Page Three Girls - Controversy Over Page Three

Controversy Over Page Three

Page Three has been controversial throughout its history. Critics generally consider it to demean and objectify women and/or regard it as softcore pornography that is inappropriate for publication in a national newspaper readily available to children. Some campaigners have sought legislation to have Page Three banned. Others, wary of calling for government censorship of the press, have sought to convince newspaper editors and owners to voluntarily remove the feature or modify it so that it no longer features toplessness.

A YouGov survey carried out in October 2012 found marked differences in attitude toward Page Three among readers of different newspapers. 61 percent of Sun readers wished to retain the feature, while 24 percent said that the newspaper should stop showing Page Three girls. However, only 4 percent of Guardian readers said the Sun should keep Page Three, while 86 percent said it should be abolished. The poll also found notable differences by gender, with 48 percent of men overall saying that Page Three should be retained, but just 17 percent of women taking that position.

Notable political campaigners for legislative action against Page Three have included Labour Party MPs Clare Short and Harriet Harman, and Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone. The tabloids have often responded to such campaigns with ad hominem attack and mockery. When Short tried in 1986 to introduce a House of Commons bill banning topless models from British newspapers, the Sun branded her "killjoy Clare." When she renewed her campaign against Page Three in 2004, the Sun superimposed her face on a Page Three model's body and accused her of being "fat and jealous." The Sun also branded Harman a "feminist fanatic" and Featherstone a "battleaxe" because of their stances against Page Three.

Tabloid editors have periodically considered eliminating topless models voluntarily, as the Daily Mirror did in the 1980s. During her tenure as deputy editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks argued that Page Three lowered the newspaper's circulation because women readers found the feature offensive. When she became the tabloid's first female editor in January 2003, she was widely expected either to terminate the feature or to modify it so that models would no longer appear topless. However, Brooks changed her position and became a staunch defender of the feature. She later wrote an editorial defending Page Three from its critics, calling its models "intelligent, vibrant young women who appear in 'The Sun' out of choice and because they enjoy the job."

In August 2012, Lucy-Anne Holmes, a writer and actress from Brighton, began a grassroots social media campaign called No More Page 3 with the goal of convincing Dominic Mohan, current editor of the Sun, to voluntarily remove Page Three from the newspaper. Holmes stated that she was moved to begin the campaign during the 2012 Summer Olympics, after noticing that, despite the achievements of Britain's female athletes, the largest photograph of a woman in the nation's biggest-selling newspaper was "a massive image of a beautiful young woman in her knickers." Holmes further argued that Page Three perpetuates the outdated sexist norms of the 1970s, portrays women as sex objects, negatively affects girls' body image, and contributes to a culture of sexual violence against women and girls. Some British media, such as the Guardian, have been supportive of Holmes' goals although commentators in the Telegraph and New Statesman have criticized her campaign, calling it "censorious" and "sinister."

At their September 2012 party conference, some Liberal Democrats, led by former MP Evan Harris, lent support to Holmes' campaign by proposing a party motion to " the projection of women as sex objects to children and adolescents by restricting sexualised images in newspapers and general circulation magazines to the same rules that apply to pre-watershed broadcast media." However, party leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg distanced himself from the motion. In an October 2012 radio interview, Clegg said he did not support a legislative ban on Page Three, believing that government in a liberal society should not dictate the content of newspapers. "If you don't like it, don't buy it … you don't want to have a moral policeman or woman in Whitehall telling people what they can and cannot see," Clegg stated.

The Leveson Inquiry heard arguments for and against Page Three. Representatives of women's groups (including Object and the End Violence Against Women Coalition) argued that Page Three was part of an endemic culture of tabloid sexism that routinely objectified and sexualized women. The inquiry also heard testimony from Sun editor Dominic Mohan, who argued that Page Three was an "innocuous British institution" that had become an "established part of British society." The Leveson report concluded that arguments over Page Three, and the representation of women in the tabloid press more generally, raised "important and sensitive issues which merit further consideration by any new regulator."

In February 2013, Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News International, parent group of the Sun, stated on social networking site Twitter that he was considering replacing Page Three with a "halfway house," whereby Page Three would feature clothed glamor photographs, but not bare breasts.

In April 2013, Girlguiding, the national Girl Guides organization of the United Kingdom, wrote an open letter to Sun editor Dominic Mohan, asking him to end the practice of printing topless photographs on Page Three. The letter, written after the organization's members (girls and women aged between 5 and 25) overwhelmingly voted to endorse the No More Page 3 campaign, called the feature "disrespectful and embarrassing."