Today is a landmark day, Page 3 is no more. I hold many feminist views; equal pay, equal opportunities, freedom from sexual violence and harassment. I defend victims of rape in conversations because the question still exists “well what was she wearing?”
I have never form an opinion on Page 3 models though. I despise The Sun news paper and its leader. I believe that paper skews facts and figures for its own agenda and if we continued to listen to that and The Daily Mail we could have a situation prophesised by Enoch Power where “blood will run through the streets”. But Page 3 models, I neither hated nor liked the idea. And here is why:
My argument comes down to this. Rita Ora appeared on the BBC One show last week wearing a cream suit which showed a good amount of skin. Even my first thought was, wow, that is a lot of skin for a programme aired at seven o’clock but this got me thinking. As people we expect a woman to dress accordingly and if these standards are not met some judgment is placed on the head of this woman.
So if Rita Ora or Helen from Hackney wants to bear themselves it should be their choice to do so. Woman can have the freedom to expose themselves if they should feel the need. They should not however, ever feel pressured to expose themselves. This would be assault. For example I am given to understand that Zoo and Nuts used to host competitions in nightclubs where drunken girls could “audition” to be in the magazines. Whilst I am not saying these women were forced into this situations there certainly seems to be a culture on preying on the venerable, ie drunken people.
Page 3 was a tradition in The Sun and compared to the images one can find if you input a few choice words into Google it was very tame. It probably was about time to retire the concept.
What are we left with? Well adult pornography would be one. Again this is something I don’t necessary have an issue with providing the actors are consenting adults. The issue I have with pornography is that we live in a country which has limited sex education. Therefore young boys and girls in their teenage years use this as almost a point of reference for how they and they sexual experience measure up. This can cause girls and boys to do things they are not ready for and completely ruin their ideas of sex leaving them feeling used.
Another issue facing us is that women in adverts and magazines are airbrushed leaving us lesser mortals feeling more than just disheartened when trying to compare ourselves. Perhaps we should demand magazine and adverts carry disclosures informing us all that actually these images are fake and not true depictions.
Our society is full of double standards. Men can be as prolific as they want in their conquests but a woman is seen as somewhat lesser if they have racked up a few sexual partners. Society wants women to be virginal yet available. Men need to be available and not virginal. We categorize people into boxes and when we cannot categorize we can almost choose to ignore the person completely as to not rock the metaphysical boat.
In Neolithic times the sight of a naked person would not have been a cause for alarm. We have moved on since then to the point now where if Rita Ora wears a top that is judged to be too revealing for the time of days the BBC receives several complaints. They were her breasts. There is a large proportion of the population that has been breast fed (of course that is another story altogether that I am not going to get into).
Page 3 was not the worst thing in the world but I can’t say I am sad to see its demise. I don’t really have many feelings. But I certainly don’t think that consenting people showing their skin is something to hate. Page 3 was perhaps more real in terms of body image than most magazines.
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