Girl Guides join campaign to end Sun’s page three

Girlguiding, which has more than 530,000 members across the UK, has issued a statement in which it supports the campaign calling for “No More Page 3”.

The movement did a ballot of members aged between 16 and 25, with 88 per cent of them voting in favour of an end to page three girls.

Girlguiding has sent an open letter to Dominic Mohan, the editor of the Sun. It says: “We know that the Sun is a family newspaper. Anyone can pick it up, turn to page three, and think that it is normal for young women to be treated as objects. We feel this is just wrong and has to stop.

“As a young woman in UK society, it is impossible to nurture your ambitions if you are constantly told that you are not the same as your male equivalent. This is what page three does. It is disrespectful and embarrassing.

“We would like the Sun, as a leading UK newspaper, to promote positive role models to inspire girls and young women and help everyone to understand that women are never for sale.”

Rupert Murdoch himself hinted last month that he may scrap the feature. He was responding to a tweet asking him to scrap page three, which was first published in 1970.

He tweeted: “page three so last century! You maybe right, don’t know but considering. Perhaps halfway house with glamorous fashionistas.”

@kazipooh page three so last century!You maybe right, don’t know but considering. Perhaps halfway house with glamorous fashionistas.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) February 10, 2013

The statement was welcomed by the No More Page 3 campaign, set up last year by writer Lucy Holmes and with more than 91,000 supporters online including celebrities Jessica Saunders, Frances Barber and Lauren Laverne.

The group said: “As we have at least one former guiding member within the team, we know first-hand what a powerful and positive influence guiding can have on individual girls.”

The No More Page 3 campaign began during the London 2012 Olympics, when Lucy Holmes objected to the fact that the Sun’s biggest picture of a woman in the paper was a page three model, even though heptathlete Jessica Ennis had just won a gold medal.