Entitlement and Page 3

Men feel entitled. They feel entitled to women. They feel entitled to sex from women. We know this because we allow them to feel this way; we teach them to feel this way.

Prostitution exists so that they can buy women. They can buy a woman to have sex with. Porn tells them that men are king. They can give anything to a woman and she will take it, and she will take it with pleasure. If she doesn't take it with pleasure, men can give it to her anyway, because they are in charge and they are entitled to sex. Music videos show them that the ultimate status symbol is to be the powerful well dressed man surrounded by naked women. And if the imagery doesn't get you, the lyrics make certain that everyone is aware that women are there for the taking.

Men feel entitled. We allow them to feel this way by publishing a topless young woman in a national newspaper every day and have done for 43 years. We allow them to feel this way by ignoring the voices that have said enough is enough, and by ignoring the numerous organisations and charities that have joined in to ask that our most widely read national newspaper consider the message that it sends out to society every day. We allow them to feel this way by putting a pink ribbon on a sexual image of a woman touching her breasts every Tuesday and calling it cancer awareness.

Men should not feel this way. No one has a right to another's body. Not a husband, a boyfriend, a relative or a stranger. No one should feel entitled to defend this status quo. No one should actively stand up and say it doesn't matter that these images and messages bombard our society every moment of every day. No one should feel entitled to say that these images have no effect on society. No one should believe that the constant backdrop of these messages in men's lives doesn't feed into the entitlement that some men feel to catcall, touch and rape women. Of course they do. How can they not?

We don't live in a vaccum. We weren't raised in a vaccum. We speak a language because we were brought up with people who spoke that language. We went to school, we watched TV, we read, we talked to friends. We learned. We learned that men should be dominant and powerful and women should be sexy for them.

We are raised to believe that men are entitled. We are all raised to believe that men are entitled to women. This is not going well. We need to make a change. Society needs to make a change. We need to start somewhere. Let's start with No More Page 3.

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.

No More Page 3 and freedom of speech

A frequent argument made by opponents of the the No More Page 3 campaign is one where they suggest that in asking The Sun to stop showing an image of a topless woman on page 3, the campaign is tying to prevent The Sun exercising its freedom of speech. Detractors like to paint a draconian picture of censorship and bans and slippery slopes. The campaign always points out that No More Page 3 is not petitioning the government for a ban. It's politely asking David Dinsmore - the editor of the Sun - to rethink it's 43 year old daily feature of a topless woman.

Opponents say that even if the campaign isn't calling for legislation, it's still trying to stop something being published, and as such is against freedom of speech.

I want to live in a country where The Sun is legally allowed to publish a picture of a topless woman every day.

This does not mean that I won't ask The Sun to stop doing it.

I'm concerned about the effects of this image on society. If I have a concern and I feel that I want to voice it, then I'm free to do so. If I do that in isolation then I have very little chance of effecting any change, so it makes sense to discuss this concern with others to see if anyone feels the same. A group has more power than an individual, so like minded people should unite to voice a shared concern together.

It seems reasonable, when raising concerns over something to also present a possible solution to the problem.

The No More Page 3 campaign has brought together over 190,000 individuals with the same concern -  that they feel that page 3 is detrimental to the position of women in society. We feel that the biggest picture of a woman in a national newspaper being one where she is topless and mute clearly sends the message that a woman's worth is to be pleasing to look at. This affects the way women are percieved as a whole. Society is continually sent the message that men's achievements matter, but women should be valued by their looks and sexual availability.

We are therefore asking The Sun to consider these concerns and to address them.

The Sun is a private publication. It can choose to ignore our collective voice, or it can listen and address the issues as it wishes. If it decides to stop publishing an image of topless young woman daily on page 3 it will be because it thinks that page 3 is now tarnishing rather than enhancing its brand. This is in no way a curb on free speech. This is an example of a company making a commercial decision to help boost sales. Just as it does every single day when it makes calls over content.

The Sun has no legal obligation to act on our concern, and in fact has not up to now. This does not mean that we should stop voicing our concern. The Sun exercises its freedom of speech every day when it publishes it's newspaper. I'm going to exercise mine to ask it to consider the wider effects of page 3.

This blog post was partly inspired by the recent xkcd webcomic entry on free speech, and the many discussions around it.