@anono

Actually, it was both. They loved it so much they brought it back..

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2011/04/the-daily-sport-goes-tits-up/

No it would be hypocritical if Helen was STILL working for the Mail and trying to make the same points she makes in this very good article. Try dealing with the substantive argument made here rather than making ad hominem criticisms of what a journalist did several years ago.

If we extend the logic of some of the posts here, a 30 year old ex-porn star wouldn't have any right to complain about the fact that they ended up feeling exploited by an industry that they worked in aged 18-21... after all they got paid for it didn't they?!

Ah OK everyone, let's not bother debating what is a really huge issue and instead slag off the author about something she once did. Is no one allowed to change their mind about anything, or take a job because (shock horror) they need the money.

I used to work in a fish and chip shop. Does that mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion about healthy food?

Great article Helen. From what I've read today, it seems that this is starting to be taken seriously at last, which is fantastic. I think the watershed proposal is a great idea. I'm still not convinced that printing the Gadaffi photos on every front page was entirely justified though.

@sarah mcalpine

girl's gotta eat - what a great title for a porn film... just sayin'...

Excellent piece. Perhaps you could show it to your colleagues and editor and ask them when they will get round to dealing with the Statesmans reputation as a misogynist hellhole to work at? Also have a chat with your editors about the nature of what the statesman churns out(I appreciate much of that is decided by whoever heads the Labour party not by the person writing the Labour line) because misogny is right at the heart of most of it. This piece however is very good, and I liked reading it.

"The Daily Mail's website, meanwhile, is a vast, teetering edifice of wardrobe malfunctions and women flaunting their bikini bodies" ...is just an example of the vacuous output that the paper uses to attract femail readers. It mirrors that same stuff found in the hundreds of women's magazines in every super market.

yeah it's shit, dumbed down, unhealthy and brainless, but sexist it ain't, it's want many women want to read.

As we all know, now Labour are out of power the point of every single article in every left-wing magazine or blog is not to make some point (on, for example, the Leveson Inquiry as this article purports to) but to show that the author is on a higher moral or intellectual ground to those wicked right-wingers. The point is to have a sneer at the Mail, or to claim that right-wing opinion is based on emotion and left-wing opinion based on incontrovertible logic, or to claim that Cameron is Flashman and being a nasty bully to that high-minded Mr Miliband.

In the circumstances, it is more than appropriate that when hurling insults at kettle, one is not a pot oneself. If the point of the article was a serious discussion of Leveson, HLH's past employment history wouldn't matter one jot. But if all she's going to do is have a good sneer at the Mail because - ooh how beastly, it's got pictures of (horros!) half naked ladies and is read by (ugh!) bourgeois types who (gasp!) vote Tory! - it does matter. The Mail hasn't changed so much since she eagerly sought employment with them. The article is one long screed of hypocrisy as a result.

Enough already about who once worked for the Daily Mail. What does it matter. The pope belonged to the nazi party once didn't he? And no one ever mentions that, do they? Well yes, they do, but I think that in this case we should get back to discussing some of the real issues.

"The Sport might have gone the way of the dodo"

Has it by damn! I thought that was the News of the World. Still, that's progress eh?

"Many people don't take jobs because they don't associate with the moral behaviour of the company."

Yawn, though, actually many people have jobs they hate but which they need for money. We call it reality, and it is invariably grim. Maybe I'll just go and tell my boss where he can stick it, or show him with a picture from the tabloid press.

God I crack myself up. No pun intended.

Tesco Shelf Stacker- I'm happy to work at Tescos. I'm not happy to do it for free.

Pretty young ladies and sexism in the media - Amanda Knox springs to mind. Also referred to by the press as 'Foxy Knoxy'(nudge nudge - wink wink).

newspapers in the uk have less and less readers every day, they are becoming irrelevant, this is just the last act of a group of desperate men, who are having trouble persuading any real women of their attractiveness.

the most sexist man i know couldn't pull a woman to save his life.

Back in the early 1980s, when I was a young anarchist punk, I thought all this bad gender shit was changing. I thought we (men) were changing. I'd grown up with a mother who was the household doormat and I desperately wanted to become a little more considerate and equitable vis-a-vis women. For myself, I'd like to think some progress towards this aspiration has been made, yet it seems that sections of society have headed in the opposite direction. It would be depressing if it wasn't so bloody pathetic.

Gambler

Perhaps the point is this:

The Sun and other similar papers are read by many many people who aren't exposed to much else in the way of media, some male, some female.

They see ordinary men asked for their views on things, and some portrayals of idiotic men (although Homer Simpson for eg is actually a rather funny example because he is considered kind of lovable and legendary, I bet if he was a female character with the same body image and traits he would not be but that's a separate issue).

They see women like Clare Short derided, mocked, insulted, and treated as less than a person.

They see women and girls in their knickers giving a statement on political views.

They are told that women in their knickers is a normal thing, not for the top shelf or watershed, whilst being told that a gay or lesbian couple kissing on telly(for eg) offends if shown between nine o clock.

They are not told that they ought to expect to see men portrayed in this way.

This may have a rather damaging view on how men and women are both expected to behave.

Perhaps it is worth investigating whether it does, especially when you consider how the Sun and the Mail love to bang on about personal responsibility.

No one is making an argument that no woman ever ever ever ever saying anything bad whatsoever about men.

In the porno eighties ladies went from being dishabille in print to being naked and shorn.
In our workplaces some of us came across a sort of feminine reaction.
Photos of naked men lolling on satin or whatever enraged many of the liberated males who salivated over young female flesh.
Of course, there's no media demand for it.

Goose and Gander

I like womens' breasts. I don't buy the Sun or any other periodical that thrusts them in my face as it were. Could it be that the main readership of these type of newspapers are pubescent boys who either can't afford or can't reach the top shelf publications?

@ XX

Not as much as I should have done, probably.