Pic: Object
A women’s rights organisation is preparing to protest against The Sun’s daily Page 3 feature on November 17 outside News International’s headquarters in Wapping.
OBJECT are staging their protest as part of their call for a “greater and more consistent regulation of print media”.
In February the group submitted evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, arguing that Page 3 is a press issue that needs to be tackled.
OBJECT will join forces with Turn Your Back On Page 3 and other campaign groups on the day.
Various Facebook events have been created to promote the protest. One group, The Anti-Page 3 Tea Party, are asking protesters to come dressed as their favourite British institution.
OBJECT has suggested that supporters turn up with white t-shirts and a marker to write their own personal message about Page 3 culture.
Over 1,000 people have been invited to the protest, which will take place in Thomas Moore Square.
Sophie Bennett, campaigns and policy officer for OBJECT said: “Page 3 is symbolic of a culture that trivialises, sexualises and dehumanises women as sex objects.
“These kinds of images are not broadcast on TV, they are considered a form of sexual harassment at work, so why are they in our press?
“It must be challenged and it must stop.”
OBJECT was established in 2003 to challenge the sexual objectification of women in the media and popular culture.
The organisation has spearheaded a number of successful campaigns, including ‘Stripping the Illusion’ in 2008, which led to changes in lap dancing club licensing laws.
Bennett said: “It’s 42 years since the first Page 3.The time has come for us to say ‘enough is enough’.
“Media sexism has no place in the twenty-first century.”
Dominic Mohan, The Sun’s current editor, defended Page 3 in February at the Leveson Inquiry.
He said: “It’s meant to represent youth and freshness. It celebrates natural beauty. We don’t have models who have had plastic surgery on the page.
“It’s obviously legal, we are allowed to publish those images, and I think it’s become quite an innocuous British institution.
“The ultimate sanction lies with the reader. The reader is not compelled to buy a newspaper on a daily basis.
“I don’t think the images are sexualised in the way that even some clothed images are in magazines, advertisements and pop videos.”
For more information on the protest, visit http://www.object.org.uk/home
I love the fact that Object got to speak in front of Leveson when advocates representing disability organisations were not allowed. Nice to see the issue of page 3 is more important than how the media portray the disabled.
Object has become a joke that people now find laughable at best.
This post has been edited for legal reasons
Despite the fact that Polly Toynbee is Object’s partron, this lobbying company has been receiving scant coverage in the Guardian of late. Why? Because much of the data it uses in its publicity has been debunked by high-profile critics, and the campaigning methods and conduct of some of its members have brought the group into disrepute.
Oh look the men’s right activists have shown up telling us feminists ‘you’ve got it all wrong focus on disability; or anything else other than malestream media’s constant portrayal of women and girls as men’s dehumanised sexualised commodities.
Where’s your evidence boys that Object’s research is flawed? Mansplanning again.
I would suggest you put a search into Google on Dr Brooke Magnanti commentary on the Lilith report. Still Mansplanning is a good excuse to not bother doing any actual looking into the sbject.