Ban the boobs: Norwich says No More Page 3

Men and women protested against The Sun’s page 3 in Norwich City Centre this weekend. 

A group of fifteen protesters stood outside WHSmith on Gentleman’s Walk for an hour on Saturday, calling for the removal of topless models. With some dressed as suffragettes, the group asked ‘should boobs be in a family newspaper?’, condemning page 3 as an out of date tradition which objectifies women.

UEA Union Women’s Officer Rachel Knott said that she was “incredibly pleased with the turn out and public response received. It was great to see a real mixture getting behind the No More Page 3 campaign”.

This action follows the UEA Union’s recent decision to implement a campus-wide boycott of the paper. The protest is also one of more than ten which took place across the country this weekend to mark the 43rd anniversary of page 3.

The No More Page 3 campaign began in the summer of 2012 when founder Lucy-Anne Holmes questioned why the largest image of a woman in The Sun was a topless model, despite Jessica Ennis winning Olympic Gold. Holmes contacted The Sun’s editor, Dominic Mohan, appealing to him to ‘take the bare breasts out of the paper’. With support from organisations such as the National Union of Teachers and UK Girlguiding, as well as 125,000 signatures on their online petition, the campaign has quickly gathered momentum.