Poet Sabrina Mahfouz Confronts Portrayal of Girls in Media
By Grace Aneiza Ali
When the London-based poet and playwright Sabrina Mahfouz came across an online campaign to put an end to a topless model feature in one of England’s biggest selling newspapers, she was reminded of a ghost that troubled her throughout her own girlhood. “It’s difficult as a young girl not to see yourself represented in the magazines,” she says. “It definitely limits what you think you can do.”
The online campaign, “No More Page 3,” is a response to the “Page 3,” feature found in the UK’s Sun that consists of a large photograph of a topless young woman. The Sun has published topless models in its print edition since November 1970 (and in its online version since 1999).
The publication has been under constant scrutiny for the feature, including some calling for legislation to ban “Page 3,” and others petitioning the editors to abandon the feature or do away with the requirement that women pose topless.
Inspired by the campaign, Mahfouz penned her own “No More Page 3,” poem. In its stanzas, she shares her concerns about the impact, the psychological and emotional consequences, these pervasive images have on young girls. The message “Page 3,” sends to young girls is “if you are not sexually desirable, you don’t matter,” says Mahfouz
What’s unique about this campaign, is its place in a growing global movement of girls directly taking on publications, editors, and media executives. Just last year, American eighth-grader Julia Bluhm launched an online campaign against airbrushed images in Seventeen magazine. After much media attention and public pressure, the editors conceded to a “Body Peace Treaty,” where they promised to no longer digitally alter the bodies, faces, sizes, or shapes of the teen girls featured in their pages. It was a huge win for teen girls and an indicator that the tides might be shifting in media portrayals of young girls.
