Page 3 debate gets heated in Fusion

Last night the SU hosted the Page 3 Debate in Fusion in front of a large audience.

The panel consisted of Bianca Franqueira Hanks from No More Page 3, Harry Earl, the Chair of the Debating Society, Lucy May, an LSU Media volunteer and Jerry Barnett, from the Sex and Censorship Campaign.

Head of Media, Bryn Wilkes assumed the Andrew Neil role and steered the direction of the debate, he regularly provided quotes to the panel whilst Nina Blissett questioned the audience and read out some live tweets.

A large audience attended

Bianca and Harry were strongly for the removal of page 3, whereas Lucy and Jerry thought there was no reason for it to be removed on the basis it is a person’s choice to buy it.

Fairly tame for the Sun

Jerry repeatedly suggested that Bianca was basically asking for a ban, he claimed that “this is a censorship campaign,” despite Bianca claiming her campaign is not about a “a ban”.

Lucy, who’s responses appeared rather comical at times offered a notable point, challenging Bianca‘s stance on banning Page 3, when she stated, “your campaign is called No More Page 3, No more is very… banny, No more is quite definite.”

There wasn’t much Bianca could say to this…

His hand must be aching

Certain members of the audience were keener than others to have their thoughts heard, Claudia Green of the Women’s network entered a heated debate with Jerry Barnett, where she thought his thoughts on keeping Page 3 were wrong.

She protested more than once “would you like me to get my Google drive?” claiming she had in excess of thirty pieces of statistical data that would show Page 3 to have negative impacts on women.

Bianca’s main concerns came from the way women were portrayed as “stupid” and that the majority are white and between 18-24, suggesting only white women are beautiful. Lucy’s simple answer to this was “get more women in then”, which caused some laughter by some lads at the back row.

Finally he can speak

As the discussion neared its end, the conversation got personal between Jerry and Bianca as he asked her if her concerns were not solely on Page 3 but the removal of strip clubs and porn.

https://twitter.com/TashaCrampton/status/563442142857932801

All 4 panellists stuck to their guns, in simple terms Lucy and Jerry felt that there is no problem with it staying, with Lucy identifying “we should educate women to think” and Jerry argued that the attempt to remove page 3 is “censorship” and is “trying to control peoples behaviour.”

Harry remained strongly against, expressing, “If the Sun continues to sell casual sexism”, they shouldn’t sell it. As for Bianca ,as she did many times she expressed her campaign “do no want a ban” but for “people to think”.

I caught up with linguist, Katie Wilson after the event to hear her thoughts. She said: “No more page 3 my friend.”

To paraphrase Bryn Wilkes, “The debate will go on” and it seems it will go on for some time.