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.
32 Responses to “The problem with No More Page 3: Right on authoritarianism is still authoritarianism”
Richard Jannaway
I have just taken part in the Brighton World Naked Bike Ride with 800 other people. The experience was extremely liberating, most of the men and women taking part.
Thousands of photo’s were taken by members of the public and other riders and by and large people of both sexes were happy to be photographed naked and topless.
There was one exception to this and that was the behaviour of some amateurish would be paparazzi who insisted on using long lenses to photograph women getting undressed
and/or applying body paint. This behaviour has created much discussion on WNBR and naturist websites about how to deal with such ‘trolls’.
The relevance of all this to the discussion above is that the smut of page 3 only exists because of the guilt ridden sexualisation of nudity in our culture. Much of what is labelled ‘pornographic’ is only perceived as such because of the way our culture represses our natural body image and locks sex to visual images of body parts.
The solution: support those brave women who campaign tor topless freedom and people of both sexes who act to promote the acceptance of public nudity. If nothing else flooding the market with images of naked people will make the activities of voyeuristic photographers unprofitable and page 3 will no longer sell many copies of The Sun.
alunapgwilym
“the smut of page 3 only exists because of the guilt ridden sexualisation of nudity in our culture. Much of what is labelled ‘pornographic’ is only perceived as such because of the way our culture represses our natural body image and locks sex to visual images of body parts.”
Absolutely. And that’s what this kind of debate usually misses. Repression is never going to work in the long term. We’ve all got bodies. Let’s create a culture where we all feel OK about them.
HerbyAttitude
Your post rather proves my point doesn’t it Jacko.
Max K
Exactly. Here’s what the campaign website says: (http://nomorepage3.org/faqs/) Which changes the argument entirely.
Q. So why are you trying to get Page Three banned?
A. That’s not what we are doing. This is not about censorship, or passing an Act
of Parliament to force Dominic Mohan, the editor of The Sun, to scrap
Page Three. We are asking him – politely – to remove it voluntarily,
because it mocks and disrespects women, and tries to teach Sun readers
to do the same. It is also so outdated! The Daily Mirror used to feature
topless Page Three girls in the 1970s. It dropped the feature in the
1980s because it realised that, culturally, the rest of Britain had
moved on, and to keep on featuring bare breasts in a family newspaper
would make it look like a dinosaur…
robertcp
People do not have a right not to be offended. If a pair of boobs offends them, tough! It is usually middle class feminists who hate working class women that make money by taking their top off. Not everyone can go to university and get a well paid job.
It is obviously extremely rude to look at pictures of naked women in front of women but should it be illegal?