Oh, Tits!

August 31, 2012
By: Hayley Devlin

 

Now then, I go to university in Manchester and my friends go to university in Twickenham, Bath, Plymouth and Sheffield. I remember starting first year and fearing the fact that we were all going to be so separated and far apart. What were we going to do?! Then I remembered that despite our locations, lots of things would stay the same. They would all dance to same songs in nightclubs, drink the same types of drink, watch the same TV shows online, see the same news and read the same newspapers. Which was wonderful really, because it meant we would still have the same general things to discuss as well as any new advances within our own lives.

Of course, it is not just my friends and I that see and hear and read the same things though, the entire nation does. Therefore when a friend of mine approached me about her ‘No More Page 3’ Campaign, I was more than a little intrigued…

Let us review. The daily newspapers are filled with news from around the globe, celebrity gossip, the weather forecasts, important political views and boobs.

Wait, what?! Oh yes, Page 3.

Now, before I go any further I am just going to state right here and right now that I have nothing against boobs and those who get theirs out for a living. Nor am I am person with strong religious views, a person who hates sex, those who are sexually liberated, sexy underwear or any of that. I like sex and underwear just as much as the next person and my first year flat was famous for our kitchen wall, quite lovingly decorated with Nuts magazine cut outs. I just do not feel it necessary to have boobs in a newspaper, because boobs are not news, they are just not.  They did not just appear on planet earth, they are not a new phenomenon, they have been around for a while and there is not a female on the planet born without them.

This sparked the No More Page 3 Campaign,  which kick started  during the Olympics as a friend noticed that even though Jessica Ennis had just secured the hopes of the nation in winning gold in her Heptathlon event, the largest image of any female in The Sun was still the day’s Page 3 girl.

It is almost laughable. A women who has put her heart and soul into 4 years of training for one event, who was made the face of the London 2012 games which have, arguably, been the most successful games to date, still was not worth as much page space as a girl who has her boobs out. Brilliant. The Suffragettes are probably turning in their graves, spitting feathers and thinking to themselves ‘Well, what was the bloody point?!’

And it is true, what was the point? HerUni is not suggesting that women have to start burning their bras or joining strong Feminist rebellions, but let us be honest here, is it not just a little bit rubbish that women are still being portrayed as items of sexual desire in a family newspaper? It is 2012, as women we have come too far and worked too hard to be viewed equally for some newspaper to undermine it on a daily basis. At least Nuts and Zoo and Maxim and Playboy dedicate entire magazines to women. At least with them it really is an industry, a career. Page 3 just seems out dated, sexist and, more than anything, silly.

Getting rid of Page 3 will help promote women in a far healthier light and besides, it is not like we get the torso of Dave, 21, from South Shields on Page 5 do we? It is sheer lack of equality here people.

Boobs, it’s nothing personal. As someone who is very proud of her own, I do promise that. It is merely a feeling that in this day and age people should be able to open the nation’s most widely read newspaper without seeing Amanda, 21, from London in an all be it very pretty, but still rather skimpy La Senza thong barely covering her glorious assets. Is it not time we finally scrap the idea that it is okay to see women as blow up dolls?

It looks like change o’clock is upon us, it is now or never ladies! So roll up, roll up and, please, sign here if you agree: http://www.change.org/nomorepage3

 

Hayley Devlin

 

Image: https://www.facebook.com/NoMorePage3