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And your rebuttals are shit.
I've changed my mind on a shitload of issues over the years, and it was never because someone called me an idiot.
Men objectify women sexually. Always have, always will. Hard wired for it I'm afraid.
If I see a beautiful woman walking down the street in tight clothing I think about sex with her, not discussing current affairs. That doesn't make me sexist.
If it was balanced then I might be willing to concede that it's less of an issue, but in my limited exposure to the publication, it's not.
You've done nothing but forward your arguments in a measured and calm way. It's clear you're open to having your mind changed. I've no idea why Fiend_85 has decided to be a prick about it.
In my mind, it does. They're not displaying rounded portraits of these women with their interests and a detailed commentary on the current economic crisis, are they? And even if they were, as long as that rounded portrait included naked boobs that's all anyone would see.
I disagree, but I think it also depends on what the sexy photos depict. Sometimes I think someone is hot at the same time as listening to them sing a beautiful song, or make an important political point. If music or politics is what's being focussed on then, whatever, it's hormones and everyone fancies people. It's when the focus is on the boobs.
The problem is all through the publication, true, and all over the media, but we have to start somewhere. Page 3 is the most extreme and visible example.
The link Ballerina posted is probably the best comment I've seen so far.
I'm pretty sure I answered that in my reply to G last night.
I was expecting AR to reply to the question about what he did say before replying. I don't know how I'd phrase it (or how much a 3-year-old can understand) but I'd want her to understand, by the time she's an adult, that nudity doesn't equal sex and that they've chosen to do this as their career, like others choose to be cooks or astronauts.
Of course the page is there "to please men" (btw, are you saying that gay women are not interested at all? no idea how the dynamics work -entirely different topic though). But the problem isn't when men think "That woman's hot" or "Nice boobs" or whatever, it's when they think "That woman is worthless aside from being hot and having nice boobs".
I think this is an interesting parallel to draw. If you bought a magazine about restaurants and they had a This Week's Top Chef article, with a picture of the chef and a quote, this by its nature presents a one dimensional view of that person. I'm not sure the comparison is exact, but it's food for thought: one person spends time perfecting their cooking skills and is paid for the work they produce, the other diets and exercises and keeps up their appearance and gets paid because people enjoy the fruits of their labour. I can look at the picture of the women and think "she's hot" without then applying the non sequitur "and that's all she is" in the same way I can taste the chef's food and think "that's lovely" without thinking "I bet that's all he's good at".
I think I'm stretching the comparison a bit and am happy to be told (without ad hominem) where the fallacies in it lie.
I am also interested to hear his response to his daughter.
ETA: genuinely interested, I've tried to imagine playing the scenario in my head and I think it's a conversation needs handling with intelligence and compassion.
Drool over them type pictures in my opinion don't have a place in a general news publication.
I think the issue with the chef comparison is that you're comparing a talent/skill with physical attributes. If you want to go down those lines then you'd still need the picture to be accompanied by an article on how the model has achieved and maintains her attributes - or how the air brushing techniques have been applied.
:yes: That's what I would say. I will never look like Angelina Jolie, unless I had some kind of miracle working surgeon, but I could learn to cook like Gordon Ramsay if I were taught long enough. And I'd like to receive compliments on that.
One-dimensional isn't bad, especially in a journalistic context where wordcount is limited. Focus on body image one-dimensionally is usually problematic.
I agree there's an argument that photoshopped images should be marked as such.
I disagree. Many of the most attractive women I know do not use "discipline and dedication and sacrifice" to maintain they're good looks. As for "attainment", I think I missed the self-DNA-splicing class
You're probably right, but you can imagine a scenario where that wasn't the case - just a picture of the chef and a quote about accepting the award.
Sure, but the award is the thing.
And it's unusual rather than the norm - which I think means you're probably starting to actually pick out the differences yourself.
Maybe we've different sample sets - and I can only go anecdotally, of course - but of the people I know who could conceivably appear on page three of The Sun, they all take diet and exercise seriously. It's a solid point that a genetic roll of the dice is in play also, but I think that's broadly the same for many jobs - if it's not a physical attribute (piano player's hands, Michael Phelp's body shape) it could be mental wiring (a predisposition for understanding maths or physics or computing).
So given a reasonable write-up of the work the Page 3 model has put into looking the way they do, with any caveats about Photoshop, you'd be fairly accepting of it?
Yes, sure. The award and recognition is the reward the chef's hard work; her body shape and the appearance fee and possibly the appreciation of the readers are hers.
Women's magazines frequently do that. But I'd still be unhappy about it as a regular feature in a publication that calls itself news.
The problem with the chef/model analogy is the potential for women to be seriously damaged trying to "achieve" the body of a page 3 model (or a catwalk model for that matter).
I'd be far more accepting of it than I am at the moment. It would still fail at being news, and would be better placed in an publication that focuses more on such things.
Think we both know that the article would be completely ignored by all, because it's not newsworthy in the slightest, which to me pretty much makes the point as to why it shouldn't be there.
Interesting question: If this page 3 included women of different ages and body types, would the people who are against it now be against it still? If yes, then it's not about who is in the photos. If not, I misunderstood the subject to begin with.
(I imagine there's other people who'd be against it if that happened, for very different reasons)