Sun sets on page 3, casting a shadow on what's sexist and what's sexy

It's done. The death of page 3 in the UK tabloid The Sun drives, if not the final, at least a firm nail in the coffin of sexist reportage. Insignificant as it may seem in the larger universe of published news in a day, where important events and opinions are broadcast, published or tweeted on a 24 hour basis worldwide - Obama's SOTU address in America, the filing of nominations by candidates in the run-up to the Delhi elections on India - it is nevertheless a big step forward in the fight for women's equality, with worldwide ripples.

Welcoming the decision by Rupert Murdoch's The Sun, Yas Necati of the "No More Page 3" campaign told the Times: "When you open up The Sun, which is Britain’s biggest selling family newspaper, you see images of men doing things — running the country, achieving in sport — whereas the most prominent image of a woman is one where she is sexually objectified."

Catherine Mayer, writing in TIME, explains further why page 3 was "quite so damaging to women". She writes that page 3 set out to be provocative not just by titillating male readers, "but in trying, and often succeeding, in provoking women into reacting against The Sun. Every complaint — and there have been many — served to foster a narrative equating feminism with joylessness, sexlessness, humourlessness and the ammonium stink of political correctness."

Joan Smith, in a piece titled "The Sexual Revolution Made Page 3 Possible. The Feminist Revolution Ended It" in The Guardian, writes: "Playboy and Page 3 piggybacked the sexual revolution, persuading women that they were sexual pioneers when they were actually reprising ancient gender roles. One of the reasons they got away with it was the almost total exclusion of women from senior roles on newspapers and boards, allowing a chummy male atmosphere to flourish."

She adds: "The message of Page 3 was never “strong” and “assertive”. It was “available” and “passive" - this of course, only underlines that page 3 was never about progressive empowerment as some tried to spin it, it was about regressive objectification.

But while the burial of page 3 by The Sun is a move welcomed by Western feminists, still struggling for equal pay and reproductive rights even so long after the women's suffrage movement, it is sure to have repercussions worldwide.

In India, for instance, "modern" and "liberal" and "Western" - of which "feminism" is seen as an offshoot - is still confused with sexual objectification, and more dangerously, availability - even in the recent case of the alleged rape of a woman in an Uber taxi in Delhi, the defence counsel for the accused has argued that Section 506 of the IPC slapped on the accused isn't "legitimate" as a modern woman can't be intimidated. "Can a woman, who is educated and physically able, be threatened with rape and murder?" Ergo: if you're out late at night, free, choose your clothes and the time and place you wish to be out, it would be consensual sex, not rape.

It is a mindset that is also seen in politicians across the board, who regularly blame women's "Western" clothes for their own rape, or columnists, who confuse free expression of a woman's taste in clothes, with exploitation and objectification.

And last year when Deepika Padukone objected to the use of her pictures at an event by Times of India, which chose to publish them by zooming in on her cleavage with a derogatory caption, the newspaper defended the decision by pointing fingers at the actress' "hypocrisy" in doing sexist Bollywood roles (as if an actress has a choice but to play whatever best roles an industry is able to afford her). Others too joined in. In DailyO Gayatri Jayaraman wrote: "The great disappointment in the discourse around Deepika Padukone's outrage is the rejection of her own ability to choose how she presents herself. The images are taken from her films, her events, and are of her own body. Those are indubitably, her breasts, and she chose to heave them, flash them, show them, use them to tease, titillate and excite. And to me, her ability to do so, in a new India, is the celebration of her choice."

This is exactly where equating "right to self expression" to "right to objectification" becomes so warped and anti women. It is undoubtedly Padukone's choice to dress as she pleases. But it is her choice also to control how it is published or used in the mainstream, because, of course, it is her body.

We know that images, especially those in the mainstream, play a role in reflecting, shaping, perhaps even controlling culture. Objectification reflects and strengthens misogyny and anti women stereotypes.

Of course none of this can and should be addressed through censorship. The objectification of women lies not in the inch of clothes worn (or not) but in the context in which it is done. Like many Bollywood films, The Sun's page 3 was objectification, and it has wisely chosen to see the error of its ways.

It will pave the way for a lot of wrongs to be put right across the mainstream publishing and entertainment world, through common sense and awareness and the understanding of the female perspective. Nothing prudish or killjoy about it, no matter what the censorship or liberal bashing conspiracy theorists may say.