Prejudice in Briefs: Why Page Three Is Toxic to All Women

[redqueen]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mobileweb/caroline-criadoperez/page-3-ban-petition_b_1898111.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008


"Don't like it? Don't buy it!" So says the ever-helpful internet commenter. Sweetly thinking they're the first to make this insightful point. And at first sight it really does seem like the answer to my prudish eyes, that can't cope with a bit of flesh. Just don't look at it. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?

Unfortunately, sage as this advice is, it fails to address the reasons behind the No More Page Three campaign. Because the problem with Page 3 is not contained within that page. The problem with Page Three is that women's main function in the UK's highest circulating paper is adornment. The problem with Page Three is what happens to people after they have seen that page and its context over and over again, for days, months, years. The problem with Page Three is that these people make up the society that I, and other women, have to live in. So although I'd love a single action of mine to have the power to change an entire society, I sadly fear that my not buying the Sun,or not looking at Page Three, just isn't going to cut it.

...

I've written about the treatment meted out to Clare Short when she took on the Sun. Like News in Briefs, the Sun's behaviour is highly indicative of their worldview, where the usefulness of women exists in direct correlation to their attractiveness (as judged by the Sun's editorial team). Short's arguments were given short shrift. Instead, the Sun chose to make their argument by emphasising Short's fatness, frumpiness, ugliness and - god help us - oldness. Their message? If you're not 'good' enough to be a Page Three girl, your opinions are irrelevant - and considering how relevant Page Three girls' opinions are, well, why do I, only a woman, even bother writing? (cue inevitable comment telling me to shut up and make a sandwich)

But let's move beyond the Sun and have a look at the wider world in which it exists. Let's consider a certain US Secretary of State, who dared to bare her make-up-less face in public. It's not so much that the coverage was mainly negative and shocked: it's that there was any coverage at all. This was not just any woman going without make-up, it was arguably the most powerful woman in the world. The position of the US means that her decisions affect many of us materially - and yet the world's media spent about a week fretting over the meaning of her wearing glasses.

...

I love the sarcasm in the first paragraphs.

[seabeyond]

1. people just do not get that pornification effect ALL of us. i love the point, any woman with voice

time spent judging her appearance not opinion. and page three girls certainly do not have opinions, just a tit.

pretty damn clear

i will read the whole, later

[ismnotwasm]

2. Wow,

Let's consider a world where 92% of girls under 22 say that 'they hate their bodies'. Let's consider this unemotionally: even in a world where looks are all for women, it is hardly likely that 92% of these women's bodies will be worthy of hatred. So why do they hate them so much? Let's look at another finding: 63% of these women want to be glamour models rather than teachers and doctors. I can already hear the cries of 'correlation doesn't equal causation' and so it doesn't.

One thing I tell people, is that male desire is not a compliment
It is very, very hard to make myself understood when I say it. I have mutual trust and desire with my mate, but say I was single? Middle aged now, much of the bullshit has slowed down. Still not gone, but going, which is a freedom older women can express only if they understand what I mean. (So getting 'hit on' is supposed to have special meaning for me. I still 'got' it. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I've had enough, thank you very much)
Too many never get there

It's so much harder for young women, inundated with so much more bullshit.

Female Body image is perverted for what is perceived as desirable. No more, no less. I'm not talking about aesthetics, beauty, these things can be admired as art, even desired as human beings desire beauty, what I'm talking about is conforming to false destructive standards that are meaningless once your clear the smoke and mirrors

Fuck that. An example; I explained to a young woman complaining about her breasts after childbirth, that I was perfectly satisfied with mine (and I am too) not to tell her how she should feel, but to let her know how she could feel. How her breasts are not 'ruined' I do little things like this often with the young women I work with--trust me they're used to it; they'll start topics just to get me going, but they do listen and discuss--try to give them a small part of the experience of loving their bodies without external pressure, and to still those internal voices.

Many of them good at loving their bodies; eating healthful things, exercising rather than continual dieting, trying not to base self worth on bullshit standards, but there always seems to be a sort of glass ceiling, a barrier. Might as well call it old fashioned sexism. It literally kills.

[MadrasT]

3. "male desire is not a compliment"

I have made this same statement many times.

People act as if I came from another planet when I say that, and explain that, no, I actually have absolutely no desire to be thought of as "attractive" by "the opposite sex". I don't give a flying fuck, care a rat's ass, it isn't even on my radar.

They think I'm lying, I'm asexual, I'm a freak, I'm not normal... the reactions I get to this position are absolutely amazing.

Then I get: "Well MOST women care if the opposite sex finds them attractive." (The implication being, that I just ain't right, therefore, my opinion is dismissed as being the perspective of an insignificant outlier.)

Because, y'know, BIOLOGY has made it so that men like to look at women and stuff and therefore I should feel good if I catch their eye.

[redqueen]

5. I didn't get that myself till recently.

It just didn't make sense.

I was raised in a very sexist household. These ideas are hardly ever questioned. It's little wonder that hardly anyone understands.

And its fucking idiotic to point to the fact that few understand it as some kind of proof that you're incorrect. (Go back a century, and hear the same dumbass bullshit 'well most women agree that women shouldn't wear pants so blah blah fucking blah.')

[ismnotwasm]

6. I get stunned silences too

It is hard to explain. I can explain it better to a certain type of honest men than women sometimes. Because they will admit how they evaluate women. It's also a very good head space to be in, to be found sexually wanting in some way is no fun--unless you don't give a shit, then it is.

Why should being taken apart each part evaluated and found acceptable or wanting, be a fucking compliment for anybody?

[redqueen]

4. Over a billion dollars are spent on breast augmentations annually.

There's a lot riding on the idea that imperfect boobs are unacceptable, intolerable, ruined, etc.