Hello, my name is Lisa Clarke and I am a member of the No More Page 3 Campaign team.


I still love saying that and have a little laugh to myself, a small pinch me reality check every time I do. You see I'm not some high achieving academic feminist, not a politician, not a middle class busy body I am instead a Nottingham born and bred mother of 2, a nurse of 20 years from a working class background and a marathon runner (I know that's not relevant and I've actually only run one marathon but I'm rather proud of it and like to get it in wherever I can) and quite frankly I have no idea how I've ended up involved in all of this or why anybody thought I'd be any good at it.


The No More Page 3 Campaign was started in August of 2012 by Actress and Author Lucy-Anne Holmes. It was during the London 2012 Olympics that Lucy bought a copy of The Sun following ‘Super Saturday’ when lots of gold medals were won many by female athletes, she picked that particular paper because of its’ reputation for sports coverage. Whilst leafing through it she discovered that Page three wasn’t there and instead the page had been taken up by pictures of sporting achievements. Thinking the feature had been dropped as a sign of respect to the Olympians she was later dismayed to find it on page 11. The page 3 image was still the largest image of a woman in the paper that day, larger than the image of Jessica Ennis who had just won gold for her country. Lucy describes that moment as being a ‘huge slap in the face. A reminder that it’s a man’s world’. She wrote to the then editor Dominic Mohan, who never responded, and so she decided to start a petition and a twitter and Facebook page.


It was in the September that I signed the petition (link - http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/david-dinsmore-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3) myself. I can't actually remember where I saw it or who shared it but having had my own feminist awakening about 6 months before that I was in the habit of following many feminist twitter accounts and was reading and learning with a hunger, all I could on the subject.

I signed quickly and then followed the accounts on twitter and Facebook, immediately getting involved in heated debates both on the campaign's page and on my own wall. I was amazed at how controversial an issue this was, at how hard some people would argue for the right to keep this topless, sexy picture where they could access it easily with their morning toast or in their break at work. Despite this confusion about who it was that owned the boobs thee days I found many like minded friends locally and in the Autumn of 2012 we organised local demonstrations in Beeston and Nottingham town centre collecting over 600 signatures.


Although I lamented the fact that I was so far from London where so much of the action seemed to be happening, I had never particularly considered getting more involved or thought that I had anything to offer, until in January of 2013 I received the email from Lucy which invited myself along with 5 others to join her in running the campaign. Considering how overwhelming it can be I still marvel at how Lucy managed to sustain NMP3 for so long with minimal help but for the first 6 months she did exactly that. By December she was burning out very badly and the campaign went very quiet. Her invitation to join her was from the heart, from a woman that had such passion but could no longer sustain it alone. As well as being bemused as to why she had chosen somebody like me with so little to recommend me, I was also struck by how easily this inspiring woman shared selflessly what must have very much felt like her baby, so completely, with people she mostly didn't know at all, but share it she did and No More Page 3 HQ was born. We immediately began sharing the load of running the twitter account and Facebook page between us, we discussed strategy and lobbying and were alive with ideas. It was clear right from the outset that I had joined a team of women that were multi-skilled, filled with passion and who were going to completely change my life and change it they did.




Over the last 14 months I have had some amazing experiences I have driven cars overloaded with campaigners and a giant cardboard cut-out Lego page 3 girl from London to Windsor, I have chatted online and in real life with celebrity supporters, I have used skills I had no idea I could transfer from my day job and have learnt many new ones.


My years of nursing have allowed me to speak with compassion and understanding to supporters who are slowly dismantling their own experiences of sexism, sharing the unhappiness with their body or sadly sometimes sharing experiences of abuse connected with or influenced in some way by page 3. The teaching and speaking I have done at nursing study days and conferences has been swapped for standing up in a debate and talking with passion about why this icon of the sexist 70's needs to go.
Strangely a dance class I used to be involved in teaching coupled with teen years spent in acting and drama lessons has set me up beautifully to concoct crazy 1970's flash mob songs and dances, re-writing lyrics and highlighting the absurdity that this feature still exists.  I have joined team members and fabulously enthusiastic supporters from all walks of life to perform outside Sun HQ and on a west end stage to huge applause and fits of nervous laughter.

I have added to this the joy of finding in myself a writer that I never knew was there. I have written several pieces for Metro, including this one about the campaign not being against nudity or breasts but against the objectification (link - http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/22/no-more-page-3-its-not-about-the-nudity-4156908/ ). I  typed with raging fire in the belly this blog for Huff Post about the comments found below Page 3 pictures on The Star's website (link - http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/lisa-clarke/page-three-mostly-harmless-i-beg-to-differ_b_3034030.html ) and was utterly taken aback when within a few days of this being published the Star disabled the ability to comment below models pictures and deleted all the comments that were there. I believe it was at this point I realised how extra-ordinary people power could be. That a nurse from Nottingham, an inexperienced writer, could blog about these disgusting comments that reduce women to fodder to be owned, used and acted upon and that having been shared entirely through social networks of supporters this could actually bring about a real change.


The campaign's momentum could so easily have been exhausted by now but thanks to the numbers of supporters growing daily, the growth too of HQ to a team now numbering 20, filled with diversity and skill and the conviction from all of us that what we are doing is important, long overdue and right we have instead blossomed.


NMP3 is now a force to be reckoned with, it has the strong support of a huge number of groups, charities and organisations all of whom have their own reasons for wanting to see an end to page 3 (link - http://nomorepage3.org/orgsupport/ ) , it has the backing of over 150 cross party MPs (link - http://nomorepage3.org/letter-to-the-editor-signed-by-mps/ ) and an increasing number of celebrities. There is a sense of a mood change in society, that people are beginning to see the sea of sexual imagery, particularly of women, that we face in our daily lives. Our campaign has been riding a wave of feminist resurgence that dominates the newspapers on a weekly basis. Successful people power campaigns have ensured a woman will stay on bank notes, that female genital mutilation will be discussed and looked out for in UK schools. The Co-operative has been persuaded to stop selling lads mags which lack modesty covers, HMV have stopped putting sexualized soft porn images alongside boy band and Peppa Pig posters and pop stars are writing open letters to one another lamenting the overt sexualisation of female singers in the music industry.


Whilst still at times being perplexing and frustrating it is such an exciting time to be a woman in the UK. Page 3 may to this day remain in place but the number of days it is absent is increasing, rumours have been circulating of a redesign of the page , Ireland have dropped it already and an attempt this week to link page 3 with a breast cancer charity has faced a backlash of negative comments from other newspapers, bloggers, other breast cancer charities and survivors themselves.


Popular culture is questioning, the next generation are listening and campaigning themselves for the world they want to live in as adults to be different to the one they have been forced to grow up in.


No More Page 3 has inspired me, it has inspired young and old alike and has even allowed crowd sourcing of funds to financially sponsor 2 women's football teams including our own Nottingham Forest Ladies who now play with "No More page 3" on their chests promoting what women's bodies can do and not just what can be done to them.


I am honoured to be a tiny part of something really quite amazing that is happening so forgive me while I pinch myself again and, having recently spent my 40th birthday watching 3 plays in London inspired by the campaign, I wonder what new experiences the year ahead will bring, about how I will keep finding time to do my day job and if not about quite what I'm going to do with myself next.


I would like to share the secret here that I am nobody special, I am just a Nottingham lass with a bee in her bonnet. I want to tell you that you too can make a difference in whatever it is you feel passionate about, go for it, try, because you just don't know what you are capable of.


I have no idea what is coming next and I love that, I am open to all ideas though because it seems if I put my mind to it I can do just about anything, who knew.

We ask that Co-operative food do not advertise in publications which objectify and belittle women; that it stop all advertisements, marketing of or links to The Sun Newspaper whilst it has Page 3, and that in line with the Co-operative's approach on "lad's Mags" tabloid newspapers which contain inappropriate adult content be moved out of reach of children or not sold in store.
We propose that the Co-operative back the No More Page 3 campaign lobbying for an end to page 3.


We believe this proposal is in fitting with the Co-operatives ethos of fighting for the good of members and customers. it's aim to be the most socially responsible business in the UK, offering "members and customers not only value, but values."


The 6 co-operative values include -


Democracy  –   "giving members a say in the way we run our businesses" we the members ask the Co-operative to no longer endorse exploitation of women, sexism and degradation in a news publication with advertising revenue generated by us the members and customers.


Equality  –  no matter how much money a member invests in their share account, they still have one vote. We are exercising our vote to ask for equal representation in the media and ask that Co-op disassociate itself with publications which promote the opposite.


Equity –  we carry out our business in a way that is fair and unbiased. Page 3 is not fair, there is no male equivalent.




Co-op's ethical responsibilities include -
Social responsibility  –  we encourage people to take responsibility for their own community, and work together to improve it. We are taking responsibility in lobbying for a greater equality in UK media and better representation for women.


Caring for others  –  we ask Co-op to care for the young people of the UK who are affected by sexualised images they see in everyday life. NMP3 is backed by the British Youth Council, Girl Guides and Girls Brigade


Co-op's Principles include -
Education, training and information  –  co-operatives educate and develop their members as well as their staff but what are the young people of the UK educated to believe when the biggest single image of a woman in the UK's best selling paper is one of her standing in her pants for men's sexual gratification and what are they to make of the Co-operatives endorsement of putting its advertisements in the same publication?


Concern for community  –  co-operatives also work to improve and develop the community, both locally and internationally. We ask that it extend this to seeing it's responsibility in associating itself with the publication which offers women up as a sexual feature as part of the daily news.








Background information and evidence -


The No More Page3 Campaign has been gathering support from individuals and organisations over the last year and a half.
Supportive organisations include -
• Girlguiding UK (over 500,000 young members)
• Mumsnet (Mumsnet is the UK's largest website for parents, with 4.3 million monthly unique visitors)
• The British Youth Council (over 220 youth organisations)
• UK Youth (working with approx. 1 million young people, and 11,000 youth clubs
• Members of the Girls’ Brigade England and Wales (just under 20,000 members)
• The NUT, NASUWT, ATL, NAHT (combining over 780,000 teachers, lecturers and Head Teachers)
• Unison (our largest union, 1.3 million members)
• The National Assembly of Wales
• The Scottish Parliament
• The Royal College of Midwives
• The Royal College of Nursing
• 28 universities and 6 Oxford University Colleges have voted to stop selling The Sun until it drops the page 3 topless images
• Rape Crisis
• Woman’s Aid
• End Violence Against Women’s Coalition (full list available here - http://nomorepage3.org/orgsupport/)


There has been a palpable change in public mood over the mainstreaming of soft porn in public spaces and The Co-operative have been part of this movement in being the first major supermarket retailer, once again, to step up and make the ethical choice to stop sale of Lads Mags that refused to cover up their objectifying front pages.


Growing evidence is showing us that this passive, sexualised image, and its unrestricted placement, is problematic for both female and male readers of all ages and society as a whole.
Page 3:

• Derails equality and limits the aspirations and achievements of women and girls  
• Legitimises objectification of women as sexual beings and distorts body image
• Fuels a disrespectful perception and sense of entitlement towards women, underpinning sexual violence
• Undermines responsible parenting and makes a nonsense of child protection policies

Evidence to support these claims is available here - http://nomorepage3.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Research-doc-I-Effects-of-_Page-3_-type-images-on-men-1.doc
and here http://nomorepage3.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Research-doc-II-Effect-and-Impact-of-Page-3-on-Women-1.doc







We feel Co-op should remove Sun advertising until Page 3 goes because -
As a campaign we are not seeking legislation or a ban, we are lobbying the editorial team of The Sun for a voluntary removal of an image which is so harmful to so many women, and damaging to the idea of equality.
Part of that lobbying involves ethical companies recognising the damage being done to their brand by association with Page 3. We are looking to the co-op to take the lead once again on equality and equity.
At present our supporters tell us that many of them are Co-operative customers because of the organisation's ethics. They are disappointed that Co-op are choosing to associate themselves with the Sun and putting the potential profit of reaching sun readers before the potential damage caused by these sexist and degrading images in a news publication.


We propose tabloid newspapers which contain inappropriate adult content be moved out of reach of children or not sold in store because -


Whilst these images are available to children at child height it makes parents job in protecting their child from these images difficult if not impossible. The sale of the Sun and Star at child height effectively condones the promotion of soft porn where children can see it.


Workplace equality. The Equality Act 2010 states that conditions in the workplace should not be offensive to either men or women. Women now have the right to complain about demeaning images visible at work, but many still find this difficult because of the real or perceived risk of ridicule or anger. Co-operative employees and customers should not have to tolerate customers potentially picking up and opening these publications in store.

An Ode to my 30's

I entered you in silent protest, with trepidation born from a feeling of inadequacy. I was scared that I would be discovered, aware as I was that I wasn't worthy of the level of maturity that you would expect of me.


I knew I could play it OK, I felt I had spent much of my 20's playing at being a grown up but had been increasingly aware of the duplicity of it. As a teenager I had played grown up in a way which more thoroughly convinced myself but through my 20's I was, despite the throws of a stressful and responsible job and the parenting of two children, increasingly aware that I had not yet discovered who I was, what I wanted, where I was going or most importantly how to sustain any level of contentment at all.


At the turn of 30 I was married to a man I had been with since the child pretending to be oh so grown up me had met him at 16. I loved him in the way that familiarity and pattern allows you to love somebody who has been so much part of who you have become, but in my heart I knew that the biggest part of my disquiet with entering a new decade was the awareness, increasingly emerging, that I could not be the me I needed to be, could not fly, grow or be free of fear whilst I was in that relationship. I knew too that at that time I did not have the bravery to make that move. I was right. It took another 6 years.


And so we started our time together 30's with me unhappy but I felt your hand guiding me - into career changes and explorations of my sexual being, my need for expression, my abilities and strengths. I began to lay a foundation of independence that I would need to make the moves I needed. I passed my driving test, I made a network of friends who were supportive and strong. I stood up for myself at work and fought for promotions and changes.


The challenges that my parenting had given me in having children with severe allergy led me into supporting other parents in the same position and eventually into a change of direction in my nursing career. There was a reaffirmation of my academic ability and challenges faced when work colleagues became bullies but you knew exactly what you were doing - my facing of those challenges in my working life made me finally take note of the way things were at home and at 35 you had given me the strength to say the words "I wouldn't let anybody else speak to me that way so why do I put up with it from you" words born too from more lessons you had shown me about the fragility of life and the need to take our own path as I watched my mother battle cancer and lost a young friend to it for the first time. Life is too precious you said, to live so much of it unhappy and in the wrong place.


It was another year before I found the strength to end my marriage.


I may mock my less aware 20's but they had given me experience with grief and made me resilient. You, my wonderful 30's had added strength, a support network and the anger I needed to get through what I was about to do. I had to be strong and for the first time in my life I had to be quite quite cold. I felt your hand at my back pushing me through, showing me a light ahead to keep me moving forward.


I finally collapsed through the door of my new home just before Christmas into an unknown adult single life. I was scared and lonely but excited and inquisitive.


You showed me quickly that despite the new found passions of a 30 something divorcee I could not separate love from sexual intimacy. I felt a little lost and frightened that despite my bravery I would still not be complete. I was scared again, this time that you, having given me the strength to make the move which had so torn me and others apart, having torn me from the familiarity that I needed to lose you had placed me somewhat lost in a new place and left me quite alone.


I was wrong, next you did the most amazing thing of all - You opened up my heart.


You showed me wonderful 30's what you had known all this time. You showed me the thing that had carried me through all of my teenage angst, my grief ridden childbearing and my unhappy and bullied marriage and family, my mother's illness - you showed me me!


I finally saw it and felt it for the first time in earnest  - a core strength, a love that I simply had to look for to find. All I had to do was hold it, know it and trust it and I was free to be all I could be, to be truly content, to be happy.


You had given so much and I would have been happy had you left it there yet you had not finished - in having finally embraced my true self, having opened my ears, my eyes, my sense of being at one with the universe, I was able to follow the signals that I must have spent so much of my life ignoring. In trusting the universe and trusting myself the last few years of our time together has been a whirlwind of light, of action, of love and fulfilment that I would never have dared to dream of before.


I found the love of a man who met me where I stood, who made me his centre and who loves and supports me for who I am every day that he gives me.


I explored again the fun and wonder of acting and in so doing built again the strength to perform. I found a passion and an awareness of feminism and with it friendships built on sisterhood, on shared values and on truth with women who were, like me, lighting up with the wonder of self-awareness and strength.


I cannot place a value on the things I have in my life now, they are amazing each and every one. I am linked in love and wonder with so many beautiful people, I am taking a path that meanders and twists and touches places and people where I see history being made. I am totally embraced in the arms of my partner and family and I see the links with the me that has always been and the me that moves forward into new and exciting life to come.


So the time has come to say goodbye and I am brimming with tears, but not this time in fear or sadness. This time I am looking back with awe at what we have achieved together, at what we have made. I salute you 30's as I am turn my head and I walk forward in to my 40's with wonder, with excitement and with absolute faith that I am ready for whatever comes next. What a transformation.


Hello there 40, I'm ready, what's next?

Of Boys and Men

Here at No More page 3 we talk a lot about objectification, sexual objectification in particular and the societal effects of this.


Sexual objectification in the media is hugely gender biased, 95% of it according to a study on changes to Rolling Stone magazine, being of women. http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/12/30/gender-sexualization-and-rolling-stone/


We need only pay attention for a moment to adverts, billboards, newspapers, magazines, music videos etc etc and we see image upon image of half naked females, sometimes whole, sometimes divided into parts; sometimes human, sometimes mimicking objects. Everywhere we look women's bodies, being used to sell things and decorate things and...well....generally remind
us all that women are first and foremost decorative sexual objects for men's pleasure.


With this in mind, for some of us there is a natural snort and a tendency to say "Ha!" at any mention of objectification of men in the media and to be fair there is good reason for that.


Male objectification is by no means as prolific as objectification of women, it is rarely, if ever, as sexual and it doesn't come with the weight of hundreds of years of oppression or the knowledge of the threat of violence (sexual or otherwise) that comes from reducing women to something other than human.


Just in terms of our campaign clearly there is no male page 3 equivalent, yet No More Page 3 supporters are all too often reminded by those objecting to the cause, of features such as the diet coke man or "torso of the week".
With this in mind it is hardly surprising therefore that many of us we react with annoyance at yet another attempt to say "what about the menz".


However, if we take just a small step back, if we use the analytical view of the world has facilitated our feminist awakenings. If we step for a moment into the shoes of young men, we can begin to see that whilst there is no where near as much of it and the effects may be somewhat different, there is in fact a real problem in terms of the way men are presented in some media.


I went to the cinema a year ago with my partner to see the latest James bond. I found the film good in places but also profoundly disturbing in terms of the throw away way it treated the focal female character. She had no bodily integrity and her life and sexuality were stamped on an instant. Another thing however that I found annoying throughout the film was the shot upon shot of a ripple abed Daniel Craig who was never, it seemed in possession of a shirt. Whilst he looked very nice and I have never thought myself to be in any way a prude it just seemed massively gratuitous. James bond had to be hard, emotionless, constantly half naked and buff and I found it a distraction and unnecessary.


The issue is one of stereotypes - for every 10 women presented as passive and infantilised there will be a ripple torsoed man looking macho, aggressive and ready for action. For every pinned down woman looking like she is about to be a victim of sexual violence there will be 2-4 men looking ready to act upon that woman in an aggressive manor.

The passive, vulnerable, child-like, ready to be taken advantage of and certainly rarely in anyway powerful female is matched, if perhaps to a smaller degree, with images of men looking angry, aggressive, active, none-thinking and rarely sensitive or gentle. We talk a lot about the effect these stereotypical images have on both boy's and girls views of women's roles but what do the men in these pictures teach boys about what they should aspire to be and how to behave; and with all of these images what is projected is an idealised body type that is going to be difficult if not impossible for most of us to achieve.


It is for this reason that No More Page 3 is in support of a campaign started by Daniel Farr.


Daniel describes that he "started campaigning about male body image after years of being unhappy and complaining about the images of perfect bodies men like women now face."


His action was inspired by the No More Page 3 campaign and its wealth of brilliant supporters and he is a supporter himself.

"I decided to support NMP3, because I feel women should be more respected in the media and society and having pictures of topless ladies in a national newspaper doesn’t to help achieve this."


After reading about the effects of objectification of women Daniel took some time to consider how men are affected by the images they see of other men around them. He was also encouraged by Warwick University psychologist David Giles who has studies the phenomenon of “athletica nervosa”.  link- http://www.malehealth.co.uk/self-image/19375-lads-mags-are-damaging-our-body-image


Here are a few words form Daniel himself -

 I had always been chubby but it didn't bother me until adverts started showing men with perfect bodies which made me feel horrible about my body. I decided to lose weight so I began running and going to the gym every day. After several months I lost three stone, but I continued to run and do sit ups every day as I was obsessed with getting a six pack. I started getting too thin and friends and family became concerned about my weight. They managed to convince me to stop exercising excessively and now, thankfully, I have settled at a healthy and comfortable weight.

There is a male body crisis in the UK with according to Joseph Stashko in an article last year for the NewStatesman said perhaps 1-4 of the 1.6m Britons with eating disorders being male, and a 2013 survey by The Association of Teachers and Lectures found that 51% of their 693 members thought that boys had low self-esteem about their bodies: http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21864312 


Daniel has set up campaign called "Healthy not Perfect" and a petition on Change.org asking Toby Wiseman the editor of Men’s Health magazine UK to show more diverse body types in the hope this will promote a more diverse image amongst men and boys and lead society to question the impossible ideal it is increasingly setting its young men.


As a campaigner for NMP3 and a mother of a teenage son I feel this is an important campaign. Whilst we are doing all we can to redress the issue of inequality in media representation of women it is important to remember that we are doing this for our son's as much as we are for our daughters.


I want my son to learn that women are thinking, feeling people who come in all different forms or beauty, diverse shapes and sizes. That we are powerful and not passive in our relationships and that he should respect us all. But I also want him to see men portrayed for all they are, that they don't have to be impossibly muscular or large in size, they don't have to be aggressive and macho. I want him to see diverse images of manhood that reflect the great men I know and love who show sensitivity and strength of character and sometimes vulnerability.


I am campaigning hard to reduce the sexually objectifying images in our daily wallpaper but I don't for a minute want them replaced with aggressively stereotyped muscle men.


In short wouldn't it be nice if we just showed all humans being exactly that - Human.



 You can sign Daniels petiton here: www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/toby-wiseman-editor-of-men-s-health-uk-show-a-variety-of-male-body-types

Idol no more

There have been a number of teasers over the last few months suggesting big changes may be on the horizon at The Sun.


Ireland dropped the traditional Page 3 http://nomorepage3.org/news/statement-in-response-to-the-irish-sun/ in August of 2013 and around the same time tweets from News UK executives hinted at a redesign of the page.


Of late the traditional page 3 image seems to be increasingly missing, often replaced with celebrity photographs. Perhaps a leaning towards the "glamorous fashionista's" Rupert Murdoch himself suggested almost 12 months ago? Official Page 3 photographer Alison Webster certainly seems somewhat rattled, with tweets suggesting changes about which she is yet to be informed. Interestingly one of these changes appears to see an end to the "Page 3 Idol" competition.


(photo of tweet)


The Sun newspaper has run "Page 3 Idol" since 2002. The last in 2012 was won by 21 year old Melissa Clarke and since the announcement of her win in January 2013 there has been no further mention of the event which, for the last few years, seems to have had it's preliminary rounds in the autumn/winter.


With palpable movement of public opinion an end to Page 3 may well be likely. With or without that however the dropping of Page 3 Icon should, I feel, be welcomed.











Let's be clear about how this worked - the competition was run within the paper version of the Sun and online. It was advertised at the bottom of page 3 and invited amateur models or any young woman to complete an application form and send in a topless picture for the chance to compete for a prize that included a Page 3 modelling contract.


(add photo of page add)


Women who enter must have natural breasts and be 18 or older. The pictures they submit are displayed online and voted on by the public.


In 2012 the pattern consisted of 23 consecutive days during which "today's batch" of hopefuls had their photographs and a short bio displayed. The pictures, a mix of apparently professional quality shots with some home amateur pictures and "selfies" show young women in various semi-clothed poses.


After all "batches" have been displayed and voted upon 12 finalists are announced and are invited to have their picture taken by the official page 3 photographer, the products of which are again displayed online along with a video of the "sexy" photo shoot.  Finalists are then briefly whittled down to three before the overall winner is announced.


If this competition was run within top shelf adult publications, if it were advertised in women's magazines or in those aimed at aspiring models I would think this perfectly acceptable.
However, the advertising of this life-changing opportunity to pose topless for men is advertised in a national newspaper, in the very vehicle which has potentially exposed it's fresh "batch" of would-be models to soft porn Page 3 images throughout their most impressionable years.


The much defended "free choice" to aspire to be a topless model is not a choice made in a vacuum. The problem with Page 3 Idol and one of the issues with Page 3 itself, is that The Sun markets itself as a family newspaper. It run's adverts on prime time and children's television channels, and runs offers for family holidays and toys. It features stories about boy bands that directly target teenage girls and positions these stories directly next to the page 3 topless image.


Amongst my stashed copies of The Sun (all picked up, in the hospital where I work or in other public places I hasten to add, not bought and paid for) I was able to find three copies in which the Page 3 Icon competition advert appeared. Two of these copies featured front page offers for Disneyland Paris holidays and one a free Twilight poster. One copy featured Harry Styles and Taylor Swift's relationship on page 3 next to the topless picture and competition advert.


Front page holiday and toy adds are in in bold primary colours, deliberately drawing the eye of children who may then be encouraged to pick up and look through a paper in a shop, public place or at home or perhaps to pester parents into buying.


For many young girls their first exposure to page 3 will be in their own home. In my era the models were as young as 16 and were even pictured in school uniform or posed with teddy bears. This was the paper, it told the news and my Dad bought it home from work where I had seen the pictures it featured plastered on the walls, and I knew Dad had a favourite model.


The young women who will be most aware of the Page 3 Icon competition are the ones who have watched their fathers, brothers, grandfathers looking at this titillating image, which unlike a pornographic publication is far more likely to grace the breakfast table. What have they learned about their worth as women? How many have heard male loved ones pass judgement on the model's qualities? What effect does this have on the body image and self identity of these developing girls, when the largest image of a woman in the news they see daily is one of her featured not for her contribution to that news but for her attractiveness, sexual availability and size of her breasts.


Biographies of page 3 models appearing on their own website make reference without irony, to the models ambitions to pose topless from childhood-


"Many of our girls have had a long-standing ambition of appearing on Page 3, but 32D beauty Poppy first gave the news to her parents at the tender age of 13!"


2006 Page 3 Icon winner Freya Haseldine is quoted as saying “I used to see The Sun lying around when I was a kid and think, I'd love to do that. I used to go to Page 3 straight away and dream of the day I would see myself there.'


Another - “Stunning Katie Leigh can remember looking at Page 3 when she was a kid and dreaming of appearing on the nation’s favourite page, but insists that she didn’t really believe it would happen until she started – how can we put it? – growing up!" 


The uncomfortable reality being, that by "growing up" they mean "going through puberty and developing breasts”.


At present our current government seem to have noticed the mood and are keen to take action to protect our children and young people from the dangers of online pornography (reference).


When we have two government commissioned reports (link) which stress the importance of reducing children and young people's exposure to sexual imagery; and when the UK have signed up to an EU commission to reduce sexual stereotyping in our media, recognising the detrimental affect this has on the self esteem and aspirations of women and girls, why does this government action not stretch to concern over the publications which have allowed Page 3 to continue.


Not only has the Sun invited young readers in with offers, it has conditioned them to see their potential as sexual objects and then recruited them to enter what it has promoted as a short cut to stardom and success by sending in topless photographs.


As a society we react with shock and disbelief at the news of young, apparently naïve, girls who send naked selffies by text or messenger, coming as they do, under pressure from boys who have been influenced themselves by the images they see in newspapers, magazines, adverts and other media. Why are we surprised that these girls are so easily swayed and why do we think these boys have a reinforced sense of their right of sexual access to girls and to a limitless supply of naked breasts?


Whilst blame for this mind-set cannot of course all be laid at the door of page 3 or of Page 3 Idol alone, it has to be acknowledged that it has been the most public and visible encouragement to the young girls of this country to "get them out for the boys" and to the boys to see this as normal.


It seems that over the last few years of it's existence the Sun made some changes to the Idol competition which originally hosted heats in local clubs, dressing young local applicants in Sun bikinis and inviting them to dance provocatively live on stage. Video's of these events can still be found on YouTube and make painful viewing as braying crowds of men cheer their favourites or berate those who they feel do not feel fit the bill. Even on today's page 3 however readers are invited to log on to the clean-cut looking website where they can "take the girls for a spin" rotating them 360 degrees in a way that I can't help but liken to a virtual shop or cattle market.


Despite protestations that it has "always been there" Page 3 has made changes over the four decades of it's existence, some enforced as a reflection of the societal change around it. In the 1990's when the law changed the minimal age of models was increased, and given recent insight into the hidden crimes of the 1970's it would surely be unthinkable now to feature a half naked women in school girl attire for "Back to school week".


With the increasingly unavoidable voice of the No More Page 3 campaign the question is will The Sun be forced to finally clean up it's act? Or will it continue to market to children and families, convincing our girls and young women that their best vehicle to success is to "get them out" and all they need do to achieve that is to start "growing up"?

Turning of the Tide

Something is occurring, there is a chink of light, a slow but steady turning of the tide in our UK media. It seems that the No More Page 3 campaign  now has real momentum. It is not alone - Child Eyes http://www.childeyes.org/ has had some significant recent successes as have Object and Feminista's joint campaign against Lad mags http://www.losetheladsmags.org.uk/about/faqs/. When I first became involved in January of this year the highs came and they went. Flurries of activity would occur, with Murdoch's infamous tweet bringing us 20 000 signatures in one week (it could have been more if the Pope hadn't resigned) and UK Girlrguiding announcing their backing with excellent media coverage despite the demise of Lady Thatcher (Is there a conspiracy here between ex-politicians and religious leaders?). These patches of crazy activity and interest would be interspersed with quieter periods and the sadly inevitable lows of Sun articles like the Reeva Steencamp murder coverage or the comparison of a Swedish woman to a root vegetable (I kid you not).

Over the last month or so however, there has been a palpable change. With reasoned and unchallenged discussion in the Scottish Parliament http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/no-more-page-3-campaign-boosted-by-show-of-support-from-scottish-parliament-8928739.html , the 43rd anniversary protests and a run of support from Universities and celebrities the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity in HQ.

I the meantime, as a sure fire sign that we have them running scared, David Dinsmore, current editor was once again wheeled out by the BBC to read from the "Page 3 Stays" prompt card. A stand point which rarely seems to be challenged by any depth of cross questioning. You know, bringing up awkward questions like personal editorial responsibility or addressing the body of research evidence linking sexualised images to low achievement in women and girls http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A7-2012-0401+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN , sexual assault and violence against women, stuff like that. That said, there did seem to be a suggestion on this occasion that the Page 3 format is not set in stone and as many an amusing visitor to our twitter and Facebook pages have pointed out, it does make sense that a page 3 of some sort has to stay.  The alternative presumably being numerical upset - page 4 directly following page 2 and causing an odd spare page at the back. Anyway, whatever it was that he was trying to cryptically say without looking like he was giving in, there was Mr D again talking about the newspaper keeping a page 3.  He also referred again to The Sun's recent, factually illusive focus group during which some women were, it seems, very vocal about the need to leave page 3 alone.

David seemed to want us to believe he was surprised by this. I'm not sure why he thought we would be? 43 years of conditioning, convincing a nation that a sexualised, topless picture of a young woman or girl in the newspaper is acceptable and commonplace, have had a certain affect on us all. For many they have caused body image issues, questions about our position in society, our role in our own sexual relationships. But to actually begin to see that, to start to take apart the damage of page 3 and similar images, recognise its effects relies on a certain depth of thought that our lives may or may not give us space for.
A difficult marriage, early family and several traumas saw to it that I personally reached 38 before I gave it any real thought and for many women, to question page 3 would rely on headspace they just don't have in a busy life. It could also easily be instantly shutdown by any fear of unearthing a tirade of abuse or dismantling a persona that has served them well for many years. To remove the blinkers and question the world of sexism we are part of, would mean questioning the very nature of ourselves and of those we hold most dear. For many it is an uncomfortable journey they do not want to make.

In addition there are those we have to mention who have done the thinking, who know the extent of the potential damage, but who then, perhaps for reason of personal gain, choose to ignore or bury it deep and to collude in the degradation. They may even suggest that women who question page 3 are not feminists as they are removing the choices of other women. For them I will say this - Feminism  doesn't suppose that all of the individual choices women make are right, valid or to be instantly upheld simply by virtue of the fact that they were made by a woman. Feminism and the opposition to page 3 is simply the belief that women are human, just as human in fact as men and that because of this women have a fundamental human right  to equal treatment and equal representation.  Objectification reduces the choices of all women by reinforcing a society which aims to keep women in their place, as décor, as sex objects and not as agents of their own lives for whom abilities, talents and hard work will be appreciated in the same way as it is for men. In a newspaper I would argue it drives that message home all the harder.

The NMP3 Campaign may have been successful, as were others before it, in giving people the permission to question and the space to voice concerns. It will not however reach everyone and it will naturally make some extremely angry, as does any force of change which seeks to challenge the beliefs that lie at the foundation of our current lives.

Despite the protestations of the editor the 43rd anniversary weekend saw more people than ever take to the streets to protest against Page 3. They did so in celebration of women and many marked the occasion by making clear the things that women have achieved that could be celebrated by the media. The question has not been answered - is it really too much to ask that the media in the UK mark the achievements, the talents and the intelligence of the 50% of the population that happen to have breasts? That they represent them for all that they do and are instead of drawing attention constantly to their appearance or the parts of them which may titillate. That they stop reinforcing an idea that women are or should be sexually available at all times, whilst just a few pages away reporting with horror the rape, assault and maltreatment of hundreds of girls every year at the hands of not just adults but their peers who view them as nothing but sexual commodities to be used http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25090896.

During a "media breakfast" on at News UK on Tuesday Page Three was the first topic of discussion. http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/senior-sun-journalist-reviewing-page-three-says-page-three-doesnt-have-stay-way-it and "A senior Sun journalist has revealed that Page Three may not survive in its current form". Looking to the success of The Sun at weekends when there is no traditional page 3 there was a suggestion that: “What we do in the week might change.” and that Page 3 in the UK may well go in the same direction as that of the Irish Sun and/or Rupert's proposed "glamorous fashionistas". It seems then that Dinsmore's words may to some degree be referring to the numeric alone and that page 3 as we have known it for 43 years may be about to don her last signature necklace.
Could it be that The Sun will join The Sport who are also "toning down" in their case their front page, in a last ditch attempt to hang on to newsagent shelf space amidst the growing tide of parental disquiet at the sexualised images sitting alongside the children's comics.

Following on from The Coop's refusal to stock lads mags without modesty wrappers and a growing call from celebrities and campaigners to age restrict music videos, if page 3 stops showing bare breasts will this be a landmark moment? I would say, at least to some degree it is. It would after all mark the end to a feature as we know it, which despite protest has remained largely unaltered for 4 decades. An end which will have come about due to the public's growing awareness of the consequences of objectification of women and the sheer volume of opposition. Make no mistake however, we have a long way to go before the women of this country are portrayed as they deserve to be, as thinking, feeling, contributing, achieving citizens and as agents of their own bodies. We have a long way to go before we have equal representation and until that happens we're not going anywhere.

Feminist resurgence

Introduction - 39, mother or 2, Nurse, member of NMP3 team since Jan this year

How did that happen?
I have I think always been feminist in my approach but to a point. I didn't identify as a feminist until about 3 years or so ago. I thought I assumed equality was fundamental but actually on reflection I can see that many of the things I didn't question and that I actually reinforced with my own use of language and my own behaviour were absolutely not feminist. eg. I need a man to come and do this job in my house

Then I read Caitlyn Moran and said it out loud in the bath "I am a feminist"

I started to read some bits on twitter

Not very long after that I saw the NMP3 petition and signed immediately

My Page 3 background
Working class household, page 3 at home
Linda on the wall
How that affected me - still appreciating that

Started following NMP3 of twitter and Facebook
Engaged in debates
Wrote a song
Organised demo's

Asked to Join
Lucy's burnout and appeal

Since Jan it's been a whirlwind bonkers ride of amazing experiences, stress and amazing ups coupled with a feeling of banging ones head repetitively on a wall

Support
HQ  - amazing people, strong combination of motivation, talent and support, has grown and grown and will continue to . Now trying to add more diversity as its been quite organics until now and we're aware that hasn't covered all the areas we should be covering.

Why
Sexism in media, objectification in mainstream media, out of context, child protection, body image issues etc

Criticism
Why just page 3
It is none feminist because we are taking a choice away form those who wish to be page 3 models

NMP3 not anti-glamour models as a whole, not anti-porn.

For myself though I will say one thing - ( I wrote this last week after a debate where once again I was questioned by a feminist supporting page 3 about how I as a feminist could reduce the choices of other women)

Feminism for me is essentially humanitarianism
Humanitarians do not suggest that all choices of all humans are right and valid and should be supported. Humans do some terrible things and make poor choices at least as much as they make good ones, they choose to hurt other humans in direct and indirect ways.

Feminism similarly doesn't suppose that all of the individual choices women make are right, valid or to be instantly upheld simply by virtue of the fact that they were made by a woman.
Feminism isn't about women fighting against men.
Feminism is the belief that women are human, just as human in fact as men.
Feminism is the belief that because of this it is a fundamental human right that women have equal rights, equal treatment and equal representation.
Feminism fights for those rights and representations and against unequal ones.

This fight often involves standing up to the actions of men but also at times standing up to those of other women who may be reinforcing the opposite message.

Objectification reduces the choices of all women by reinforcing a society which aims to keep women in their place, as décor, as sex objects and not as agents of their own lives for whom abilities, talents and hard work will be appreciated in the same way as it is for men. In a newspaper I would argue it drives that message home all the harder.