No More Page 3 and choice

The problem with page 3 is the picture, not the woman in the picture.

The problem is the message that this image of a topless woman sends, not the topless woman herself. This message would be the same even if the image was computer generated, or if it was of a clothed woman sitting at a man's feet. The message is clear: women's role is to keep men happy.

The picture on page 3 is generally the biggest picture of a woman in The Sun every day. And that picture is one where she is topless and mute. Even a very surface level analysis of this fact makes it entirely clear how The Sun feels that women should be valued; for their attractiveness to men, and not for their intellect or achievements.

Opponents of the No More Page 3 campaign frequently put forward the argument that the model has chosen to be on page 3, but this fact makes no difference to a critical analysis of the message that page 3 gives to society.

Discussions on the issues with page 3 shouldn't be centred on the choices of individual women, but rather be about the representation of women - all women. How women are represented in the media matters. It feeds into how women are valued and treated. This daily background message of men's power and women's subordination is a constant reinforcement of women's place in the social hierarchy. The message is clear: men achieve and women should be pretty and sexy for them.

Reducing the debate to sexy women's choice vs jealous women's offence is a very convenient way to place the onus of page 3 on women, not men. On the women who choose to be in the pictures, and not on the men who decided to commission and publish them, or the men who want the right to see topless women in a newspaper. To frame page 3 in terms of a woman's choice allows these men to take no responsibility at all, and therefore not to have to examine their role in the objectification of women.

Page 3 is male centred entitlement over young women's bodies for profit. That someone has chosen to have a topless picture taken of them in no way negates this fact.