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The commentators                    21-01-15

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The Sun's 2014 page 3 girls...

...and the more modest Kentonline crew

...on Page Three

The Sun's retreat is a straw in the wind – it will take much more to blow away the idea that women are bodies, while men are people. Katharine Sladden thinks no other campaign has done as much to inspire a new generation of young feminists as No More Page 3. Stella Creasy thinks it's a small victory maybe, but a seismic one nevertheless. The calls for change it heralds will not stop but grow stronger every day as those who want a better world see progress is possible.
- Polly Toynbee, The Guardian

The Sun still doesn’t get – or care - what it was that made Page 3 so utterly demeaning. Far from being ‘banned’, the page has just been altered slightly to give the impression of moving into the 21st century. The space will still feature a picture of a woman; the only difference is that now she will be allowed to wear a bra, which sends the slightly strange message that it was the model’s nipples that were the problem.
- Lucy Hunter Johnson, The Independent

Page 3 always had a sell-by date, a fact reluctantly acknowledged by Rupert Murdoch in a tweet in which he called it “old-fashioned”. The reality is that a society evolving towards greater equality could never tolerate Page 3 in the long term, especially now we know so much more about the extent of violence against women and girls.
- Joan Smith, The Guardian

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Page 3 hasn’t disappeared - it has simply switched to the internet, where it will look even cheesier and more old-fashioned against the sewer of hard-core filth available to all at the tap of a smartphone. Fact is, in the 21st century real feminists have far bigger fish to fry than banning a few topless snaps - from female genital mutilation to militant Islam’s hateful subjugation of women.
- Sarah Vine, Daily Mail

If women want to make a difference there are bigger issues they should rally against.
- Alice Thomson, The Times

If page three is representative of anything it is of the hegemony of the Murdoch empire, the fact that it stood for so long as a bulwark against widespread public opinion that, in this way, half the population of Britain was being undermined and insulted. But the idea that the announcement of the covering up of Page 3 signals victory is risible. The Sun's topless pictures have just migrated to their website
- Simon Kelner, The Independent

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Pretty young girls are queueing up to feature on page 3 and if they want to take off their bras and pose for photographs in the hope of advancing themselves, why stop them?  The budding lawyers, doctors, vets and dentists have their opportunities, is it right to deny those with a little less up top (but a bit more further down) their chance of a richer life?
Is it exploitative? Is it demeaning? Is it offensive? Perhaps, but I find I object more to the nudge, nudge, wink, wink captions than to the generally cheery photographs. I'm glad the days of women draping themselves over boats and cars are over, and I wouldn't be sorry to see page 3 disappear, but I think there are more troubling matters for feminists to worry about.
- Women of note from June 2013

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Comment digest courtesy of
Editorial Intelligence

January 20
Anti-semitism and Islam
January 19
Religion and freedom

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January 16
World politics
January 15
Election debates
January 14
Charlie Hebdo
January 13
Charlie Hebdo
January 12
Charlie Hebdo

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January 9
Charlie Hebdo
January 8
Charlie Hebdo
January 7
UK politics
January 6
UK politics
January 5 
UK politics

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For EI daily digests from June to December 2014 please click here

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