism from another age. Page 3 is an absolutely miniscule section of the amount of sexual material across all media. You can’t focus on Page 3 without either looking tokenistic or frankly ridiculous. Bans and laws and more censorship in this particular context will fail – for society to become more egalitarian, less sexist and more sensitive has to come from within rather than imagining banning Page 3 will do it.
HerbyAttitude
I am absolutely not disappointed, it’s absolutely what I expect of left wing men. They have a long and ignoble history of throwing women under the bus and dumping our human rights as being less important than “the bigger picture” (ie pursuing their human rights while retaining the systematic advantage over women being born male gives them). With a few honourable exceptions, they’re not much better than ToryBoy.
leftfootfwd
Sorry, who is “Leftyboy”? Either address a commenter/blogger politely or please don’t comment.
Mat Bob Jeffery
Well, as a leftie male, I’ve got to say that I agree with you on that one 🙁