sexualization Archives | Stop Street Harassment

UK: Page 3 – a shameless contributor to street harassment

May 6, 2015 By Correspondent

Emma Rachel Deane, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

Britain is an odd place. We have an international reputation for stiff upper lips and conservatism, when in fact, much of our politics and our stance on many human rights issues are really rather liberal compared to the US and other western countries. And yet, there are still examples within our culture of mainstream British institutions hell bent on dragging us back to the dark ages. Like the third page of tabloid newspapers (including The Sun – Britain’s biggest selling newspaper) that show a girl in her late teens or early twenties posing in underwear or with her breasts exposed. This serves no purpose except for sexual entertainment. To be clear, this isn’t a “lad’s mag” or one of the top shelf publications your Dad might have had a secret stash of when he was a teenager. This is Britain’s biggest. selling. newspaper. What does that say about women today and how we should see them?

When a young woman’s maturing body is presented to us as news, particularly in such a powerful way as this, is it any wonder that street harassment, and the social acceptance of it, is so widespread? By putting a semi-naked woman on such a prominent page within a publication among news of foreign conflicts, natural disasters and welfare cuts, The Sun and other newspapers like it, are sending the very clear message that women’s bodies are just as attention-worthy and deserve to receive just as much public discussion as any other news story.

Sarah Faulkner is one of the women at the forefront of “No More Page 3”, a grassroots activist campaign calling for the voluntary removal of Page 3 by the tabloids. She had this to say about her earliest memories of Page 3. “My first experience of Page 3 was at school, when one of the boys would bring a copy of The Sun onto the bus. He and his friends would use the images in it to tease female classmates whose bodies had developed a little earlier than others. For the girls that were picked on it affected their confidence as they grew up. We are taught to enjoy male attention, if it makes us popular it must be a good thing, but if a woman’s sense of self-worth comes solely from men enjoying how she looks, then then that confidence is meaningless.”

It’s worth noting that prior to the Sexual Offences Act of 2003 (which outlawed the practice) many Page 3 models were just 16 years old when they posed topless for The Sun, wearing school ties and hats. The sexualisation of schoolgirls is a widespread problem, for which The Sun is not solely responsible, but as Faulkner went on to say, “The influence that a feature like Page 3 has on our society can’t ever be measured to reach a firm conclusion, but what we must accept is that it provides validation for people who already have negative ideas about the role of women and girls within our culture and certainly allows space for casual public discussion of women as objects.”

I agree with her. The attitudes that cause instances of street harassment are held together and even perpetuated by countless forms of embedded cultural validations. The tabloids are not accountable for the misdeeds of the advertising industry, or the tired gender stereotypes we see in film or TV, but when we’re discussing the content of newspapers we must do so while remembering Allen Ginsberg’s famous quote, “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” These tabloids have a social responsibility to us all and they must be held accountable.

The debates surrounding Page 3 have received more press than usual recently when, in January, The Sun appeared to remove the feature without explanation. Its sister paper, The Times, broke the news that Page 3 had been ditched for good. This turned out to be no more than a school-boy prank and sure enough, Page 3 returned a few days later under the headline “We’ve had a mammary lapse.” How witty. I have to say, the timing was impeccable.

The Sun managed to draw attention to the “No More Page 3” campaign and the debates surrounding it in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks at a time when discussions around freedom of press are very much at the forefront of our cultural zeitgeist. Faulkner’s views on press freedoms are very clear and are reflected in the No More Page 3 campaign strategy. “I would not support a government imposed ban on Page 3.” She said. “I’m not a fan of slippery slope arguments by a long shot, but that way danger lies. If the images are removed by force its far less meaningful than if the tabloids accepted that they have been at fault, which would propel a real shift in societal attitudes.”

The debates surrounding Page 3 are about as complex as it gets in relation to modern feminism. Many would suggest that these images are a result of second wave sexual liberation and so it falls to us as individuals to decide what female sexuality truthfully looks like and how to represent it in our media. I for one think that if Page 3 was, as its supporters claim, a beacon of female empowerment and a shrine to the female form, we would see much more of a variety of women “enshrined”.

The oldest model ever featured on Page 3 was 29. Considering the fact that the average life expectancy of women in the UK is 83, that’s already 65% of the adult female population ousted. We must then take into account that only four black women have ever been represented in Page 3 and only women with a size 6-10 dress size have ever been featured.

If we’re going to talk about Page 3 in terms of female empowerment, let’s bear the Page 3 criteria in mind and remember how few women we are actually representing in that empowerment. Comparisons have also been drawn from No More Page 3 and the Free The Nipple movement, a campaign that seeks to address sexist nudity censorship. Faulkner was quick to point out that No More Page 3 is not about nudity. “This was never about the exposure of breasts to the public. We have no problem with female nudity at all, this is about media representation.”

She went on to describe the complex relationship between the two campaigns. “I can see where they’re coming from, and I agree with what they’re saying. Female nudity is over-sexualised and therefore over-censored. When women sunbathe topless on the beach or breastfeed their babies, people see sex where there isn’t any, it’s just a body part. It would be great if women could do those things without the usual controversy or fear of harassment that accompanies them. Normalising female nudity is very important, but in order to do that we first have to desexualise it.”

That, in essence is what No More Page 3 is about. It’s about reclaiming our bodies and reclaiming our sexuality which does not exist purely for male entertainment. If we can stop turning women’s bodies into news, we can stop people responding to them as if they were newsworthy.

Sign the No More Page 3 petition here and stay up to date with the campaign at nomorepage3.org. You can also tweet your support @NoMorePage3

Emma Rachel Deane is a London-based retail manager for a fast growing women’s lifestyle brand and an outspoken advocate for women’s social justice issues. She can be found blogging on Raging Hag or tweeting @emmaracheldeane.

Don’t Ignore the Harassment Stories of Young Girls

April 15, 2015 By Contributor

Guest Blog Post for International Anti-Street Harassment Week 2015

When I was 12, I faced my first street harasser. This is never easy for anyone to go through, let alone a young girl. Women and even girls 10 and younger can, have, and likely will face street harassment. But harassment has always been dealt with as a “term of endearment,” or just a fact of life when it really isn’t. According to Stop Street Harassment, 99% of women have been or will be harassed, and harassment can be anything from leering to physical touching. Is this really something we want 12 year old girls to face regularly?

This is an epidemic that we blindly pass off. Some of these girls are so young, they haven’t even entered middle school. I know all of this personally through the hashtag I started on Instagram, #WhatMySHSaid, where people from all over the world tell my followers and me the horrible experiences they’ve had with street harassers. The average age is twelve and the average reaction is disbelief, but with the topic comes horrible responses as well. I have heard people defending these pedophiles who creep on these girls, or say that street harassment is because of what the girl was wearing.

We live in a culture of blaming the victims, and by saying a twelve-year-old is asking to be followed as she walks home from school is a testament to this. We as a society can and should change this culture that we promote and live in. It should not be up to the victims to change their lives and patterns to make harassers comfortable. This is not a problem that should be ignored. Women and girls should not have to be confined in their homes just so they avoid getting harassed because that is not fair, and that is what’s being promoted by blaming the victims of street harassment.

If you’re being harassed, please let someone you trust know about it. Report it on websites and apps such as Hollaback!, and please be careful. Know that there is no right or wrong way to deal with harassment. Some women yell at the person who harassed them, some ignore them entirely. It’s truly up to you and whatever makes you feel comfortable.

The epidemic of street harassment is moving quickly towards underage girls and we should not be ignoring their stories and what is happening to them. As someone who is now seventeen, I can tell you personally that I have been harassed ever since I was twelve, even if I was wearing a hoodie and jeans, and even when I was in my own driveway. Harassment is so very real, and more and more girls and women are dealing with it everyday. Now is not the time to ignore it, but now is the time to fight it.

Chloe Parker, from @rebel.grrrl

Occupy Wall Street Video Objectifies Women

October 26, 2011 By Contributor

Occupy Wall Street and people following the movement now have one more item on their list of things to protest: sexism in a video portrayal of the movement. Dubbed “Hot Chicks of the OWS” by its creator, Steven Greenstreet, the video shows several young women speaking about the movement and what it means to them. In and of itself, that should not be a problem. However, many aspects of the video objectify women.

On his own website, Greenstreet says of himself and his camera crew, “Our original ideas were admittedly sophomoric: Pics of hot chicks being all protesty, videos of hot chicks beating drums in slow-mo, etc. But when we arrived at Zuccotti Park in New York City, it evolved into something more…. It made me want to pack my bags and pitch a tent on Wall Street…. And we hope it makes you want to be there too.”

Even after the final editing, the video arguably treats women as objects. More than one shot focuses on a woman’s chest. The tune that plays throughout has been identified by Salon.com as “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control”—hardly the anthem of an educated individual with an online PhD. And while the women interviewed say intelligent, astute things, the fact remains that only young, able bodied, conventionally pretty women get to speak to the camera.

No woman older than her twenties is interviewed, although the Occupy Wall Street Movement spans a wide range of ages. Likewise, no woman who appears on camera is obviously disabled or homosexual, accompanied by a man or outside the conventional definition of “pretty.” Like contestants in the Miss America pageant, all the women interviewed by Greenstreet are “available” for men, or at least appear to be.

Greenstreet’s own comments imply that the value of women in the movement is that they will attract men—not what the women themselves bring, and certainly not what they have to say. The “you” in his “we hope it makes you want to be there” does not include women.

A staff debate published at Salon.com offer multiple viewpoints about this video, to which the online publication offers the provoking title “Occupy Wall Street Gone Wild.” Some of the staffers, mostly men, felt there was nothing wrong with the video itself—only with Greenstreet’s comments. Others, primarily women, point out that the underlying message is entirely sexist.

It remains unknown what the women interviewed by Greenstreet knew about his intentions. Did they know they were being filmed? If so, what were they led to believe was the purpose of the video? It is quite likely that they believed their statements would be the central theme, and didn’t realize they would be portrayed as eye candy.

Across the Internet, bloggers and commentators alike have been raising these various points. A series of posts by blogger Jill at Feministe acknowledges that, while people may indeed meet people they find attractive at a protest, and there’s nothing wrong with that, showcasing female protesters for their looks alone is nothing short of misogynistic.

The protests raised in the blogosphere are perhaps the best possible antidote to the sexism in Greenstreet’s video. At the time of the interviews, it is unlikely that the interview subjects knew how the video would be put together or would have been able to change the outcome. Women cannot stop men like Greenstreet from making sexist videos. However, women (and men, too) can use actions like his as opportunities to raise consciousness about the objectification of women that goes on every day, and combat it in the public eye.

This post is by guest contributor Brittany Lyons. You can read a related post on the “Hot Chicks of the OWS” and street harassment at Fem2.0.

Brittany Lyons aspires to be a psychology professor, but decided to take some time off from grad school to help people learn to navigate the academic lifestyle. She currently lives in Spokane, Washington, where she spends her time reading science fiction and walking her dog.