Over the last few days there has been a bit of an online debate raging within the Lib Dems over whether we should be encouraging The Sun to get rid of the boobs on Page 3.
To be fair to the campaigners, it is important to get that distinction correct. They are not calling for a some legislative ban on bare breasts on Page 3, just urging Sun Editor Dominic Mohan to stop the practice of publishing the feature.
Either way though, I simply cannot support such a campaign.
The campaigners raise some important issues. For example, my excellent friend and colleague Sophie Bridger commented on my Facebook page that Page 3 “ tells its entire readership that viewing women as sex objects is normal, something you just do every day between the headlines and the sport. It’s not. It does not belong in a newspaper. It belongs in an adult magazine.”
In itself that is not an unreasonable point of view at all. However, nobody is forcing girls to appear naked on Page 3, nor is anybody being forced to buy the Sun.
The act of appearing in, purchasing, and looking at Page 3 is conducted by a collection of adults in full knowledge of what they are doing.
Not wanting Page 3 to be censored isn’t itself implicit support for the hyper-sexualisation and objectification of women, and it isn’t support of misogyny (something I have been accused of for sharing my view on this,) and it certainly doesn’t justify rape culture.
It just isn’t very liberal to campaign for the removal of items in a newspaper, just because you dislike them.
There are also some inconsistencies within the campaign. It focuses on The Sun’s Page 3, although they are by no means the only paper that run the feature. Campaigners say that this is because they created the phenomena and by removing it from the pioneer it would weaken the whole concept of Page 3.
Focussing on this one publication makes the campaign look ill thought out and anti-Mudoch, as opposed to pro-woman.
Campaigners also say that they focus on The Sun because it pitches itself as a family read. This simply shows how little interaction campaigners on this issue have with the tabloids. On weekends, the days on which children are most likely to see a newspaper around the breakfast table, The Sun does not publish pictures of bare breasts, specifically to make the paper more family friendly.
The campaign does not call the removal of equally sexualised images of men that appear in newspapers and easily accessible women’s mags either.
Ultimately this comes down to an issue of free press and free choice, and calling for the end of Page 3 just doesn’t seem very liberal.
‘It just isn’t very liberal to campaign for the removal of items in a newspaper, just because you dislike them.’
It isn’t because I don’t like them, it’s because, as you admit is a reasonable point, it ‘tells its entire readership that viewing women as sex objects is normal, something you just do every day between the headlines and the sport. It’s not. It does not belong in a newspaper. It belongs in an adult magazine.’
So to say that people are campaigning just because they don’t like them is kind of unfair. You are right that no-one forces people to buy or read this publication, or others, but just because people are acting freely doesn’t mean they are acting rightly. In a civilised society women would not be objectified in this way.
Um, surely “viewing women as sex objects” isn’t wrong in and of itself? I would have thought that “viewing women SOLELY as sex objects” was the unhealthy bit.
I’d quite like to be viewed as a sex object, as long as I was also viewed as an intellectual object, a good-at-my-job object, &c &c. And to be honest with you, I sometimes see a woman and think “she’s pretty” without thinking “and I wonder what her views are on the banking crisis?” in much the same way as I sometimes hear one of my female colleagues make a really good point and think “she’s intelligent” without simultaneously wondering what she’s like in bed.
I think you’ll probably find that a lot of women have no objection to being occasionally viewed as sex objects, as long as that’s not *all* they’re seen as *all the time* and *by everyone.*
To say “people who look at p3/porn see women as sex objects and only that all of the time” is as cretinous as saying that people who like watching football will try to kick anything vaguely spherical.
Lib Dems are neither liberal nor democratic.
Their party rhetoric is that of Big Government run by Philosopher Kings laying down the law for the unwashed. it’s a party full of embittered academics with an unjustified view of their own wisdom. A bit like Vince Cable. Isn’t he the man who, as “head” of forecasting at Shell, presided over the oil reserve fiasco because he trusted “experts” instead of asking common sense questions himself?
Still he made up for it since by predicting 17 out of the last 3 recessions.
‘[Just] because people are acting freely doesn’t mean they are acting rightly’.
This is the Commissar’s thinking in action. ‘We know better, and we will compel people to do as we see fit’.
You don’t like Page 3 Girls that objectify women. I don’t like adverts and TV shows that portray men as either immature idiots who need women to support them, or as chauvinistic pigs. I don’t like ‘comedians’ like Jo Brand making jokes about killing men. But I accept that the price one pays for freedom of speech and freedom of choice is that I will see or hear things that I won’t like. I’m also not presumptuous enough to suppose that I can be a moral arbiter for an entire society.
Liberal fascism.
There are more people who read The Sun than vote Liberal Democrat.
A minority of intellectual elitists telling a majority, over which the minority feels intellectually superior, is all too common these days.
I blame the EU & New Labour for introducing the post democratic age – ushering in an elitist “we know best” cabal of liberal fascists – who cannot & will not recognise the danger they pose to freedom, democracy & self determination.
I think the most important thing is the statement the girls give every day. There is no doubt that if we took on board the collective knowledge and wisdom that appears alongside their boobs, the world would be a better place
Could the illiberal Kirsty please explain to me the difference between the heterosexual admiration of the female form as a thing of beauty and desire which is surely a natural imperative and “viewing women as sex objects” which is surely an artificial concept created by post-democratic feminist vested interest? Since “civilised society” in the West has for many centuries displayed the female form in media to be observed and admired (try the National Gallery) why do people like Kirsty now decide to imitate the Taliban?
We’re all (men and women) sex objects.
It’s one of the parts of being human; Mind and Body.
Of course it would be bad for a family paper to treat women as a sex object and nothing else, but Page3 does the opposite.
It shows the many different things that we are
[...] are, of course, two sides to every story. Charlotte Henry puts the opposing view over at Digital Politico: The act of appearing in, purchasing, and looking [...]
Very simple, don’t like it don’t buy it! don’t tell people what isng and what is right and remove the option to make their own decisions. if people want to look at page 3 that’s their business. If girls want to pose topless, that’s their business. the end ofthe day, some people like looking at boobs, some people don’t, but what right do you have to tell them what they can and cannot look at or pose for?
This is the typical sexist mentality of feminists as well as the hypocrisy they promote. making ludicrous claims about the sexualisation of women is one of them and quite rightly, people make their own choices as you state.
Feminists have no problem viewing naked men and salivating over them and never make the same distinction or claim, it is hypocrisy in the best demonstrated way.
Freedom of action and speech is what is really the bottom line here as they have already, via PC, destroyed freedom of expression and now aim to censor everything else they disagree with. It is a level of Anarchy they pursue as well as dictatorship mentality. If they don’t like anything, so should everyone else. It does demonstrate the level of sheer stupidity that feminists and left wing lunatics are so well known for and have clearly demonstrated beyond doubt.
@ Sam: I would suggest that viewing anybody as an ‘object’ is, at the very least, highly demeaning. After all; whoever sought ‘permission’ from an ‘object’? Either way, as you admit; “I would have thought that “viewing women SOLELY as sex objects” was the unhealthy bit”. Putting aside any crass argument with respect to ‘celebrating the female form’, puke, etc – how else would you characterise the daily ritual that is page 3?
@ Marcus; think that you’ve gone off mission there! Do try to keep up…
@ Sackcloth: interesting argument that oppression is the price that we pay for free speech. Of course, there are various, contending traditions within liberalism (and I will freely admit that I belong to the more radical-social end of the scale). I see freedoms as being balanced against harms. Consequently, I am not calling for censorship, rather a democratic campaign, debate and education. Now how can that possibly be illiberal?
@ Sandra; strange that you should locate this argument amidst some hegemonic conjuncture “ushered in” by the “EU and New Labour”. I suppose that you would thus argue that The Sun is a democratic organ subject to direct accountability? Or perhaps you would suggest that democracy is better mediated through the ‘market’? If so; let’s all sell guns and let the market decide!
@ Colonel Mustard; with pleasure – “admiration for the female form” is when you find a person attractive, possibly fancy them or engage with a female human being on an aesthetic level (i.e. “she’s beautiful”). Conversely, a “Sex object” is, by definition, a thing, stripped of its personality and made subject to total domination. If you don’t believe me, try the following test; visit your local bar tonight, approach a female whose form you admire and ask; “would you like to be my sex object”?
@ Charlie; no we’re not!
@Bob6000. I don’t like it and I won’t buy it! Similarly, I will encourage others not to buy it and argue why, in my view, they shouldn’t. It would be one thing to press for ‘state confiscation’, etc. It is another to actively campaign, and engage people in ideas and perspectives that, in many cases, lie outside their immediate experience…
What an illiberal bunch you are!
I’m not sure your initial premise of “full knowledge” is anything like as sound as it might appear.
However mild it may be, Page 3 is a component of the organised sex trade, many of whose participants are coerced into it by poverty or force (and in case anyone who wants to pontificate about liberalism hereupon is wondering, coercion by poverty is illiberal and I’ve got a preamble that says so!)
As for the consumers of Page 3, the problem is that they do not know the harm they do to others. There is a distinct difference between me glancing at a woman for a brief second and thinking “Look at the norks on that!” and me shouting that at her in broad daylight. But that sort of staring and shouting is a daily experience for, I would venture, hundreds of thousands if not millions of women every day. The point is that not only does Page 3 actively encourage that behaviour (by small positive reinforcements that build over years of Sun-abuse) but that the Sun uses that very reinforcement as an active marketing tool; their slogan might as well be, “Are you the sort of c**t who wolf-whistles at women? Then you’ll love our soaraway Sun!”
Oh, and @kinglear, sadly no-one ever did read Playboy just for the articles…
As a feminist who does not enjoy ” viewing naked men and salivating over them and never make the same distinction or claim, it is hypocrisy in the best demonstrated way.” (Christian J)
Would you mind if it was your daughter, sister or niece’s body parts that were being displayed? Surely we are past this debate the impact of page 3 has been widely researched, it impacts on all of our society – next generation – what are we teaching our children? Boys its ok to, girls you should want to be seen as pleasing for men!! Really in 2012!! Freedom of speech of course but impact and damage have to be weighed against this – and anyhow – what freedom of speech? Not much talking on pg 3.
Surely the liberal view would be to support Kirsty’s view and actually allow true free choice to our young children not to be influenced by a society who allow this in a family daily?
Can I just add one definition as clarification – Girls – female child , Woman – adult human female.