Abstract
A young feminist asks why The Sun still thinks topless models sell newspapers
“Excuse me,” I asked the woman at reception, “is it possible to speak to David Dinsmore, editor of The Sun?” I was at News UK headquarters, my friend waiting anxiously outside. I knew the drill. I'd been there before. Last time the receptionist had actually made some phone calls at least. This time it was an immediate, no-hesitation, “No”, followed by, “I'm sorry, if you want to get in touch with the editor, please email one of the team.” I already had – about 2,000 times. It was the 43rd birthday of Page 3, and while my friends were off protesting all over the country, I thought I might pop by Sun HQ to see how they felt. Sure enough, they were expecting us. “You're not here to protest, are you?” The receptionist asked. “What, me? No, no.” When I got outside, I began putting on my monkey suit. Two security guards appeared out of nowhere and chucked us off the site.
I'm part of the organising team behind the campaign No More Page 3. You might have heard of us; you might even have signed the petition. We're a movement of more than 200,000 people, and rapidly expanding. Earlier this year, we had 10 regional groups pop up all over the country in a single week. We have support from the Girl Guides, Mumsnet, Britain's four biggest teaching unions and UNISON. We're also supported by the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the charity Breast Cancer UK, to name a few. Our ask is simple: we just want the editor to remove the page 3 topless image. We don't think soft porn is appropriate in Britain's biggest selling “family” newspaper. We're not asking for a ban, or censorship, or legislation. We're just asking that the editor comes to his senses and realise that boobs are not news. It makes perfect sense.
Over the years, we've done a lot of protesting, which is how my friend and I ended up wandering round Trafalgar Square in monkey costumes after being kicked off The Sun's private property. But the campaign really just started with one woman, her laptop and Jessica Ennis' Olympic gold.
It was the summer of 2012 when Lucy-Anne Holmes bought a copy of The Sun newspaper. Her brother had always said it was the best paper for sport, so at the time that our country was hosting the biggest sporting event in the world, it made sense to take a look. Women's sport usually gets the same coverage as men's darts, so it felt like being in a bit of an equality bubble when both genders were celebrated equally during the games. Lucy noticed that there was no topless image on page 3, and she thought The Sun might have taken a moral stand and removed the image temporarily out of respect for all the people visiting our country during the games. The Sun hadn't taken a moral stand. Page 3 had just been moved further back in the paper.
The image of the page 3 model was bigger than that of Jessica Ennis, who had just won Olympic gold for our country. After page after page of women's sporting achievement, there we were, represented once again as merely sexual objects for men's gratification. The equality bubble was burst. Lucy started an online petition.
Poking fun at The Sun
As I am writing this piece, two years later, the No More Page 3 petition has 207,817 signatures. By the time I am finished it will probably have more. By the time you're reading, it will have more still. We're a rapidly growing movement of normal people. But we're also normal people who had the receptionist at Sun HQ on high alert because a teenage girl asked to speak to the editor. I found out later that The Sun had hired four separate security companies to watch their headquarters on that day. We knew they would be expecting us – that's why we protested along Embankment instead, and sent two teenagers and a monkey suit to The Sun. We were poking fun. The security didn't laugh though. They panicked and got rid of us as quickly as possible. We scare The Sun. It's incredible what one woman and one petition have the power to become.
We haven't had much contact with The Sun, probably because they are so terrified of us! It's hard for them to defend page 3 when they are trying to act all nice after the phone hacking revelations. When Clare Short campaigned against page 3 in the 1980s, she was mocked as a humourless, ugly feminist. The Sun can't exactly call 207,000 people humourless and ugly, so now they're stuck. It's no longer the 80s, it's the 21st century. Page 3 should have never had a place, but when it started in 1970, it was a much more sexist time. Fast forward 44 years, and we're still not egalitarian, but we're definitely not in the era of Jimmy Savile and Benny Hill any more.
When David Dinsmore took over as editor of The Sun almost 18 months ago, he defended page 3 by arguing that it wasn't as explicit as an art exhibition in the British Museum. It would have been funny if it weren't so dim. The exhibition in question was for those aged 16 or over and had the theme of Japanese artwork about erotica. The Sun is neither age restricted nor erotica. It's a family newspaper.
The truth is The Sun has no defence line for page 3. Soon after the editor compared soft porn in a family newspaper to age restricted erotic artwork, he stopped responding to the campaign entirely. Someone on his PR team probably told him to shut up. We now occasionally communicate with the editor of The Sun's Fabulous magazine supplement, Rachel Richardson, but even she's running out of snide remarks. I was chatting to her via email in August last year. I called the editor – and supporters of page 3 – misogynists. Rachel responded: “You are making a wild unsubstantiated statement about him and over 10 million people (our weekly audience) there.” I emailed back to let her know that my parents and grandparents are Sun readers, and they hate page 3, so it perhaps wasn't all of their weekly audience. I didn't get a reply. It's just over a year later, and The Sun's weekly audience is now roughly 7.5 million – a difference of 2.5 million.
I know that hardcopy newspaper circulation is declining for all publications, but let's take a look at The Sun's decline, compared to that of its biggest rival, the Daily Mail. The Sun's circulation has dropped 26 per cent since 2011, compared to The Mail's drop in sales of 17 per cent. There's no way to know for certain if page 3 is the reason for The Sun's declining readership, but I'm certain it's a contributing factor. More and more people are becoming outraged at page 3. The Irish Sun dropped the feature earlier this year, and it hasn't made the slightest bit of difference to their sales. Page 3 doesn't sell the paper any more; in fact I suspect it actively puts many people off buying it. If people want porn, we now have this magic sparkly thing called the internet. And speaking of the internet …
Here at the No More Page 3 campaign, we're pretty in love with the internet. The campaign probably wouldn't have been possible without it. Our petition's online, our support-base is mostly online and the organising team are from all over the country, communicating in our own little virtual office. We've mobilised thousands of people to sign the petition, speak out, and take to the streets for the occasional flash mob, march or picnic outside Sun HQ. We've done this all through social media, an online petition, and a website we created on Wordpress.
We make sure we are making this campaign a people's campaign. We listen to our supporters, interact with them every day and share their content, including blogs, photographs and creative works such as poetry. We also write our own blog and monthly emails, to keep people updated and informed. The internet has turned the voice of one woman into a movement of thousands – and it has shaped our campaign. This is all whilst The Sun argues that page 3 is a vital component of their print copy because there's no other place men can get their kicks.
Rupert Murdoch's tweets
Despite obvious stubbornness from David Dinsmore over accepting that boobs aren't actually news, there is one man we might be starting to win over. Almost half of our supporters are men, and we're hoping he'll become one too. It's the decision-maker himself, Rupert Murdoch. He's been a complete, sexist tosser up to this point, but recent tweets suggest that he might have a last chance to redeem himself.
Last month Murdoch took to Twitter to say: “Brit feminists bang on forever about page 3. I bet never buy the paper. I think old fashioned but readers seem to disagree.” He then tweeted a second time: “Page 3 again. Aren't beautiful young women more attractive in at least some fashionable clothes? Your opinions please.”
I'm no expert on Murdoch psychology, but I'm pretty certain that if something isn't affecting his brand or profit, he will ignore it. The fact is that he's thinking about page 3. Whether his tweets are genuine, or just a power-game to watch our reactions and then laugh at us, he's aware we exist. And I'm convinced that we must be a problem to his brand and profit for him to be aware of us. It naturally follows that if we pose this kind of problem, no matter how much he dismisses “Brit fems”, we're soon going to win our corner. Universities, workplaces and cafes all over the country are beginning to boycott The Sun until there's no more page 3. Their sales are reaching all-time lows. Murdoch might have money, but we have consumer power and the moral high ground. It's not a matter of if we win, only a matter of when.
I'm proud to be a member of the No More Page 3 campaign. It's a fight to get rid of a sexist page in a newspaper, but signifies so much more. We are part of a wider struggle for better representation, equality and human rights. Perhaps most importantly of all, we stand for change, and show that change can happen. The Murdoch Empire is one of the most powerful forces in the world, The Sun newspaper is probably the most influential in the UK. And yet the organisation is terrified of us. Several campaign members, including myself, are recognised instantly by Sun security staff, despite our fiercest protests being picnics outside their headquarters, origami flower-making and singing in 70s clothing.
I've been back to Sun HQ several times since the monkey incident. I've filmed undercover, chatted to security guards and climbed nearby trees to decorate them with paper flowers. The last time I was there, they'd doubled security. There were four security guards, policemen patrolling the area and two people all in black who looked like some kind of secret combat force. All of this because Murdoch was visiting. He also had about five personal bodyguards in blue ties. We waited outside in excitement, and when he left the building, we were held at a reasonable distance. We shouted “No more page 3,” and asked Murdoch for a reason. He blanked us completely, but we couldn't help but ask, why so much security to stop four women from asking one man a question?
The power Murdoch has is terrifying, but it's also pathetic. He might not have answered us that day, but we'll know he answers when there's No More Page 3. Like I said, it's only a matter of when.