Happy Anniversary Page Three?

Today, 20^th November 2010 is the 40^th anniversary of the page three model in the Sun, and it got me wondering what that says about our society that our best selling newspaper still trades on topless female models.

I can remember back in the eighties trying to strike a blow back for women by having one of the first saucy calendars of male models in my office but feeling somewhat embarrassed by its presence when older male members of my team joined me in the office and so eventually took it home. I have since enjoyed other similar excursions with a little more courage but frankly a calendar with beautiful scenery, of the non-human variety, inspires me more.

There have been one or two items on Radio 4 about this anniversary, not least on Woman’s Hour, where the debate has not reached any satisfactory conclusion for either side. I do not disagree that it is great to live in a society where women feel able to confidently use their bodies in a way that makes them feel empowered; but that same society will not legalise prostitution and allow it to come out of the hands of the, generally male, pimps and seamy underworld.

To me a topless model appearing on a daily basis in a popular newspaper is a way of keeping women ‘in their place’ in much the same way as, I believe, the Burka and possibly more so as it exploits the female form. It positions women as a commodity and it is that which makes me feel uncomfortable. Because it is in the most popular daily paper it takes a message into the homes of young families and sets a tone for how women are perceived very early on in some young children’s lives.

As humans I believe we each have the right to be treated with dignity and respect. I find it very hard to believe that men who leer at women in a newspaper on the way to work will treat them as equals once they cross the threshold of the office. In the time the page three model has been around women have achieved a great deal in the workplace but are still under represented in the boardroom, parliament and even in senior managerial positions in industries that are dominated by female staff. Equality has a long way to go.

I know of friends who use their feminine attributes to distract the hapless male in the workplace and I confess I may even have engaged in a little of that activity myself at one time. So perhaps we are just as guilty, if a little more subtle, of trying to keep the men in ‘their place’?

Am I just a bitter old crone? Does anyone agree with me? Have a missed something somewhere along the line? Feel free to put me right; but if you agree with me, tell me that as well.