The Union’s Page 3 Debate

Last week, amid much hype and excitement (mainly at the fact that the Sun bus, loaded with several page 3 girls was in town), the Union debated the motion ‘This House Believes that Page 3 is Unacceptable in the 21st Century’. The motion was defeated.

I was left, however, feeling disappointed at the quality of the debate. The proposition all seemed terrified of being branded patronising to the girls who were there. Not one speaker made a substantial feminist argument about why page 3 is inappropriate (such as it entrenches traditional views of women as merely sexual objects etc). The opposition were equally disappointing - trying to turn the debate into an issue of freedom of speech and censorship, when clearly it does not follow from something being unacceptable that it should therefore be prohibited.