I was pleased this morning to read a hopeful piece about the No More Page 3 campaign from none other than Clare Short, the former member of British parliament who spent years opposing Page 3. She did this because of the many, many women who wrote to her about its negative effect on their lives, and she was roundly scourged for it.
You can read here about the incredibly nasty way that Short was treated by Sun editor Dominic Mohan, including publishing faked photographs purporting to be Short in her nightgown.
And it looks to me like the wiki on Clare Short was written by an opponent. So much for “neutral point of view”, eh?
Clare Short received “hundreds of loving, caring, supportive letters from women. They sent me pictures of their daughters and cards with beautiful pictures of flowers. They wrote to say how much they agreed with me. But the most urgent message was that they were shaking with rage at how I was treated. I was deeply touched by this enormous affection from women I had never met. The strength and loveliness of it far outweighed the humiliation and nastiness I had experienced before.”
Pretty flowers unianimously reject Page 3 of the Sun
Clare Short is our hero and it’s about time someone told her so. I did, here, and I hope you will too.
For those who think that topless women appearing in a newspaper is a choice that ought to be respected, the way Short was bullied in the press by Mohan is proof of just how much of a choice taking our clothes off for the dudes really is.
If we do it, we’re treated like mindless meat.
If we don’t do it, we’re denied vital access to resources that we need to survive.
If we speak up against it, we’re shouted down, bullied and humiliated in public.
Enough.
If you haven’t signed the petition to send Page 3 to the dustbin where it belongs, please do it now. We need you. Click here.
If you live in the UK, please join in the boycott of the Sun’s advertisers from the last week of October through the first week of November. I will update with a full list, but I know Tesco, Asda and Sainsburys is on it.
Update:
Clare Short just emailed me to thank me for calling her a hero. 
