Page 3 -Smut Or A British Institution?

I don't much like the idea of either men or women in sexualised poses per se.
To me it doesn't give the idea of them being sexual beings/sexually attractive, more like sexual objects you can do whatever you want with. Still a personal opinion though.

But the real problem with women isn't some sexualised pictures here and there, it's that it's the only available model and it's used everywhere (and out of context, you don't really need naked women to advertise furniture).

EDIT: I don't think I've ever seen men in sexualised poses in newspapers/adverts/whatever though. Some topless guy here and there, but most certainly not sexualised.

 

Glad it's gone to be honest.

However, I think some of the campaigns backing its removal were examples of feminazism.

 

Glad someone else said it before me.

Yep, I wouldn't have liked it .

 

You know what's odd?

We only ever had a clothed (bikini or) girl on page 3 of our Sun paper(males had their own page iirc) but public toplessness for both genders is legal in Canada.

Who would have thunk it eh!

LFD

 

I think one newspaper had a "page 7 fella"
Trying to answer any critics to the women giving us advice on worldly issues

 

Never quite sure what people mean by feminazism. Be genuinely interested to know what it means to you as I see it used in the media and online quite a bit. Is Harriet Harman a feminazi?

 

Cos Canada is the neatest place ever (no sarcasm)

 

Harriet harm-man is an architypal feminazi. To me a feminazi is a woman who takes the following literally

Originally by Timothy Leary iirc

Don't get me wrong I don't think its a huge issue, it's not culturaly ingrained and institutionaly enforced any where its just a term used to describe a minority of the more militant feminists who seem to be campaigning for positive descrimination.

Feminism = equality =
Feminaziism = positive descrimination =

 

She's definitely been a long term campaigner against Page 3 and been branded as a feminist fanatic (and if I recall correctly a loony leftie as well). You haven't quite got the spelling of her name right, btw...

An alternative view on feminists who are in favour of positive discrimination like, for example, women-only short lists for party candidates, is that they want to see measures in place which speed up change rather than waiting for it all to come right on its own.

There are 148 women MPs vs 504 male MPs in the UK today. There are 5 women in Cabinet out of 22. In FTSE 100 companies less than 25% of full time board members are women. The gender pay gap has narrowed to only 17.5%. Perhaps they should be forgiven for feeling a bit impatient (given that equal pay legislation was introduced in the 1970s).

 

Well I would suggest that there are other factors that contribute to those statistics aswell as institutionalised sexism.

With regards to ftse 100 company's i would reccomend reading the book snakes in suits by Paul Babiak and Robert D Hare. In it the author tracks sociopathy within businesses and finds that the majority of successfull business men meet many of the criteria to be diagnosed as sociopaths. The self beleif and drive and selfish nature of sociopaths is very well suited for climbing the corporate ladder (according to the author) and sociopathy is far more common among men than women. This would go some way to explaining why men may be better represented in high power business positions.

With regards to politics women have the right to stand for parliament (1918) and the right to vote people into it (1918 or 1928 depending on how you look at it). More men than women stand for parliament (possibly linked to the above point) and that will inevitably skew the figures. The voting turn outs in the UK have been pretty pathetic in recent years so trying to argue that women are intentionally not voted in wouldn't work as less than 70% of the population bothered to vote. As Margaret's thatcher made it to pm in 1979 and stayed there for over 10yrs it's clear we were capable of sexualy unbiased voting and i find it hard to beleive that we have moved backward in that respect.

With regards to the cabinet well that's chosen by the pm (correct me if I'm wrong) so is entirely the responsibility of the pm who we all collectively elect so basically it's our fault if we elect a sexist idiot.

The pay deficit I have no real explaination for though. If there is such a huge difference between men and women's earning potential then I totaly agree that has to change. I have heard that it's a contended point but same as South law I have not looked into my self to give my own verdict on the figures.

I do accept that sexism is still a real issue and that the glass ceeling may well still be faced and that these are inexcusable. I don't however think positive descrimination is the way forward. Descrimination is descrimination how ever well meaning the ideals behind it.

I don't think that every slight women face (perceived or real) is automatically the result of men conspiring and intentionally trying to keep women down. It's a massively complex issue that would be better off being discussed in its own thread if you want to carry the dialogue on.

 

I wonder though, if your dad buys the sun everyday and you don't see any pictures of women in mainstream media doing anything except modelling for the pleasures of men, would you even think that the option of a leading role politics is there?

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...volution-page-3-feminist-the-sun-gender-roles

 

I've explained later in the thread.

 

I don't think that it's the seeing of breasts which is really the issue. I think it's got more to do with having pictures of topless young women placed prominently in a national newspaper purely for men's titillation. (No pun intended.) It ain't about the breasts, it's about the message it gives regarding womens' worth and place in society.

How do you assess the 'actual harm' with something like this? I'm curious.

The majority of Sun readers are morons. They think whatever Murdock tells them to.

 

My view is that this probably worse than it was before.

If the problem with page 3 was that it was outdated, irrelevant to a newspaper, inappropriate content for a mainstream news source, sent a negative message about women's role in public life, demeaning to women, unequal and sleazy, none of this is resolved by putting the girls in bikinis or underwear.

Now we have all the problems listed above, plus the buying into that kind of modern puritanism that views breasts as some kind of sinful body part - the same prudishness that gets breastfeeding women told to cover up in department stores etc.

Bikini babes are no less sexually exploitative and no less inappropriate for a newspapers than topless models, they've just singled out one body part and decided that it's now "naughty", presumably because they judge that society is becoming more conservative about nakedness so they'll sell more papers to people who are too dumb to realise that it's the context of scantilly-clothed, provocatively-posed, babes in a newspaper that is inappropriate, not some simpleton "breasts are bad" principle.