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”
Mat Bob Jeffery
If you read her response to Liz above, you will see that she is likening left thinking males’ attitude to “toryboy”.
Mat Bob Jeffery
In honesty, I really don’t understand why boobs on page three of the sun is permissible, but not in pre-watershed tv, or below top-shelf magazines, and the like. If “Anglers times” suddenly started printing topless female anglers, it would come under certain restrictive laws, and rightly so.
Could someone tell me why we should view a newspaper differently – especially one that markets itself as one for al the family?
Paul Evans
I don’t understand your problem. Your arguments could be applied to any regulation of pornography. If you think that pornography should not be regulated in any way, say so. Take the argument to its most absurd extreme if you like – can The Sun carry a graphic depiction of a rape scene staged by consenting adults? If not, then it’s a matter for the deliberation of parliament and Lucas is quite entitled to campaign for it without infringing any crude liberal principles. Personally, I don’t agree with her, but she’s simply intervening in the whole ‘where do you draw the line’ debate on soft-porn/hard-porn.
But let’s deal with this ‘as a liberal’ argument. I understand the argument that the market is a mechanism and that it is possible to make claims about the capacity of the market to trump the decisions made by other democratic and deliberative processes (broadly, I don’t agree with these arguments, but I know that we have to pretend that they’re sensible and valid). But are you really saying that we should accept the current manifestation of the market in these things (i.e. the markets governing newspapers, web-hosting and connectivity) to be the sole arbiters of what we collectively decide is permissible imagery for public circulation?
The appears to be a line that quite a lot of left-liberals are happy to cross. It’s one that highlights the tensions between a lot of versions of ‘liberalism’ and democracy. Personally, I’d prefer representative democracy….
Elena Blackmore
I largely agree with what a lot of the others have said. You seem to have taken a rather narrow view of what ‘being a liberal’ is. Is any regulation or legislation that is put in place ‘authoritarian’? Because all of it has some kind of impact on our choices! I think what you are talking about is ‘neoliberalism’ – betrayed by your final paragraph, which suggests the only power we have left is as consumers (“don’t buy it”), rather than as citizens (who should voice and share their concerns about society with other citizens, who can then collectively, democratically decide on it).
It would be difficult to disagree with the idea that we, as individuals, learn our ideals and our values throughout our lives – from family, friends, education etc – but also from media. There’s a fair amount of evidence that shows that media does have an impact on the ideas we develop. And I think it’s really important that we decide collectively what ideas we want to encourage in society (including what each of our place is in society).
Citing evidence that there’s been a widespread decline in violence despite there being lots of violent films fails to take into account a) all the evidence that suggests media violence really does have an impact and b) all the other societal factors that may have been pushing social norms in a more peaceful direction. It’s worth pointing out that a) we’re still pretty horrible to each other and b) maybe we’ve exported our violence.
As far as I can see, all you’re saying is that you don’t mind if other people hold sexist views – they’ve chosen those views. The evidence would suggest that even if we do hold certain views beforehand, the propagation of those views can definitely serve to cement them by legitimising them.
Jacko
I bet you’re single.