I'm not a prude but I've had enough of Page Three

I’M loving this Fourth Wave of Feminism. All those years when we were told that swinging around a pole as exercise was both ironic and empowering always felt like a massive joke – on us. Raunch culture felt like a big fat lie. How could the galloping pornification of women and girls ever be empowering?

Thank god then for the FWF, and its churning up of all the underlying stuff that for years we have been accepting, tolerating, ignoring and hoping would go away – except it didn’t. It got worse. Instead of Page Three disappearing, now we get porn on our phones at the swipe of a screen. Pop music is gender divided into people who sing about sex with their clothes on, and those who sing about sex with their clothes off; even powerful Queen Beyonce, performing with Mr Beyonce at a recent awards event, was wearing mostly flesh, as her husband remained covered head to toe in a suit. Visually, it was jarring — had she forgotten to get dressed?

This is so not about prudery. It’s about power. Beyonce can do what she likes because she is Beyonce, but trickle down to Page Three, to Hailey aged 23, or Bethany aged 21, and the naked woman has no power at all. She is passive entertainment wallpaper, yours for a few pence. In 2014, we still have this in every supermarket, garage, newsagent. It is still ‘normal’.