Boobs are not news: No more page Three.

Published on March 18, 2014

Societycafebabel Scotland

Cafébabel: Why do you think it’s im­por­tant to get rid of Page 3?

Ceris Aston: There are a fair few rea­sons. One of the things that gets me is a lot of peo­ple think it’s re­ally triv­ial. They ask, “If you’re a fem­i­nist fo­cus­ing on cam­paigns, then why this? Aren’t there more im­por­tant things to worry about?” The fact that peo­ple see it as so triv­ial shows how per­va­sive and dam­ag­ing it is. In the most widely read news­pa­per in the UK (12.4m peo­ple read the print edi­tion every week, Ed.), women are por­trayed as ob­jects with big boobs, whereas men can act, men can change the world, and women just have their tits out next to that- it’s a hor­ri­ble mes­sage. The fact that so many peo­ple don’t think it’s im­por­tant makes me want to do the cam­paign all the more - to high­light why these things do mat­ter.

I’ve spo­ken to so many women who say, “I pretty much spent my en­tire teenage years feel­ing un­com­fort­able, be­cause guys would be com­par­ing me to the im­ages on Page 3, feel­ing it was ac­cept­able to rate how good some­one’s tits were.” It’s been a re­ally dam­ag­ing force. If Page 3 is a sym­bol of the sex­ism in our so­ci­ety, then chang­ing it could be a sym­bol that so­ci­ety is chang­ing.

Cafébabel: Do you think Page 3 is a relic of a by­gone era when sex­ism was more wide­spread and in­grained?

Ceris: Yes- it comes from an era where it was seen as OK to be re­ally openly sex­ist. These days misog­y­nists say, “oh now they have these sex­ual ha­rass­ment things, peo­ple used to think it was a com­pli­ment if you pinched their bot­tom or called them gor­geous at work.”

Cafébabel: Do you think it cre­ates an ideal of fe­male beauty that’s not re­al­is­tic, putting pres­sure on women, par­tic­u­larly young girls? Could it be linked to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of eat­ing dis­or­ders in so­ci­ety today?

Ceris: I think so. One of the ar­gu­ments The Sun have used to de­fend Page 3 is that “it’s a cel­e­bra­tion of fe­male beauty”, but it isn’t- it’s the cel­e­bra­tion of a re­ally small sec­tion of fe­males, I guess 18-22 year olds, who have big boobs, are mostly white and slim and have fig­ures most women don’t have. I think it’s enor­mously dam­ag­ing to self-es­teem.

So for a lot of girls grow­ing up, there is this ex­pec­ta­tion from so­ci­ety that this is what a woman should look like and this is what a woman’s role should be- to be at­trac­tive and sex­u­ally avail­able. That’s the image given by Page 3. It’s very ob­jec­ti­fy­ing.

None of the rea­sons The Sun have come up with for re­tain­ing it are in any way valid- “a cheeky bit of fun”- it’s not fun. The Sun is a fam­ily news­pa­per- it’s some­thing peo­ple grow up with. Whether or not your par­ents buy it, it’s still there. I don’t think the “if you don’t like it don’t buy it” ar­gu­ment holds water at all.

Cafébabel: Has there been any in­di­ca­tion that The Sun’s ed­i­tors and own­ers are lis­ten­ing?

Ceris: Ru­pert Mur­doch replied to a tweet from a sup­porter, which was say­ing “Page 3 is so last cen­tury”, and he said “maybe you’re right- we are con­sid­er­ing a halfway house with glam­orous fash­ion­istas.” Well… they’re lis­ten­ing to the cam­paign. I’m not sure that’s re­ally what we’re en­vis­ag­ing as an ideal so­lu­tion, but we are being lis­tened to.

The Sun are run­ning Check’em Tues­days in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Cop­pafeel Cam­paign to get young women to ex­am­ine their own breasts for early signs of breast can­cer. Peo­ple are spec­u­lat­ing that the rea­son the Sun are doing this is be­cause they need to re­brand Page 3 as some­thing po­ten­tially pos­i­tive, be­cause it’s get­ting a lot of neg­a­tive pub­lic­ity. Cop­pafeel is a great cam­paign. I think it’s sad, though, that the only way The Sun could think of to high­light the cause of breast can­cer and early de­tec­tion was to use a teenage semi-naked woman in a sex­u­alised pose. It’s a cel­e­bra­tion of the boobs that suf­fer­ers of breast can­cer don’t nec­es­sar­ily have. It equates de­sir­abil­ity and fem­i­nin­ity with ‘per­fect’ breasts.

Cafébabel: How’s the cam­paign going in terms of fig­ures, no­table suc­cesses…

Ceris: Over 100 MPs have signed, there’s sup­port from MPs, MSPs, and Mem­bers of the Welsh as­sem­bly, quite a few celebrity fig­ures- even Rus­sell Brand re­cently sup­ported the cam­paign.

No More Page 3 has spon­sored Chel­tenham Women’s foot­ball team, which raises aware­ness for both the cam­paign and for women’s sport, which doesn’t get enough at­ten­tion.

Cafébabel: What do you think are the most in­sid­i­ous man­i­fes­ta­tions of sex­ism, Page 3 aside?

Ceris: Call­ing at­ten­tion to some­one’s gen­der be­cause it’s sur­pris­ing. In sport es­pe­cially, you hear “amaz­ingly it was a woman who achieved this”.

I re­cently saw a list of trustees for some big or­gan­i­sa­tion and it paren­the­sised the fact that one of these peo­ple was a woman. But it’s ir­rel­e­vant. So often gen­der is ir­rel­e­vant but peo­ple bring it in if it seems sur­pris­ing. If it’s still sur­pris­ing that women are in po­si­tions of power, then we’ve got some way to go yet.

No More Page 3 Poem by Sab­rina Mah­fouz

Cafébabel: Lucy-Anne Holmes said she started the cam­paign by chance using change.​org - she just de­cided to start up a pe­ti­tion, and then she was sur­prised when it re­ally gained trac­tion. Do you think the in­ter­net has an im­por­tant role to play in em­pow­er­ing so­ci­ety to change things and take on es­tab­lished in­sti­tu­tions, show­ing peo­ple things don’t al­ways have to be the way they have been?

Ceris: The in­ter­net’s a funny thing be­cause it can em­power us but it can also re­ally dis­em­power us. It’s a de­moc­ra­tis­ing force, be­cause, on Twit­ter, for ex­am­ple, it doesn’t mat­ter who you are, it just mat­ters if your voice gets heard, and it can.

The in­ter­net has a lot of po­ten­tial. It’s a way of gath­er­ing peo­ple who care about the same is­sues. I don’t know how this cam­paign would have hap­pened with­out so­cial media.

Of course, there’s also the risk of get­ting dis­tracted by lots and lots of pic­tures of cats!

Cafébabel: On the No More Page 3 site, it seems em­pow­er­ing for peo­ple to be able to tell their story and to see that other peo­ple have also ex­pe­ri­enced the same things. Peo­ple aren’t iso­lated in their own ex­pe­ri­ences.

Ceris: Yes, the cam­paign em­pow­ers peo­ple who have been feel­ing so un­com­fort­able about this for so long, but didn’t even think, “I can’t change it” be­cause chang­ing it didn’t even come into their heads. But then some­one stands up and says, “ac­tu­ally this has no place in a news­pa­per, it’s not news, it’s a young woman with her tits out to tit­il­late men- that’s not news,” and every­body else sud­denly agrees- “you’re right, it’s af­fected me for so long, it’s af­fected how I see my­self, how men see me, I don’t like it.” It’s amaz­ing when that hap­pens.

Sign the pe­ti­tion.

Join No More Page 3 Ed­in­burgh.

At­tend No More Page 3 Ed­in­burgh's event "Boobs Aren't News: media, power & page 3" on 2 April.