Cambridge online student newspaper The Tab has once again caused controversy by launching a “Rear of the Year” competition, in which students can vote for their favourite derriere. The article, published on Monday, has received national media attention, with the photographs being republished in newspapers including the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. The CUSU Women’s Campaign has condemned the feature, calling it “immature sensationalisation”.
This is the second time that The Tab has run such a competition. The article features five men and five women posing with their backs to the camera and naked from the waist down, in various situations. One man, “Thomas”, is pictured in a University library, while another, named as Dave, is knocking on the door of Christ’s College. The women featured include “Bella”, “who once read an entire CUSU bulletin” in a laundry room, and “Amber” on a lawn holding “Please keep off the grass” sign.
Each photo is accompanied by the student’s name, college, subject and a fun fact, nearly all of which are made up.
Within hours of the piece appearing online, it was picked up by national media outlets and was the subject of a lengthy debate on the CUSU Women’s Campaign Facebook group. Many members of the group were outraged at the piece, with one commenter calling it “disgusting”. However many also warned against “shaming” the participants, particularly the women. Defenders of the piece have pointed out that the article includes the same amount of female and male nudity, and therefore should not be considered sexist.
Speaking to Varsity, Co-Editor of The Tab James Mitchell said: “The Rear Of The Year Awards are intended to be a bit of fun. I do not believe them to be sexist for various reasons, but primarily because The Tab paid equal attention to both genders and supports freedom of choice.
“I agree there is an interesting debate to be had about objectification however, and we would welcome that debate. The Tab is, and remains, an open forum. I would urge the Women’s Campaign to join us in having that discussion rather than complaining to the press.”
An emergency open meeting was held by the Women’s Campaign Executive on Tuesday 12th November, just over 24 hours after the “Rear of Year” piece was published. An email to the CUSU Women’s mailing list announcing the meeting was sent out with just 35 minutes notice. The members of the Women’s Executive present at the meeting discussed how best to communicate their belief that the competition is sexist.
CUSU Women’s Officer Lauren Steele said: “The Women’s Campaign does not take issue with the individuals who chose to be involved, but rather with the apparently never-ending need of media organisations such as The Tab to objectify women in this way. The Women’s Campaign believes that confidence in nudity is something to be celebrated and encouraged, but not by faceless images in a “newspaper”.
“We also condemn the fact that these images are presented as a poll, where readers are asked to rate bodies in a way which pits the women involved against each other. It is a well known fact that the prevalence of eating disorders and body image issues are directly related to the manner in which the media presents women’s bodies.”
She added: “Simply stating there are equal numbers of genders involved does not negate our concerns.”
However in defence of her appearance in the article, the participant named as “Bella” wrote in The Tab: “CUSU Women’s Campaign saying that The Tabundoubtedly knew that the girls would be treated differently, suggests that the girls should be treated differently, and objectified. Surely, this is The Tab just treating the bums of all genders as equals.”
The competition was first run in early 2012 and only featured men. The Tab then followed this up with a similar competition for women, which gained a great deal of media attention and crashed the website’s server because of the number of hits it was receiving. It was subsequently taken down.
Originally published in Varsity
Amy Hawkins 