Nottingham University Students Ban Topless Newspapers

Nottingham University Students Ban Topless Newspapers
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 26: A newspaper stand displays a copy of the British tabloid newspaper 'The Sun' which ran on its Page 3, normally reserved for pictures of topless models, a topless photograph of Royal bride-to-be Sophie Rhys-Jones, 26 May 1999. The revealing picture, taken in 1988, shows Sophie with a British DJ, Chris Tarrant whilst on a Capital Radio tour in Malaga and has caused outrage here amongst Buckingham Palace. The woman who sold the picture was Today sacked from her jo
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 26: A newspaper stand displays a copy of the British tabloid newspaper 'The Sun' which ran on its Page 3, normally reserved for pictures of topless models, a topless photograph of Royal bride-to-be Sophie Rhys-Jones, 26 May 1999. The revealing picture, taken in 1988, shows Sophie with a British DJ, Chris Tarrant whilst on a Capital Radio tour in Malaga and has caused outrage here amongst Buckingham Palace. The woman who sold the picture was Today sacked from her jo
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Topless newspapers have been banned at Nottingham University's student union because they "caused harm" to students who had been victims of sexual violence.

Students have boycotted both The Sun and The Daily Star after a student committee meeting voted 15 to three in favour of the motion.

The tabloids will not be allowed to be sold in the union until they remove the topless images.

Editor of The Sun David Dinsmore has previously reaffirmed Page 3's place in the paper, saying readers wanted it to stay.

"We're surprised by how vocal women are in support of it," he said at the time.

Jo Lockwood Estrin, one of the leaders of the campaign started by the university's feminist society, said: "The amount of people it harms - one in seven women on university campuses in the UK are raped or seriously sexually assaulted and we do believe that it is a link to these kinds of images being normalised."

Student Francesca Garforth was another of the campaign co-ordinators, and said: "For us, the tradition of Page 3 promotes a culture which demeans women and represents them as voiceless. We do not believe our Student's Union should be promoting and endorsing this culture.

We're so glad that our SU has chosen to support the national No More Page 3 campaign to pressure David Dinsmore, Editor of the The Sun to remove harmful influences from his publication.

We presented all of the information to the SU council, a random selection of students, who chose to take a stand against damaging influences. We hope that this will act as a spring board for more positive change in our university."

Students at York University campaigned to stop their union shop from selling The Sun newspaper, accusing the tabloid of 'trivialising' Reeva Steenkamp's death.

Late last year, students took to the streets across England to campaign against The Sun's use of topless models on page three, as well as urging their universities to ban the sale of the tabloid.

No More Page 3

"Seeing these images on a day-to-day basis normalises the idea that women are there and voiceless."

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