A row has erupted at Cambridge University after its first tabloid showed off its 'Page 3' girls, fuelling demands that scantilly clad students on The Tab be covered up.
The online redtop launched this year has received 80,000 hits in its first week, but it has sparked a row with complains being filed that "semi-naked women in provocative positions are being shoved in freshers' faces".
Natalie Szarek, the university's student union women's officer, demanded that the 'Page 3' girls should be removed because they "reproduce and reinforce harmful attitudes towards women". "We can do better as a university," she was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph today.
Taymoor Atighetchi, a third-year student at Trinity College and one of the tabloid’s three co-founders who paid 500 pounds each to launch the website, defended The Tab.
"There's a huge amount of intellectual snobbery around, mainly from those who haven't read the site," he said, adding "We do not think what we are doing is sexist".
The female photographer who took the 'Totty' photos for the university's tabloid also defended the website. "Surely the fact that they are educated and bright women, and still chose to partake in Tab Totty proves that 'page three' and 'glamour girls' are not just women who have no other choice but to turn to modelling," she said.
{{/usCountry}}The female photographer who took the 'Totty' photos for the university's tabloid also defended the website. "Surely the fact that they are educated and bright women, and still chose to partake in Tab Totty proves that 'page three' and 'glamour girls' are not just women who have no other choice but to turn to modelling," she said.
{{/usCountry}}The website has also come into conflict with Cambridge's traditional old student newspapers, Varsity and The Cambridge Student, the report in the British daily said.
The Varsity co-editor, Anna Trench, a third-year English student, claimed the traditional press is "taken a lot more seriously" and that the anti-elitist Tab was run by "three of the richest students in Cambridge".
Photo courtesy: The Tab