UK’s The Sun has made the news again as it depicts a topless woman on its front cover to encourage women to check their breasts for breast cancer for its ‘Check ‘em Tuesday’ campaign.
With the words “Page 3 vs Breast Cancer” The Sun has come under fire for using a “highly sexualized” image for such a serious issue.
Felicity Morse of The Independent in the UK believes taking people’s traumatic experiences of breast cancer and “twisting them to foster support for a sexist, outdated institution is low, even by tabloid standards”.
“Using Page 3 girls to promote breast cancer awareness is a clever move by The Sun. It highlights a very worthy cause. It’s also offensive, disingenuous and downright manipulative.”
Gabby Hinsliff from The Guardian states that while she’s not a fan of Page 3 of The Sun, she applauds the breast cancer campaign.
“But cleavage for a purpose? Damnit, that's a trickier call, because it raises the question of when a breast is just a breast, and when it becomes something else entirely.”
According to The Guardian, The Sun teamed up with breast cancer awareness organisation, Coppafeel to boost early detection of the disease.
With its ‘Check ‘em Tuesday’ campaign, each Tuesday readers will be reminded to cop a feel of their breasts to check for signs of breast cancer.
The Sun’s website outlines various readers and celebs who have Facebooked and Tweeted photos of themselves feeling their breasts with the hashtag #checkemtuesday.
What do you think of The Sun’s campaign?