No more page 3 ...

Today is a landmark day for journalism: The Sun have decided to get rid of Page 3 (which in case you didn't know, is dedicated to topless women, and has been for years). I am utterly in two minds about this news, and decided to share my thoughts on here.

Glamour modelling is a job like any other; one which young women go into by choice to follow their dream. I'm not denying that some photographers can be sleazy - Terry Richardson, for example, is clearly not a nice guy. A quick Google search will tell you that, although some of the less taboo photos he takes are actually very good pieces of photography. Feminism should, in my eyes, be about promoting gender equality and the freedom for women to do what they choose to do with their own bodies. So called "women's magazines" - by which I mean publications such as Take A Break and Heat Magazine - are literally filled with articles ripping apart other women for gaining a couple of pounds since their last red carpet appearance, or sharing candid bikini shots taken by paparazzi (and you can bet your last pennies that those paps didn't go up to these various females and ask if they could snap a shot of them on the beach, having a well deserved break).

Page 3 is full of women who have worked hard to achieve gorgeous bodies - yes, most of them have had surgery, but again THAT IS THEIR CHOICE - and have chosen to pursue a career in glamour modelling, which has been around in the way we know it for the past 60 years, although photographs of naked women have obviously been around a lot longer. If you're going to ban page 3 and cause women to lose their careers, then surely you have to also ban 'torso of the week' and, of course, the half-naked photos of men on fitness magazines? No? Wrongly, women's nipples are taboo whereas men's are not - despite the fact that they are the exact same, anatomically speaking.

In my eyes, it would be entirely more beneficial to ban The Sun newspaper completely: they are a shoddy example of journalism, spreading lies and hate in a socially irresponsible way. Perhaps I'm biased, being from Merseyside, but you only have to read their disgusting coverage of the Hillsborough disaster (1989) to see how vile their opinions are. But around 41% of their readers are women, so clearly their page 3 is not that much of a problem. Of course they're not going to get rid of The Sun any time soon, it being the second most popular newspaper in the country (which is startling, to say the least) - but banning Page 3 isn't really productive either.

This is not a victory for feminism - it will lead to more calls of "Get ya tits out" from builders on the street who are having withdrawals from their daily dose of women who have CHOSEN to get their kit off. And besides, today's page 3 of The Sun has paparazzi photos of women on the beach, like those I mentioned which are all over "women's magazines" ... Is that progress? Really?

I don't particularly think a newspaper is the place for glamour modelling to be shown; however, I obviously don't read The Sun, as I have more than 3 brain cells (no offence to anyone who does read it but it really is the worst example of British journalism I can think of. If you're wondering, the Daily Mail is second on that list) - and I can't remember the last time I saw a image of glamour modelling, other than scrolling down the #Page3 hashtag on Twitter today. So if you're not actively seeking it out, it's not exactly thrust in your face. If you don't like it, don't look.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that you can attack The Sun and you can attack Rupert Murdoch (not physically, although he would have it coming) - but in the name of feminism, don't attack girls who are making a living by showing off their bodies by choice. Did I mention it's their choice?

I really want to hear everyone's opinions so please let me know what you think!

Want to know what happened when I went gin tasting? 'course you do

"A man should never hit a woman" / Gender Inequality

One phrase that always gets on my nerves is that a man should never hit a woman; and no, a man shouldn't hit a woman, nor should they hit a man, nor should a woman hit a man or a woman hit another woman. Why is a man hitting a woman seen as SO MUCH WORSE than any other type of violence?

BBC3s recent drama, Murdered By My Boyfriend, has sparked another wave of people tweeting/writing/blogging about their horror at the violence some women suffer at the hands of some men - and while any case of domestic violence is truly horrible, I'm not denying that, it's not just women that suffer. Yet you never hear anyone say "a woman should never hit a man" - because stereotypes tell us that women are the weaker sex, and that women don't hit men anyway. But that simply isn't true, and I can't understand why it's so difficult for people to see.

In May of this year, UK charity ManKind released a video showing a public experiment they had carried out; the first half shows how members of the public react to a man shouting at/roughly grabbing a woman - and the second half of the video shows how the public reacted to a woman doing the same (and at some points, in my opinion, even worse things) to a man.

It baffles me so much that peoples' reactions are so wildly different - abuse is abuse, and if women want equality then why don't we treat men as our equals, rather than acting like we deserve more than they do? Just because men don't speak out as much as women do, that doesn't mean they aren't being abused. Just because men have always been seen as the stronger sex, that doesn't mean women aren't violent. And just because a man should never hit a woman, that doesn't mean it's okay for a woman to hit a man.