Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

Here's a little follow up to my last post supporting the #nomorePage3 campaign.

I asked a member of each of the main parties in Newbury if they'd sign the petition requesting that David Dinsmore, Editor of The Sun reconsider the content of Page 3 and this is what happened:

Labour: I contacted Richard Garvie who texted me within 30 minutes to say that he'd signed the petition - whoop!

Conservative: I got in touch with Richard Benyon, MP who replied with a rather lovely letter (below).  Great that he agrees with the aims of the campaign, but I think he has misunderstood what it's asking MP's to do.  We're not asking you to legislate Richard, just show your support! (pretty please). 

Liberal Democrat: I emailed Judith Bunting who I'm yet to hear from...come on lady!

Three messages, two replies and only a few minutes work on my part to promote the hard graft of a few people who are really putting themselves out there to try to take the tits off the tea-tables in our local café and soft play.  So if you've got a few minutes to spare, drop a line to your local MP and give these girls a hand!

We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off

I have never written to my (or in fact any) MP before.  But I just have.  Well, when I say 'written to' I have in fact requested via Twitter that he sign a letter to David Dinsmore; Editor of The Sun newspaper to put an end to the Page 3 'feature' of a woman with her breasts on display.

We don't buy The Sun (or borrow, steal or read it on the sly in case you're wondering) but my mum and dad used to when I was growing up.  This meant that the female role models available to me as a child included Samantha Fox and Linda Lusardi.  It is almost comical that at a time when a woman was running the country my curious young mind was getting a picture of a pair of baps with my breakfast as an example of what it meant to be a woman.

Of course my parents didn't open the paper at Page 3 and make me look at the picture of 'Suki, aged 19 and a 32D' but I did pick up and read everything I could get my hands on and it would be wrong for me to say that the daily image of a half-naked woman didn't in some way inform my views on (and issues with) my own body-image and what men like and look for in women.  It's not just a 'harmless bit of fun'.

So for that reason, and for the reason that it's outdated, irrelevant and not the reason that many people buy The Sun I've asked Richard Benyon to sign the letter here: http://nomorepage3.org/letter-to-the-editor-signed-by-mps/ 

Lucy Holmes - Campaign Founder
and chief t-shirt rocker!

And how about you?  Would you like to reduce the potential for your sons, daughters, nieces and nephews to have a picture of a pair of teenage breasts stuck in front of them at your local newsagents or softplay?  Or perhaps you'd just like to reduce the likelihood of having to explain to them why it exists when they do :)  If so, you can head on over here http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dominic-mohan-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3

You can learn more about the No More Page 3 campaign and admire or buy their rather
fetching 'Frankie Goes to Hollywood' style t-shirts - here: http://nomorepage3.org/

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Soundtrack: We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off by Jermaine Jackson

Bye Bye Baby

So the boy wonder is due to start school in a couple of months and with it will be the end of a chapter for our family.  No more babies.

Neither of the children are actually babies (and haven't been for some considerable years), chubby limbs with lines instead of ankles and wrists became sturdy arms and legs many moons ago, their songs are no longer the lullabies that I sang, their bodies no longer small enough to be contained in my arms but there is something about your youngest starting school that seems a much more decisive transfer from the baby years than any other landmark.

But it's ok.  I don't long to push a pram, change a nappy, get woken up at hourly intervals or wipe sick off my clothes.  I don't want to return to wearing a changing bag on my back like a tortoise's shell, or a maternity bra on my front like a.....well a maternity bra, and I definitely don't want to revisit the singularly uncomfortable contortionist's act that is childbirth.  I am ready for this.

The girl is loving school, the boy can't wait to go and we're all looking forward to having them both in the same place at the same time.  We are roaming restlessly, counting down days, collecting uniform and making great plans for the nursery fees we will save.  He will come home with a book bag and tell us tales of what books he is going to learn to read and we will be proud.

And because of this, when he walks in with his big sister on his first day, I will try really, really hard not to cry.


Soundtrack: Bye Bye Baby by the Bay City Rollers