[Katdogbirdduck]

Feminists

Sun drops topless 'Page Three girls' after campaign

Quote:

British newspaper The Sun has ended a 45-year tradition of picturing topless models on page three, scrapping a daily feature denounced by women's rights groups since the tabloid launched it in the early years of Rupert Murdoch's ownership.

Murdoch had staunchly defended "Page Three girls" for decades. But pressure on Britain's best-selling paper had intensified in recent years, with a campaign drawing support from politicians, trade unions, universities and a breast cancer charity, among many others.

The Times, also owned by Murdoch's News Corp (NWSA.O), reported that The Sun had decided to quietly drop Page Three girls and that the tycoon had signed off on the decision. It said topless women would still feature on the dedicated Page3.com website, which is behind a paywall.

A spokesman for The Sun said: "Page three of The Sun is where it's always been, between pages two and four, and you can find Lucy from Warwick at Page3.com."

He declined to comment on whether the move was permanent.

The change has come into effect since Monday, when page three featured a model wearing a bra, while Tuesday's edition showed women in bikinis running on a beach.

Supporters of the "No More Page Three" campaign hailed the change as a step forward for gender equality in Britain.

"The sexualisation, the objectification of women in this way was basically saying to all of us that what mattered, frankly, were our breasts not our brains," said opposition Labour member of parliament (MP) Stella Creasy.

Page Three was not "some great British institution like James Bond or moaning about the weather", Creasy told BBC Radio 4. "That's not the world we wanted to live in any more."

The Sun had been in severe decline until Murdoch bought it in 1969, turned it into a tabloid and introduced a brash, irreverent style of popular journalism so successful that circulation rocketed from 800,000 to 4 million in a decade.

In line with a trend affecting most of the British press, its circulation has dropped sharply since the glory days. It slipped to just below 2 million in October last year for the first time since 1971.

"OLD-FASHIONED"

The end of Page Three girls was not expected to make a big difference to sales. The Irish edition of the newspaper stopped publishing the images in August 2013, with little impact on circulation.

Introduced a year after Murdoch took the helm, the photos were part of a vein of British popular culture in the 1970s that also relished jokes with crude sexual content. From the start, feminists opposed Page Three girls as sexist.

But for decades, The Sun was ruthless in defending the images, as former Labour minister Clare Short found when she spoke out against them in 2003.

The paper retaliated with a crudely doctored image of Short's head set on an overweight topless woman's body, under the headline: "Fat, jealous Clare brands Page 3 porn". It also parked a busload of topless models outside Short's home.

In recent years, an ever broader coalition of people and organisations had voiced their opposition.

In June 2013, Green MP Caroline Lucas wore a No More Page Three teeshirt during a parliamentary session. She was told to put her jacket on as she was violating the dress code in the chamber.

Lucas said it was ironic that her teeshirt was deemed inappropriate while The Sun, with its racy page three, was available to buy from eight outlets in the parliamentary buildings.

Murdoch posted a tweet in September last year that suggested his support for Page Three was no longer as resolute as it had been.

"Brit feminists who bang on about page 3 never buy the paper ... I think old fashioned but readers disagree," the 83-year-old tycoon wrote.

[godfather dust]

Hopefully sales plummit, and they realize they shouldn't pander to people who probably don't buy their paper anyway. (Leftists don't read Rubert Murdoch publications.)

[rudebwoy]

Damn I grew up on this stuff.

[RawGod]

Page 3 grew out of the permissiveness and rebellion of the 1960s and '70s - as did Charlie Hebdo, incidentally. Those days are gone.

Interesting that as recently as 2003 the paper could launch a cheeky fightback against critics. Those days are gone too.

[runsonmagic]

[Dusty]

[Suits]

(01-20-2015 07:13 PM)Katdogbirdduck Wrote:  

Quote:

The paper retaliated with a crudely doctored image of Short's head set on an overweight topless woman's body, under the headline: "Fat, jealous Clare brands Page 3 porn". It also parked a busload of topless models outside Short's home.

Game recognized.

[kbell]

The women in the shirts are pretty much what I expected the protesters too look like, just thinner.

I can't imagine topless women in a newspaper though.

[dog]

Weren't feminists strongly behind "free the nipple" as recently as 6 months ago? But now topless women are bad? I'm confused.

[Geomann180]

They should never have done this.

Give them an inch...

G

[britchard]

Oh no what a feminist victory! Now I'll have to take the excruciatingly long act of going onto the Sun website to look at the page 3 girls!

[Candlejack]

Page 3 was hilarious. They would show a topless airhead 8/9 with an "intelligent" comment she supposedly made like "Animal rights are important and Ministers should be commended for animal rights policy." If I wanted intelligent commentary I would read a broadsheet biyatch, I want glorious titties.

[GeroMeroHero]

I think there needs to be a
best of page 3" campaign to raise awareness...and make more feel inadequate

[Samseau]

(01-20-2015 07:52 PM)RawGod Wrote:  

Page 3 grew out of the permissiveness and rebellion of the 1960s and '70s - as did Charlie Hebdo, incidentally. Those days are gone.

Interesting that as recently as 2003 the paper could launch a cheeky fightback against critics. Those days are gone too.

Amazing how the leftist libertinism has resulted in fascism. Behold the power of unintended consequences.

Before you had a Christian culture with chaste women who were prude.

Now you have a feminist bitch culture with sult alpha chasing women who are prude.

British men definitely lost out on this deal. They should have kept the Christian women.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

There are ever less reasons for men to read the bloody Newspapers. Let feminists buy them all and spend their empowered money on it.

Let all media sink and burn - it's essentially paid propaganda and should be free anyway.

[Surreyman]

I don't think this is a feminist victory, they've been on at page 3 for years unsuccessfully.

I think page 3 just lost its relevance in the age of internet porn and mobile internet. It's not edgy any more.

[Saweeep]

(01-21-2015 04:54 AM)Surreyman Wrote:  

I don't think this is a feminist victory, they've been on at page 3 for years unsuccessfully.

I think page 3 just lost its relevance in the age of internet porn and mobile internet. It's not edgy any more.

Agreed.

It wouldn't surprise me if £££ has a part to play here.

There's a reason why advertising space on page three of a magazine/newspaper is always the most expensive (bar the covers).

[Parlay44]

The sun has finally set on the British empire

[SamuelBRoberts]

I've been looking for an archive of Page 3 girls but it doesn't look like anybody bothered to keep one.
So that's something that's gone, evidently.

[Glaucon]

So we are going back to the victorian era where even the legs of chairs and pianos was covered not to induce sexual fantasies?

Come on

[cibo]

Page 3 is as much a British institution as complaining about everything, eating shitty sandwiches or understatement.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

...and in musical circles, Paul Weller will now have to figure out a substitute lyric when he sings a song he wrote when he was with The Jam, "Mr. Clean" (from the excellent All Mod Cons album).

That song's reference to page three was the first I'd ever heard of it. In it, he's razzing an upwardly mobile Yuppie type who has taken to the Times instead of the Sun:

"Smart blue suit and you went to Cambridge too
You miss Page Three, but the Times is right for you."

[Tex Pro]

LOL!

The only reason people (men) even buy The Sun is for its page 3. Expect sales to plummet.

[Praetor Lupus]

I can't even get remotely annoyed about this. I never bought that shitrag masquerading as a newspaper and I can't say I'll miss its stable of utterly generic and bland glamour models.

[etshella]

Price of progress.