Every
single day of the last week I have seen tweets about the objectification and
exploitation of women as a result of ‘everyday sexism’. I’ve seen women, and
occasionally men too, recounting events where they had witness a woman being a victim
of sexism.
I’ve
been thinking for a while about how to write about this because I want to make
sure that I portray my feelings accurately. Here goes.
A
few months back, I signed a petition to get rid of Page 3 because I feel that
boobs aren’t suitable for a newspaper. I think that it is absolutely fine for
‘lad’s mags’ to feature bare breasts however a print that describes it’s self
as a newspaper, I feel, should not contain boobs. At the bottom of the petition
is a message board and I was surprised to see that the majority of comments
were not about inappropriate content for a newspaper but instead about
objectification and exploitation of women.
In
my opinion, Page 3 is not an exploitation of women. Maybe, back when Page 3
began in 1970 it was an exploitation
of women. Perhaps models were led to believe that Page 3 was the gateway to a
glamorous life or that Marilyn Monroe fame was only a topless picture away.
Today
I can’t imagine that there is any woman under such an illusion. I feel that if
a woman is a topless model she is doing so because she wants to, because she is
proud of her body and because she wants to make money from her assets.
Don’t
we all use our assets to our advantage? Granted, we don’t all pose topless but
I’m sure that most women have worn a low cut top on a night out hoping for a
free drink or two or worn a tighter dress than usual to a job interview. These
models have what the consumers want and at a time when there are very few jobs
why shouldn’t they pose topless and be paid for it?
Objectification
was the other heavily mentioned topic in the comments which yes, I agree that
Page 3 is. To use a topless picture of a woman in order to sell more copies of
a newspaper is objectification plain and simple. People aren’t buying the paper
to see what ‘Samantha aged 23 from Blackpool’s’ thoughts are on climate change, people are buying because they want to see her boobs.
Is
this right? Is it right that men and women across Britain are looking at boobs
every day in their newspaper? Probably not but ‘Samantha aged 23 from
Blackpool’ knows that people are looking at her boobs and clearly doesn’t mind
because after all, it is her job.
Objectification
isn’t right but it’s wrong to suggest that it is only women being objectified.
At the moment there seems to be a lot of fuss made about women being victims of
male induced ‘every day sexism’ which yes, in many cases is true but it also
applies the other way around.
All
too often men are objectified in adverts, magazines and TV and yet rarely is
the issue of objectification raised. The Diet Coke advert for example features
a man mowing the lawn when he is interrupted by a can of Diet Coke hitting his
lawn mower which once opens sprays all over his t-shirt, forcing him to remove
it (much to the pleasure of the women who rolled the can at him). Clearly here
the gorgeous, topless (and now wet) man is used to sell the product.
Had
the roles been reversed to a scenario where a group of men had caused a woman
to take off her top, there would have cries of objectification from feminists
everywhere.
When
times are hard brands resort to a more sexualised method of advertising because
the simple fact is that sex sells. Diet coke, aimed at females, uses topless
men and The Sun, aimed at males, uses topless women; it works both ways.
Regardless
of whether or not we think it’s right that nudity is used as a commercial tool,
it is used because it works and perhaps instead of complaining about how bad
women get it, we should address the issue as a whole and understand that ‘every
day sexism’ is not solely a female issue but instead a human one.
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