For three days last week, there were no page 3 models shown by The Sun. This created massive speculation from other newspapers and media outlets that page 3 was very quietly retiring. The Sun’s sister newspaper, The Times, confirmed speculation through an article published on Tuesday 20th January, although The Sun itself refused to comment. So for two days, feminists everywhere celebrated. And then, on Thursday 22nd January, The Sun announced ‘We’ve had a mammary lapse’. Har Har. The boobs were back. In fact, they never really left. Dylan Shape, Head of PR for The Sun tweeted the news to important journalists and politicians who had been reporting on, and celebrating, the fall of Page 3:
I wonder if Nicole, 22, from Bournemouth realised when she posed for The Sun exactly what her wink was to symbolise. The Head of PR for The Sun is gloating at anyone who was stupid enough to believe that The Sun newspaper, the lowest form of written news, would stop objectifying women. Of course it wouldn’t. It’s run by slimy misogynists like Dylan Sharpe. How can The Sun possibly protest its innocence when it’s got people like this behind it? How can Sharpe honestly have the audacity to tweet a winking topless model to female BBC and sky news journalists, and the labour Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman? He’s laughing in the face of women trying to help other women. He’s gloating about his hilarious little PR stunt. And he’s purposefully playing on the emotions and beliefs of women interested in fighting objectification as a ploy to raise the profile of his trashy tabloid newspaper.
The Charlie Hebdo killings earlier this month sparked huge public debate about how far the press should be allowed to go. The answer is that democratic free societies are founded on freedom of speech and therefore as much as some of us might despise page 3, we must allow it to be published. My question is, why is it published? The sad fact is these images would not be there unless there was a demand. A significant proportion of men reading The Sun do want their daily intake of news to be decorated with topless models, and a significant proportion of women aspire to be these topless models. Of course men are naturally drawn to the female body, who can blame them? The point is that there is a time and place, and the daily news is not one of them. Placing naked women alongside the daily news as a trivial decoration only serves to strengthen objectification and subservience. But in the democratic world, as much as we may like to see the back of something, we cannot ask for censorship. The Sun must be allowed to publish these images; after all, these women choose to pose for the paper. What we need to turn to instead, is society. We need to educate men AND women that women do not exist to be ornamental, but active members of society. That being a topless model is not something to aspire too. If more people were taught to respect women, and to value a woman on her mind and her being, rather than the proportions of her boobs and arse, then the demise of page 3 would naturally follow.
It’s 2015. Britain is progressing; page 3 IS outdated, and it will eventually fall. And when it does, I’ll be sure to send Dylan Sharpe a gloating tweet.