I disagree with No More Page 3 – and I’m a woman

Is banning Page 3 doing more harm than good?


To validate my opinion somewhat, I’d like to start by assuring you all I’m a woman.

I’ve got all the lady parts and I’ve experienced being a woman: the catcalls, being judged on my appearance, dealing with the ‘make me a sandwich’ jokes.

And I care about women’s issues very much- I would unabashedly call myself a feminist. With all this in mind, I have an admission to make. I don’t like the No More Page 3 campaign that’s sweeping across university campuses with the ferocity of a burning bra. 

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For the most part I’m under the impression that my mind is largely my own and not filled with internalised self-loathing (or at least, not self-loathing due to my gender), so I should probably explain myself.

I’m not saying Page 3 gets a big thumbs up from me- I can certainly see where the campaigners are coming from. I understand entirely why it’s so problematic.

The media effects our zeitgeist in many ways, and if we continuously see women portrayed as sex objects then that is certainly a problem of our society. In Warwick the issue was recently voted on and it passed overwhelmingly that the SU should lobby the local Costcutter to stop selling the paper.

This is one of the most counterproductive acts that the movement could have attempted.

The Sun exists to sell itself and the only way it will begin to change its practices is if the profit margins start to dive. I may be making a wild and gross generalisation here, but I highly doubt that students of a redbrick university in the Midlands are the Sun’s target demographic.

Students are notoriously liberal and even most of those who identify as Conservative tend not to do so socially. Banning The Sun on university campuses is as effective as telling black people they can’t join the KKK- chances are they don’t want to join anyway.

But for the small minority who do like to buy the Sun in our university and many others across the country, all they’ll perceive from their favourite news outlet not being in stock is that ‘The Feminists’ have took away something they enjoy and told them with a wagging finger that they know better.

 

Hence more people are turned away from feminism’s message of equality for the sexes.

I don’t think of myself as a perpetual whiner who just likes to sit, so here are my thoughts on what I think the campaign should do to become a more effective and less polarising movement.

1. Stop trying to bloody ban the thing. No one likes people who ban shit.

2. Start a campaign to educate people who buy the Sun and try and explain why Page 3 has no place in a newspaper. From my experience of Sun-readers, they’re generally (gasp!) fairly normal people who didn’t seem to think of me as inferior.

These people are the ones who could make the media moguls who run the Sun sit up and take notice as their sales begin to plummet. If Page 3 were banned, I wouldn’t start buying the paper, and the powers that be know that. They know it doesn’t express my views nor does it express the views of the majority of people involved in the campaign.

This is why the regular readers have to be convinced of the flaws of the institution- because they can bring about real change in this situation.

3.We need to situate the end of Page 3 in a wider cultural context. Our cause has a long way to go and it’s important to constantly remind people that Page 3 ending through voluntary boycott would be only a miniscule victory on the road to changing our social landscape and the way we view half the population.

I’d like to leave you with this thought: the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 that followed Rosa Park’s shameful arrest is a testament to the power of consumer forces working to bring about social change.

That boycott was particularly successful because people in their droves used mass communication and organisation and showed great moral fibre by making an active decision to boycott the bus and fight injustice with their money.

This should be the tact of the No More Page 3.