Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.
support today
Opinion

Want to end misogyny? Bring back Page 3

Getting rid of Page 3 should have been the first step towards ending misogyny. Instead it has gone underground and got even darker

Image: Matt Stronge

At the age of 31, I don’t truly believe I can start an article with “Back in my day…” but, when you think of it, my day was the late 90s/early 00s, which now feels far enough away that it’s the past: and the past, in all its forms, always seems more remote, romantic and quaint.  

Sure, nostalgia allows us to soften and rose tint the edges of memory, but I did love it: it was a time of lad culture, of Oasis having beef with Blur for no reason at all, of cutting-edge journalism where a Loaded employee did cocaine during a Sunday League football match just to see what that’s like.

It was the heyday of the tabloid press, when The Sun used the headline ‘I’m A Mind Bender’ for a story about Derren Brown coming out as gay, while a cracking pair of breasts sat proudly on Page 3.  

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

I remember sitting at my nan and grandad’s when I was nine, reading The Sun from cover to cover, pretending I was really interested in what was written on Page 2, sneaking covert glances at the hypersexualised female anatomy opposite. For those too young to remember, a beautiful woman would sit topless with a box of text next to her which would be labelled ‘the news in briefs’.

Then would follow an incredibly specific analysis of something that had happened that week, as though the topless woman had said it. Something like: “Lauren, 23, from Kent thinks that not only has Tony Blair ignored the humanitarian implications of invading Iraq but the fiscal ones too”, the gag being that Lauren, 23, from Kent couldn’t possibly have said this because god forbid a woman has tits and an opinion. 

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

Back then, I didn’t know about the partiality of written media, about the sexism and corruption of these publications, I was just a horny child that enjoyed reading salacious stories and sensationalist headlines, while looking at boobs. I now see that one of the problems with intrinsically linking the female anatomy to news consumption is that it allows misogyny to seep, untrammelled, into all of society. 

Getting rid of Page 3 was an important beginning in conversations around how we present women’s bodies in the media. I’m concerned, though, that we haven’t really changed at all: and I’m far more concerned that things have just gone covert and underground. Woman haters are able to exist in the far flung recesses of the darkest corners of the internet, totally unchecked.

Now is the age of incels and Andrew Tate: whether you be a soft, beta boy who can’t get women or an alpha one who has a right to do whatever they please with these deceptive womenfolk, all of your troubles are never your own; they are always the fault of the opposite sex. 

Read more:

But it’s more ubiquitous than these alt-right woman haters who exist at the far end of misogyny. In a recent survey made by Amnesty International, they found that “an overwhelming 73% of Gen Z social media users have witnessed misogynistic content online with half encountering it on a weekly basis”. 

The misogyny that was whacked around my face when I was a child was confined to the limited telly that I watched and the snatched glances of the tabloids at my grandparents’. It’s not the place of a dumb comedian to solve an issue that has existed virtually throughout all human history but I do wonder if bringing back Page 3 might actually make life more simple again and give our kids some reprieve from the algorithm thrusting its grubby and perverse ideas in their faces. Hear me out. Here’s my manifesto: 

If we bring back Page 3, you’re only allowed to include quotes from the girls of things they’ve said. I’d love to hear Abi Titmuss’s opinion on a two-state solution. 

In May 2009, women staged a protest, covering ‘lads’ mags’ with brown paper bearing anti-sexism slogans. Six years later, The Sun ditched Page 3. Image: Shutterstock

Apparently people are more impressionable when in a state of sexual arousal so I think Page 3 should only exist in progressive publications. Spend some private time with the third page of The Guardian and spaff yourself into believing in higher tax brackets for the rich.  

If Page 3 exists then I think make everything analogue. Sure, this is pie-in-the-sky thinking, but imagine if no one was able to access any content about women or their bodies online, it all had to be printed. Imagine if a young man had to go to a newsagent, slide 30p across the counter, look someone in the eye and say: “This is what I think of women.” Or, even better, make them read it at their nan and grandad’s. 

If you don’t like that, then here’s something more pragmatic. Just like I didn’t know what I was reading when I was a child was wrong, they don’t know what they’re being fed is anything other than normal. Let’s legislate against hateful, misogynistic speech and algorithms that can feed this to them, and instead properly educate them on what it is to be a human with a body. 

Chloe Petts’ new show, Big Naturals, is showing at the Pleasance Courtyard (Forth) as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 30 July to 24 August (excl. 13 August) at 7pm and then on tour.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more

Real stories. Real impact. Real change. No clickbait. Just trustworthy journalism that gets to the heart of big issues in the UK and beyond. Words drive real change. If this article gave you something to think about, help us keep doing this work. Support Big Issue's journalism from £5 a month.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

READER-SUPPORTED SINCE 1991

Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

Recommended for you

View all
I'm the HR director of a water company. We've got to make some changes in the world
Severn Trent workers.
Neil Morrison

I'm the HR director of a water company. We've got to make some changes in the world

How cancer patients could suffer after Labour's cuts to universal credit
Dr Millie Light
Millie Light

How cancer patients could suffer after Labour's cuts to universal credit

The invaluable lessons Britain must learn from the Hong Kong's 2019 pro-democracy protests
Mimi Martin

The invaluable lessons Britain must learn from the Hong Kong's 2019 pro-democracy protests

Who needs meditation when you have a garden to potter in?
Paul McNamee

Who needs meditation when you have a garden to potter in?

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know