 | | Cambridge University |
Cambridge University is at the centre of a row over its first tabloid, which includes students posing as “Page 3” girls under the banner “Totty”.
An online “redtop” called The Tab was launched this year and received 80,000 hits in its first week.
But a section where students pose in their underwear has caused controversy and led to calls for the scantily clad students to be covered up.
The Cambridge student union women’s officer, Natalie Szarek, said that they should be removed because they “reproduce and reinforce harmful attitudes towards women”.
Szarek complained that “semi-naked women in provocative positions are being shoved in freshers’ faces”, adding: “We can do better as a university”.
Meanwhile, one of the student models, who posed on a punt in a small pink bikini and high heels, requested her photos removed from the site.
Becky Adams was said to have been “embarrassed” by the fall out of appearing in the tabloid and said she had only done it “as a favour for a friend”.
Until yesterday, a picture of her accompanied an article headlined “Bra-vo” – a piece about a study which found that Cambridge women have on average the ninth largest bra sizes in the UK.
She was replaced by a picture of a large blue bra, without a woman attached.Taymoor Atighetchi, 21, a third-year student at Trinity College and one of the tabloid’s three co-founders who paid £500 each to launch the website, defended The Tab and said it would continue its style of journalism.
“There’s a huge amount of intellectual snobbery around, mainly from those who haven’t read the site,” he said.
“We do not think what we are doing is sexist. It was always the intention to have a debate about these issues. The website is a tongue-in-cheek version of the tabloid newspaper — we are not just emulating it.” Editorials in the tabloid have hit back at Szarek, and highlighted her arrest at a recent protest.
The Telegraph, India | 
