Using Page 3 girls to promote breast cancer awareness is a clever move by The Sun. It highlights a very worthy cause. It’s also offensive, disingenuous and downright manipulative.
Taking people’s traumatic experiences of cancer and twisting them to foster support for a sexist, outdated institution is low, even by tabloid standards. Screaming PAGE 3 V BREAST CANCER, their headline implied that if you didn’t support Page 3, then you must be in favour of breast cancer. As no one is in favour of breast cancer, everyone must now support Page 3, it suggests. It’s difficult to knock anything which could save another woman from breast cancer, could spare another family from the agony of losing their mother, their sister, their daughter. Campaigning against Page 3 fades into insignificance against that heartbreak. However pitting one cause against another like this is not only crude, it’s also totally wide of the mark. Being against Page 3 and supporting breast cancer awareness makes more sense than the other way round.
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