Sexual Harassment Panda
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Joined: 30/9/2005
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In response to the initial Page 3 question though, yes they are outdated and of course they are sexist.
Look, I don't want to be seen defending the fricking Sun newspaper, but I don't think it's inherently sexist. In the grand scheme of things some lady with her tits out is pretty fucking innocuous, really. Not the worst thing The Sun has ever done in their long, long history of fail and suck.
If the model in question was photographed in a demeaning way, or if the picture was accompanied by a derogatory text, I would understand why people would think it was sexist or misogynist. I think people really need to get over this way of thinking that printing pictures of naked people and wanting to see those pictures is something that's wrong and needs to be stamped out.
Personally I've never been particularly outraged or offended by Page 3 as it stands alone, though I think it plays a part in the bigger picture debate regarding objectification. However, just because something is relativelytame, doesn't make it any less sexist. Page 3 is very much like a Carry On Film; dated and somewhat immature by modern sensibilities, it's easily dismissed as harmless, especially by people of a reasonable level of maturity and sense of irony (and yes, there are far, far worse things out there to be getting our kickers in a twist about I know), but it is still essentially about a (normally) young female being paid to get her tits out for the benefit of a predominately male audience. There wasn't (still isn't unless you count the undies shots in the problem pages) anything that provided the same titillation for a gender role reversal, and given newspapers are not age restricted, can project a a confusing message to young males and females about the value of the female body.
Ugh.
A very simplistic way of looking at something to fit an argument.
Let's just overlook the fact that these women aren't being forced to take on this career path, they've chosen it. And it's not society telling them that all they're good for or are going to get by on is their looks. If you ever see any of the bios of these women a lot have/are working towards attaining university degrees, so they're normally quite intellectual and therefore capable of having made a rather informed/considered decision. They may also have other business smarts, she may be a rather unlikable figure, but you can only admire what Katie Price has built for herself off that page 3 platform.
You also seem to overlook the fact that these women are reaping the benefits both financially and for the compliments/esteem boost they get from it as well. Admittedly there will be some negative mental aspects but I can imagine these are fewer in comparison to the positive take aways.
Most of the "Page 3 is sexist because it just teaches to objectify women remarks" tend to come from prudish types or those judging without ever having really looked at the page of the paper, and tend to overlook the fact that the picture is normally accompanied by a bio and an interview rather than a "phwooooooooar" or "sex on legs" style comment.
Any argument that Page 3 is sexist (against women) can easily be countered by the fact it's sexist against men. It's exploiting a weakness in men to make money, and these women are rightly taking advantage of this fact.
At the end of the day we're human beings, we are on the whole rather sexual beings, men like looking at women, women like looking at men, and sometimes they like looking at each other because there's always going to be that sexual attraction. It's not objectifying a gender, it's not offensive, it's not out dated, it's nature.
We also need to stop worrying about children becoming too exposed to sex. A pair of tits on page 3 is going to do them no more harm than the pictures of wars, terrorist victims, thugs and acts of violence etc. We seem to live in a world where violence is becoming more and more accepted than a bit of exposed flesh.
If you're worried about the message a pair of norks in a paper will give to children, then I'd advise you to look back over the years and see that we seem to have managed ok this far, the human race hasn't gone backwards, in fact equality is making positive progress constantly. Back when I and many others were younger, you'd stumble across far worse; be it a razzle in the woods or a deck of naughty cards in your older brothers room. It didn't warp out minds or make us objectify women. We grew up ok and turned out morally fine. All it did was make us giggle, make us show it off to friends, or get a bit of a tingly feeling down there, we didn't even consider anything deeper than that, we were more worried about mum and dad finding it and confiscating it/telling us off.
EDIT: I don't buy The Sun or any newspaper for that matter, so this isn't a disgruntled reader/ogler reaction.
< Message edited by Sexual Harassment Panda -- 11/2/2013 11:27:27 PM >
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