A Marxist defence of Page 3 girls
January 25, 2012 12 Comments
Brendan O’Neill
Image © Kip Voytek
Proving that the Leveson Inquiry has become a magnet for every campaigner who wants to tame or censor the tabloids, yesterday’s line-up before his lordship included a bevy of feminists angrily railing against Page 3 in The Sun.
For some women’s rights activists, Page 3, with its scantily clad ladies making philosophical comments in speech bubbles, represents everything that is wrong with tabloid culture.
It is sexist and offensive, they say, and it contributes to a climate in which women are looked upon as fleshy objects to be ogled by goggle-eyed blokes. It must be banned, they demand.
Harriet Harman has joined this shrill chorus calling either for the outright banning of Page 3 or for The Sun at least to be put on the top shelf in newsagents, next to porno mags. And yet in her next breath, Harman has the gall to declare: “I am going to be a champion of press freedom.”
That she cannot see any contradiction between campaigning to crush Page 3 and claiming to be a defender of freedom of speech not only highlights the severe irony deficit in New Labour – it also says a lot about the weird politics of the anti-Page 3 lobby.
The fact is that shutting down Page 3 would be an assault on press freedom. If you are committed to true freedom of the press, to the age-old idea that newspapers should be free to publish what they believe to be true or interesting or fun, you can’t then add the caveat “Oh, except for Page 3 in The Sun – that page has got to go.”
As Karl Marx said in a stirring piece on press freedom, the true defender of liberty in publishing will fight for the right of rags to publish tittle-tattle as much as the right of serious papers to publish serious news.
“You cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences,” he said. He went on: “You cannot pluck the rose without its thorns!” – meaning that even when you pick a beautiful flower you’ll frequently end up with a little prick. It’s the same with the press – there’s some good stuff out there, well worth reading, and there are a lot of pricks, too. That is in the nature of having a free, open press.
The boob-blockers of the anti-Page 3 brigade are driven by the same impulse as every other censor in history – not so much by disgust with images themselves, but by a belief that some images might warp fragile people’s minds and make them go mental.
Censors are always motivated by the fantastically paternalistic fear that if a certain section of the population claps eyes on a saucy or tempting image or overhears controversial words, then it will be driven mad with lust or hate.
And so it is with the Mary Whitehouses cleverly disguised as radical feminists who would like to see Page 3 erased from history. They fret that Page 3 is harmful to both men and women.
The campaigners behind Turn Your Back On Page 3, which presented evidence at Leveson yesterday, say Page 3 is guilty of twisting men’s minds, “encouraging negative attitudes towards [women]… and at worst, acts of violence against [women]”. In short, blokes – especially the tea-swilling sort who read The Sun every day – are easily made violent; they’re such seething pits of anti-women sentiment that just one image of a topless girl called Cherri from Essex could be enough to make them go out and attack some unsuspecting women.
The campaigners think Page 3 is bad for women, too. It causes negative feelings “within us,” they claim, which help to “stall our progress.” In short, women are such sensitive wallflowers, so lacking in moral robustness and sass, that an image of a possibly younger, more attractive, certainly less-clothed female could tip them over the edge into self-pity and inaction.
For a bunch of people who claim to have women’s interests at heart, the anti-Page 3 set is pretty sniffy about women’s ability to cope with the modern world’s daily tumult of words and images.
In their belief that both men and women should be prevented from seeing Page 3 – men because it drives them wild with desire, women because it makes them feel sad and inadequate – the warriors against Page 3 echo that super-snobbish line from the Lady Chatterley trial in 1960: “Would you let your wife or servant read this book?” Only they’ve updated it, effectively saying: “Would you let an uncouth bloke or a fragile woman look at these tits? After all, there’s no telling what damage such an image might do to these volatile/fragile constituencies…”
We should defend Page 3 from these radical censors, not because that page in The Sun is interesting or valuable (it isn’t), but because the censorious sentiment behind the desire to squish it is underpinned by a pernicious paternalism that has no place in the twenty-first century. Keeley, Cherri, Sam, Suzanne and the rest – keep doing your thing.
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It’s been remarked upon briefly in one of the comments already, but I will try to explicate. The article is premised with the notion that regulating Page 3 would be an attack on the freedom of the press. What the author does not do is analyse the current state of the freedom of the press. One is not free to publish any which way they want. For example, you cannot publish pornographic imagery, market it and sell it to people under 18 years of age – similarities are found in incitement of violence, graphic images of decapitation, etc. If the author thinks this is wrong, then it needs to be investigated in the article in order to legitimise this argument with a proposed position of absolute freedom. The lack of consideration on this matter is clumsy.
Ideally, the author needs to tackle the nuances in publication law before he wishes to comment about the subject with any authority, but this has understandably not been included due to my previous comments.
Would the author care to respond about whether, in his mind, a movement of Page 3 style imagery away from the category of newsworthiness to the category of soft porn would affect his notion of freedom of the press?
Lastly, if the author is to then have a serious discussion about the categorisation of female soft porn imagery, he should read up on gender, feminist literature. If he did, I’m sure he wouldn’t call those mentioned campaigners ‘boob-blockers’ and such like.
Urgh, what drivel.
as a woman i am discusted that such a degrading thing like page 3 even exists in mainstream media. having a bunch of only young and attractive women getting there clothes in provatctive poses for for male enjoyment is disgusting and made even more insulting by the fact they have a “speech bubble” for random thoughts, as if for a woman as long as you’re beautiful and willing to be objectified and naked you may have an opinion in a newspaper.
to me it tells women that they are not taken seriously and will only be celebrated if they are willing to get naked, act provactively and are beautiful… as opposed to getting educated or doing good in the world.
perhaps page 4 should be a bunch of young hot, naked men given random thoughts to at least bring some equality.
Ha Ha. Nancy is so right. It’s not breasts these feminists disapprove; just those that are not the nurturing, ‘natural’ pose with a baby a status for which women were born. If women choose to flaunt their assets because they are proud of them and earn some dosh doing so then they don’t support these women’s rights.
Pete writes ‘I don’t think Marx had tits in mind when he said: “You cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences”.’
Peter writes ‘The ‘little pricks’ that Marx, accurately, refers to im [sic] sure are the bad journalists, those who invent news, don’t check facts, invade private lives under the belief that what they find out is in the interests of the general public.’
What a shame these faux lefties fail to read Marx from the link provided in the original article!
Presumably, when Marx addressed the censors concerns of the supposed ‘impurity of the heart and imagination which is titillated by obscene pictures’, they would remain unable to detect any parallels to the Page 3 debate?
Doh!
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This is a very silly post. I particularly disliked the statement: “Harriet Harman has joined this shrill chorus calling either for the outright banning of Page 3 or for The Sun at least to be put on the top shelf in newsagents, next to porno mags.”
It is legitimate and not in any way repressive to regulate the press to some extent. If page three had pictures of animals being tortured on page three then this would require action. In the same way, it is not unreasonable to float the idea of tabloids being put with pornographic publication if that is the standard that is set for nudity.
Also, I don’t think that Marx had tits in mind when he said: “You cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences.”
Finally, I think that tabloids have had such a negative effect on the country and it’s public discourse that utilizing the fact that they are pornographic could be a good proxy way of limiting their influence. Especially if like me you are a leftist sick of the scapegoating and jingoism that exits on the pages of The Sun et al.
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I do not see how this is a Marxist defence of the freedom of the press? Quoting a single (yet stirring) line from Marx does not make this a valid argument. What does Page 3 do for the press? other than random news snippet placed into a speech bubble above their picture, what news does it offer? what insight or comment into current events does it share? none, absolutely none.
The Marxist argument for freedom of the press has no connection to the feminist argument for the removal or reclassification of Page 3. All you offer here, is an anti-feminist argument for the defence of page 3.
I say that is an anti-feminist argument firstly, by the language in which you have used; ‘Bevy of feminists’, ‘Shrill Chorus’ and ‘Booby-blockers’ which shows that the feminist perspective hasn’t been thought of at all.
Secondly, the section in which you wrote:
“For a bunch of people who claim to have women’s interests at heart, the anti-Page 3 set is pretty sniffy about women’s ability to cope with the modern world’s daily tumult of words and images.”
Women should not have to need an ability to cope in the modern world. It seems that what you suggest is that women should just say nothing and get on with it, because that is stronger than speaking up and objecting to something. Which im sure you can appreciate, speaking up for something you disagree with is much stronger that just putting up with it and coping with it.
The ‘little pricks’ that Marx, accurately, refers to im sure are the bad journalists, those who invent news, dont check facts, invade private lives under the belief that what they find out is in the interest of the general public.
Ultimately, I think you have confused a feminist argument to change the media in its portrayal of women for an act of censorship, which it isn’t. So, lets hope that Anna, Jacqui, Heather and Marai, keep doing their thing.
The only oppression is your oppression, I take it? The class revolution is going to be fantastic- a lateral exchange of power from one group of white men to another. When you acknowledge struggles of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. are all intersected with class in an important way, and dismissing the struggles of any of those oppressed groups contributes to the alienation of workers from each other, then we might have ourselves some meaningful dialogue. Until then, you might want to read up a little on the effects of objectification of women in the media. Because as it stands you sound out of your depth.
They should just show them breast-feeding, then it’d be okay.