A well regulated press would also be a freer press, if it could do anything to end media sexism

Not another picture of Pippa Middleton's ass

The Leveson inquiry drags on, akin to the 1000 pages in the middle of The Lord of The Rings where the hobbits do nothing but walk across a cliff. We're still only on the first half - the bit of the inquiry in which press culture, ethics and practices are vigorously talked about. In fellowship terms, we're barely out of the shire.

Lord Justice Leveson is now indicating that he is unlikely to consider any government regulation. That may not be so disappointing, given the government's seeming view on regulation, otherwise expressed as 'we hate regulation'. But this does leave us to speculate on exactly what actions Leveson may be intending. In a manner quite dissimilar to that of Tolkien's oeuvre, the inquiry does not seem to be leading to any massive inexorable conclusions. 

At the end of last year coalition of mainstream feminist groups (the End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW), Eaves, OBJECT and Equality Now) submitted to the Leveson inquiry that it should address press sexism as part of a full investigation into the relationship between media and society.* How unbelievably heinous; it takes a country-wide media culture overhaul to enable official challenge to media myths of the alien species, 'women', who do nothing but lie about rape, wear clothes, or not wear clothes.

In this video, a Sky News commentator speculates - ever so insightfully - that the inquiry's outcome may be a 'tougher, beefed up, testosterone fuelled regulator.' Sexist language aside (and the identification 'good=masculine' could be one of the first things to go, if you ask me) a proper independent press complaints commission would seem to be one highly logical outcome of the inquiry. We already have one, after all, giving it teeth would be relatively easy. 

The problem is that enabling it to take action against sexism would take greater ovaries than Leveson could ever countenance. The culture is too longstanding, and it runs too deep in the national psyche. The suggestion of any anti-sexist regulation stronger than 'um, guys, can you please play nicely?' is invariably met with the outraged cry: 'FEMINIST CENSORSHIP!!!!' or 'A FREE PRESS IS THE SOLE HALLMARK OF A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY!!!' or, as with Clare Short's campaign to end Page 3, you are clearly just 'fat and ugly' and 'jealous of beautiful young women'. 

Here is what will (probably) happen instead. Between now and the announcement of a new PCC, the bit of the inquiry that was about countering media misogyny will get lost. Or looked over. Or watered down so much that it will become irrelevant. Some concession may be made to not displaying 'inappropriate' materials pre-watershed, 'where children can see'. But the banal onslaught of everything that is idiotic in our culture, the four hundred pictures of Pippa Middleton's bum, the appraisal of women politicians on the basis of their clothing choice - all this will continue.

Those who get on the high horse about the inalienable right to free expression forget that in practice this has meant the unabated reproduction of unsubstantiated ideologies about less powerful groups who, non-coincidentally, have less press control. The people who read rape reports focusing mainly on 'false' accusations, skirts, and alcohol consumption, are the same people who comprise juries who sit in on rape cases from which rapists repeatedly walk free. That's the very definition of a vicious circle.

To mandate that women should be represented as people who partake in the public sphere in roles which are not primarily aesthetic is simply to mandate representations closer to the truth. An end to the barrage of boobs and bimbos would make life a lot freer for the women who would like to be assessed on the basis of their actions rather than for the shape of their behinds. I hope Lord Leveson is brave enough to say so.


*Disclaimer: I don't agree with everything that was put forward by all of these organisations, but implementation of anything vaguely anti-misogynist would be better than what we have now.