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Jan. 22, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
23:02
Great Trials of Modern Feminism： Page 3 Girls
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When now the academic and feminist Jermaine Greer joins us from Essex.
Of course, Essex is a traditional bastion of academic feminism.
The model on page three, Chloe Goodman, she is in Birmingham.
Nice to see they're letting white people into the Brummy Caliphate.
And Labour's shadow deputy prime minister Harriet Harmon.
Who's sitting far too close to me for comfort?
Jermaine Greer, you must be over the moon.
You've seen the last of it.
No, no, I've never actually been one of the people who thought of it as a major evil.
It's always struck me as innocent and old-fashioned, and compared to what I can see online any day, it was simple and meek.
You know what?
Good for Jermaine.
At least she's able to prioritise, unlike today's modern feminists.
I asked my odd job man who reads the sun, how do you feel about page three?
And he said, it cheers me up.
Well, you can really see the generational difference in feminists, can't you?
She actually asked a man what his opinion was and then relayed it honestly and used it as an argument for why page three is actually not such a bad thing.
Modern feminists would have been like, holy shit, that's oppressive.
That is patriarchy in action.
This poor page three girl is a victim of capitalism and the male gaze.
But let me put that to you, Chloe Goodman.
Innocent and old-fashioned, or were you exploited?
Objection.
The annoying third-wave feminists are not actually saying that they've been exploited by page three.
They're saying they've been victimised by page three.
I'm not sure if there's a difference.
I just wanted to make sure that we were being accurate.
I disagree that people feel that they were exploited.
As like any young women of today's society, they are giving lots of choices in career options, many of whom do choose to do page three because it's something they wish to do.
But why would they choose to be exposed to the male gaze?
I mean, it's not like it's going to bring them lots of publicity and stacks of cash.
And I don't agree with the fact that, yes, there are feminist groups, but why should feminist women then tell other women how to live their lives?
Because they're bossy as fuck.
That's something that, you know, women fought together to get the vote and so on and so forth.
So why are women now fighting each other and telling each other what job roles to now take within the industry?
Because there are two kinds of feminism, sex positive and sex negative.
Sex positive feminism is for attractive women who want to be public with their sexuality.
Sex negative feminism is for total mingers.
Well, that's quite a strong argument.
What about you, Harriet Harmon?
The only thing Harriet Harmon is a strong argument for is euthanasia.
Well, I don't think that I'm taking issue with the choices that young women are making, but what I am taking issue with is the editorial judgment of a newspaper.
What's the difference?
It takes two to tango by criticising the concept of page three girls.
You are indeed criticising the newspaper for hosting it and the women for participating in it.
The context of this is, is us arguing back decades, you know, led in great part by Germaine, that actually there were many things that were important about a woman and actually it wasn't the most important thing about her that she was young, that she had sexual attractiveness to a man and that that's what was important about her.
Well I'm not surprised you'd be arguing that point at all Harriet because by those criteria you wouldn't be very important would you?
He was saying that actually a woman can do all sorts of different roles and therefore focusing on her with nothing but her knickers with her breasts showing in order to be sexually attractive to men that that did not represent the news about women and no Harriet page three does not represent the news about women.
No one has ever suggested it does, no one has ever suggested that it will.
And if you ever feature in a newspaper, you will not be there in only your bra, proving once and for all that there is a god.
I think in a hundred years' time, if you look back at the newspapers in this country and you open up a newspaper and see women depicted as standing in their knickers with their breasts showing, what would you think about women's role in society?
Women's role in society.
Is that really what we're going for here?
This is artwork from a brothel wall in Pompeii from about 2,000 years ago.
Does it say anything about women's role in society?
Or does it tell us that human sexuality is timeless?
That women will always be sexually attractive to men and men will always be happy to give up their resources to have sex with the sexually attractive women.
What about this one?
Does this say anything about Roman women?
Do you think this is any kind of portrayal of the average Roman woman?
What about this one?
What does this say about the average Roman woman and her portrayal in society?
Because I don't know about you, Harriet, but this tells me that there were Roman women who were fully in command of their own sexuality and knew how to use it to get what they wanted.
But then I'm not a fucking Puritan.
So it's like a bigger context about the advance for women.
I would have thought the big advance for women would be for society to allow them to fully explore their sexuality in any way they wish.
If that means being paid to display themselves for the viewing pleasure of others and they are happy with that and they're being paid for that, what is the problem here?
that sounds like empowerment and I think the idea that it's a bit of fun well I suppose it might be on the one hand but thank you for conceding that this is not a serious issue and is as you say a bit of fun On the other hand, you know, we want to see women in the newspapers doing all the things that women do in their lives.
There is only one page three in each newspaper, Harriet.
You moron.
On every other page, if women are featured, they are fully clothed and doing something that women do.
Aside from the most important thing being they're young and sexually attractive to men.
Believe it or not, there are women featured in newspapers who are not young and sexually attractive to men.
And they're featured there because they're fucking important.
Unless, of course, you think that Margaret Thatcher was featured in newspapers exclusively because she was young and sexually attractive to men.
Surely, Jermaine Greer, this is what the older Jermaine Greer used to say.
No, I never did say that.
But the interesting thing to me right now is everyone's assuming that the only imagery of women in newspapers is page three.
Well caught, Jermaine.
And here I was thinking that you were going senile.
Now unfortunately, that's truer than it should be.
You what, mate?
Everyone's assuming that the only imagery of women in newspapers is page three.
Right, and that is either true or false.
There is no gradient of truth to it.
Everyone is currently assuming that all imagery of women in newspapers is page 3, and that is not true.
So when you say Now unfortunately that's truer than it should be If It makes me think that the dementia has actually set in.
For example, out of a 30-page newspaper, Jermaine, one page has got naked women on it.
Maybe two or possibly even three.
Up to 10% of the newspaper may have naked women in it.
So the statement that the only imagery of women in newspapers is page three.
And to say that it is truer than it should be is ridiculous Puritan feminist nonsense.
If you look at the most pious newspaper, let's take The Guardian.
They just can't stop making feminism sound like a religion.
The most pious newspaper.
In this case, The Guardian.
The most feminist newspaper I can think of.
Pious.
Just magnificent.
And look to see how many images of women there are, you will actually see a rule emerging.
Men are in the news and women are in the advertising.
Jermaine, these are some of the vaguest generalizations ever and you fucking know it.
For example, if we look at today's Guardian, we can see that there are indeed women in the news and men in the advertisements.
In fact, if we just look at the top five most read stories, one is about an economic stimulus plan, then there are two that are about men and two that are about women.
Don't get me wrong, I know this is just today as an example, and it might not necessarily disprove a trend, but I'm not the one making the assertions.
You are, and you've brought no evidence, and the only evidence I can see to hand doesn't back up what you're saying.
Frankly, Jermaine, it sounds like you're talking from 30 years ago.
And even then, there is nothing wrong with using attractive women in advertisements.
They aren't doing it against their will.
They're being paid handsomely, and it's not hurting anyone.
And this tells, and they're young and they're idealized in the advertising.
Stop the presses.
Young, attractive women are made to look more attractive in advertising to sell products.
And ugly old Haridans don't like it.
Just look at Harmon nodding away.
Oh my god, everything she's saying is so true.
Just so true.
I am so saggy and unattractive.
And seeing these attractive women on billboards, I just, we need to do something about it.
It needs to change.
I feel so frumpy and unattractive.
And being a woman in my late 40s, I don't see why I should feel frumpy and unattractive.
That women with authority, senior women, and so on, are virtually invisible.
I love how she can say this with a straight face on TV in a debate with three women, two of which are senior women with authority.
It's not just that we had page three.
Page three would have been fine.
Bollocks.
You've got women being sold into slavery in the Middle East and getting acid chucked in their faces for daring to want an education.
You've got women being sex trafficked around the world and you have first world feminists complaining that women are being paid huge sums of money to appear topless in magazines.
There is no fucking way.
If there were no other problems, page three would be fine.
No fucking way.
If we had anything else, if we had clearer role models.
Jesus Christ, would you listen to yourself?
We have the shadow deputy prime minister and an ancient feminist icon on TV telling us that women getting their boobs out in the newspapers is just wrong because it makes them feel frumpy.
You are meant to be role models.
What roles are you modelling?
Don't worry, I'll answer it for you.
You are modelling the roles of professional whiners who have nothing worse to whine about in their lives, whose lives are so fucking wonderful that this is the most important thing they have to do today.
And if we weren't getting used to hearing all our female leaders who made themselves obnoxious from time to time being ridiculed with impunity.
You wouldn't be ridiculed with impunity if you weren't saying things that were stupid and pointless.
Also, are you calling for censorship?
You are a public figure, therefore you shall be ridiculed with impunity if you do or say something retarded, which you currently are, you pair of dried-up old lemons.
That page three is not the issue.
Actually, it is, Jermaine.
This is the entire focus of this debate.
Stay on point.
And the other thing is, of course, that page three hasn't gone anywhere but online.
And there are so many more breasts on the sun online than you would believe possible.
This is a very effective advertisement, just so you know.
And you can have a free trial today.
The Sun is trying out a change.
Seriously, are they paying you?
I think it's trying to move its readership to the online version.
I think that's hopeless.
I think it will fail.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that breasts on the internet is a terrible business model.
But you can't assume that the women who were agitating against page three have won if the sun doesn't tell you that.
The sun hasn't capitulated.
There is no evidence we're interpreting post hoc here as proctor hoc, which is an elementary logic mistake.
What Jermaine is talking about here is a logical fallacy called post hoc ergo proctor hoc, which is Latin for after this, therefore because of this.
The example on Wikipedia being the rooster crows immediately before sunrise, therefore the rooster causes the sun to rise.
So Jermaine's example would be a group of feminists are complaining that there are breasts on page three and want them removed, and then the sun newspaper removes the breasts on page three.
However, what Jermaine's not actually considering is that there are no other reasons for the sun to remove the breasts from page three.
It certainly wasn't due to any kind of waning popularity of breasts among men.
So let's be realistic here for a minute, Jermaine.
The sun had pulled the breasts from page three because a bunch of noisy feminists were creating big racket about it.
This is not a logical fallacy.
Unless, of course, you have a better explanation for why the sun would have done this.
And we have to wait and see what happens next.
This is a developing story.
It's not over.
God, you make it sound so important.
But yes, that is true, but it is really not unreasonable to assume the feminist campaign against page three is what has caused the sun to pull page three.
Well, in truth, Chloe, you've gone online.
I mean, you can go and pay the paywall and people can still see you if you pose again.
All right, calm down, old boy.
You seem to be getting a bit flustered.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I think nowadays, especially with the internet so greatly growing, I think page three going online, I think that's not really a bad idea at all.
There are so much worse things on the internet nowadays that we need to be worried about other than page three.
And regarding back to the point of in a hundred years' time, would we be proud that we turned the newspaper and saw page three, what would we think of women?
Well, what did we think of women and men 1,000 years ago when you see statues written all over the walls of men and women?
I hate to be a pedant about this, but I'm going to be.
She means 2,000 years ago.
But that's the only thing wrong with the point that she's making.
Nude.
Ah, well, there's a good thought.
A thousand years ago, they were all in the nude.
Yes, well, it was something to be celebrated back then, wasn't it?
There's still statues all around the world of men and female bodies in the nude.
So I don't understand why it's just page three that's being targeted.
What a good point.
I mean, she is merely the present today edition of Aphrodite in the nude in wherever it was.
Ancient Greece.
But the problem is that Harriet Harmon and Jermaine Greer don't feel attractive.
They have to now project this feeling of insecurity onto other younger, attractive women in an attempt to make themselves feel better.
That's what all of this is about.
There are no statistics to say that women are somehow being damaged by page three.
There's nothing in any way to prove any of this, which is why none of them have provided anything in the way of proof.
All they have done is said, well, we don't like it.
And they're saying that because it makes them insecure.
Because this is about a newspaper, and I would agree with Jermaine about this, is that actually the question is, what is valuable about women in society?
And do you lose that value as you get older?
There is no hard and fast rule.
If you are intelligent, quick-witted, and hard-working, then like any other person with those attributes, you will remain important.
And the experience you accrue over the course of your life will just add to your value, irrespective of your gender.
If your one talent was being attractive and stripping off the money, then yes, Harriet, you will lose that value as you grow older.
And, you know, the argument has been that as men get older, like your good self, John, that their hair's grey, it shows wisdom, it shows that they are even more admirable.
But God help a woman who doesn't look like Chloe here, because therefore they don't have any value because they're no longer able to strip off their attractions.
This is such a specious argument.
Harriet, most women aren't able to strip off and make money from their nudity, because most women aren't actually all that attractive.
So like men, for the majority who do not have the luxury of merely being paid to take their clothes off, they have to work for their value.
The very few lucky people who are naturally attractive enough to simply have value by merely existing are just that.
The very few, the absolute tiny minority of people.
What you are worried about, Harriet, barely applies to anyone.
And given that women are the majority of degree holders these days, I think the more pertinent thing to worry about is what they're fucking studying.
Because I get the feeling that you're a big fan of gender studies degrees.
And my God, there's no value to that.
Honestly, I'd be worrying about getting more women into STEM fields if I were you.
I'm going to have to.
I think women have come on leaps and leaps and bounds from, you know, decades and decades ago.
We are doing very well as a society as a whole.
I think there's more job roles that are being offered to women.
So you can't just single out page three as being the reason why women are now being undervalued and using it as the sort of excuse as to why women aren't getting roles that they are wanting.
Holy shit, Harriet.
You just got blown the fuck out, woman.
You've said nothing credible so far and she has just been like, no, that's not the reason and you know it.
Let's hear you backtrack.
I don't think it's the reason, but I think it's an example of it.
And of course it's not the whole story and we're just discussing it more generally.
Oh shut up woman.
You've got nothing.
Are you even listening to yourself?
But I think that, you know, we should be able to hope that women have got equal opportunities to men to be seen in all sorts of different roles.
Nobody's debating that, Harriet.
Nobody at all is debating that.
What we're debating is whether page three is good or bad for women and their representations in society at large.
On one side, we have frumpy old feminists who don't like beautiful young women being on display.
And on the other side, we have the beautiful young women saying, we're completely fine with this.
And I think to the extent that you're saying that women's roles has advanced and women feel more able to make choices, that's all a good thing.
And Jermaine's been part of the leadership of that movement that have said women don't just have to be there.
Doesn't look like Jermaine's buying your bullshit, Harriet.
To be what men want them to be, they can actually choose it themselves.
And that is a notion which 40 years ago would be an astonishing in 1975.
Did you miss the 60s or something, Harriet?
Just let me bring Germaine in because I'm just trying to think about Rupert Murdoch, who's very active on Twitter.
Sadly received a tweet saying that his old nemesis, as I'm sure he must see you, is suddenly on side and defending his right to bung a woman in the topless condition on page three.
Sorry, you're going to have to repeat that.
Well, I'm flattered that you think that Rupert is responding to something I've done.
My family and his family have been entwined ever since I was a child, and I do find this quite amusing.
Well, I didn't know that.
He had said he thought page three was old-fashioned, but the assumption that he edits the newspapers he owns and that he looks over the shoulder of his editors is simply wrong.
He doesn't do that.
He's a proprietor.
He's not an editor.
And whatever is going on at the Sun, as far as I can see, it's an editorial decision.
They are moving towards a change, which I think might turn out to be wrong.
Because the thing about The Sun is if you've always grabbed your copy of The Sun and your cup of tea and sat down in, you know, and had your 11s and looked at page three and then gone straight to the sport.
It's not as if anything on page three was a surprise, you're really going to want to have it still on paper.
The interesting thing is that online, the images are much more arresting because the definition is so much higher and the colour is so much more intense.
Jermaine.
It's really a completely different thing.
It's an orgy online.
Jesus Christ.
All right, Jermaine, I think you are going to get paid for this.
Don't worry.
Uncle Rupert has no doubt put your check right in the post.
So we're going to assume that that was the end of the story, aren't we?
I mean, feminists bitched and moaned.
The sun pulled page three and the world is slightly worse off for it.
Except the feminists have played right into the sun's hands by giving them plenty of free publicity and effecting no change at all.
Although that's not entirely true.
It seems that the real victim of all of this was feminism.
So the sun has done a U-turn on page three.
Nicole from Bournemouth, aged 22, has appeared under the headline, We've Had a Mammary Lapse.
And a lot of people this morning have been putting their hands up and claiming they're very upset by this.
But actually, I think the sad reality is that the real victim of this whole thing is feminism.
Feminism has been criticised over the last couple of days by both men and women.
And women seem to have fallen into two camps, really, either believing that women should be able to do what the hell they want with their bodies and that it's nobody's business, or speaking directly to glamour models, to page three girls and saying that they've been victimised by the whole thing since 1970, but they're just too close to it to see the truth.
So it's really caused a huge split, a huge rift among feminists themselves at a time where we need to be a sisterhood more than ever, I would say.
And actually, it's funny because today's appearance of Nicole 22 from Bournemouth has shown a lot of those who have spoken out in support of page three in the last couple of days that in fact they have been used in a way, or perhaps it's the first instance in which it's obvious that a girl has been used to push the sun's agenda.
I don't think the No More Page 3 campaign will feel cheated as such.
I think they'll take it in their stride.
They tweeted last night as soon as the news broke saying the fight's back on.
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