Lads' mags have 6 weeks to "cover up": your reaction, please!

Just been to local Tesco express.

Lad's mags all at back of top shelf - would only find them if you were looking for them (not sure if this is always the case, has only happened this week or is due to local staff rather than company policy).

Celebrity mags all prominently visible, at eye level of average tween. Full of pictures of women famous for their husband/boyfriend/torrid personal life/weight loss/gain. Even when a woman does have a visible career in her own right (Holly Willoughby, Dawn French) she is there because she has shrunk or expanded or because of relationship gossip.

I think this move by Co-op sends the right signals, but there is a long, long, long road ahead.

yes and if they can access their news online at their age surely young men can fulfill their alleged need to stare at naked women online? not like there's a shortage of those images out there.

I heartily agree with this move. It's not a case of the front pages of mags having near naked people on them, its the context of that nudity. On Sunday I popped into newsagents to get a Sunday sun (football fixtures, we don't normally buy newspapers) and was shocked to see on bottom shelf next to it a magazine with naked girl straddling a chair in high heels, barely covering her cleavage. The magazine promised "celeb upskirt shots" inside.
I mean wtf?

even my parents read the Torygraph online now! (I'm nearly 50)

but online IS the magazine isn't it? in the sense that no one needs to put it between two covers and sell it to you anymore - you can graze and pick at whatever you want at leisure on the internet if that makes sense.

i suppose the reality is that a lot of industries are going to die but life moves on, technology moves on and old things die off and innovation flourishes.

tbh i wonder what will happen to the newspaper (as in the physical version you hold in your hands) when my parents generation dies. certainly i don't see them as a means of finding out the news anymore when i can access a wide range of sources and international news sources online rather than one, narrow range, biased source that is embarrassingly light on real news and heavy on gossip, scandal and party political broadcasts even at the broadsheet level.

I don't know if it doesn't sell merry. I do know you can't buy it any more :( I can't remember the last time I bought a magazine.

I think the trouble is that magazines haven't really managed to keep up with technology and have become anachronistic. The "lads mags" have responded by upping the ante and displaying more and more outrageous images with covers that would have been considered too shocking even a few years ago. Heat et al have done the same but with the cellulite pics and Take a Break and co have gone for ridiculous hyperbole and misery porn.

There isn't really a very good online magazine for women. Daily Mail had cornered the market using the side-bar of shame and there's no real antidote. If there was I would read it and spend less time farting about on here

I like fashion, I like make up, I like my news glossy on occasion... and I even like a naice recipe and a few vacuous features particularly about Araminta Auld-Bobbins types latest Pedlar's find.

I think the problem is that doesn't really sell any more. When I was in my teens and twenties I probably bought about 3 glossies a month (Cosmo, Elle, Marie Claire) and my mum and her mum always bought Good Housekeeping and Woman's Journal (long defunct).

Now I buy a magazine about 3 times a year and I always wonder why because there is better information/writing/advice available for free on the internet and if I'm short of something to read at a bus stop I have books on my phone.

I think (despite my earlier post) that the only growth area seems to be aimed at people who like looking at pictures. It'll be a long fight to persuade publishers to let go of this market, because what else is there?

, I'm also a bit hmm that they feel the need to ask Mumsnet in the first place

They aren't - they've already instigated this change, they're just asking what we think. Probably anticipating that by and large we - one of the largest groups of parents - will be generally supportive of it so adding weight to the views of 'members, customers and colleagues'.

agree merry but they hold up a multi billion 'beauty' industry so you can imagine the battle that's gonna take.

I think they should do this to the celebrity weigh loss/cellulite/spots mags as well.

no it's not limited to lads mags but it is what the whole content, point and purpose of lads mags are. it's like saying why bother getting rid of hardcore racism when you still get people doing little bits of it interspersed in the pages of their life. you start somewhere and create a cultural shift one hopes and it disperses from there. or having made one victory and gotten it conceded that something IS a problem you are then able to cite other examples that need dealing with given the precedent that, 'this is a problem', has already been set.

i haven't sneered at you or come over superior and condescending in answering your question so i kind of resent you projecting that out at me.

soup maybe it's because that question has been answered so many times already

Really? Where? all I got was a sneery response.

It's not a red herring. Either females wearing very little and in sexy poses is wrong or it isn't. I don't particularly like being confronted by female celebrities with barely covered beasts whichever magazine they appear on. It's not liitd to lads mags is it?

But it's utterly pointless making that kind of comment because people come over all superior and condescending so ill leave you to it.

Precisely the reason I hid all the feminist boards.

Why is it so difficult for some people to not answer this question but to try and answer questions that weren't posed?

Couldn't possibly be because they have another agenda, surely?

Have by never heard of the concept of talking around the wider subject?
Wouldn't MN be dull if people just specifically and blandly answered the question posed by a thread title.

Why do people want to awash ant hint of debate - couldn't possibly be because they have another agenda, surely?

soup maybe it's because that question has been answered so many times already (if it really needs answering given it's pretty obvious that change has to start somewhere) that people begin to see it as a red herring rather than a genuine question? or perhaps you just missed all the times it's been answered by people.

"And I am "puzzled" as to why it is only so called lads mags that need to cover up"

Many people have said that they'd like to see other magazines with non-child friendly covers covered up, and that this is a first step.

"Although, I'm also a bit that they feel the need to ask Mumsnet in the first place. Surely they could see that these magazine covers might be offensive in the first place?"

They know. I'd put money on them only asking MN to drum up publicity.

I am puzzled. Why do people keep "popping" on this thread to make a completely pointless remark ? Is it meant to quash any argument against the normalisation of sexualised images next to the semi-skimmed or what ?

And I am "puzzled" as to why it is only so called lads mags that need to cover up.nits got fuck all to do with quashing argument and certainly doesn't deserve a snidely, sneering response.

goes to show you how utterly normalised it is in our culture biwi.

when you think of it it is almost unbelievable that the sun still has a half naked teenager on page 3 every day when it's allegedly a 'newspaper' and is read everywhere - re: on the bus, next to you on the tube, at the breakfast table that your teenage daughter is sat at etc.

i'm reminded of milliband coming on and expecting a biscuit for worrying about no women on the banknotes.... there's a 'while rome burned' cliche in there somewhere.

MNHQ asked a very simple question:

"The Co-op says it's responding to concerns by its members, customers and colleagues about images of scantily-clad women on magazine covers.

We're being asked what Mumsnetters think of this move by the Co-op. So we'd love you to let us know: please do post up your views on this thread."

Why is it so difficult for some people to not answer this question but to try and answer questions that weren't posed?

Couldn't possibly be because they have another agenda, surely?

I think this is a good idea and I have much respect for the Co-op for doing it. Although, I'm also a bit that they feel the need to ask Mumsnet in the first place. Surely they could see that these magazine covers might be offensive in the first place?

see i thought i said it all in one post but the strawmen keep coming.

as far as i can tell we'd happily get rid of ALL of it. we'd happily have a responsible media that didn't exploit women, children or anyone. it's not by being happy that lads mags will have to put a cover on that we think all the world's problems are solved or are thereby condoning everything else.

but it is a small step. small steps are the way great journeys are made no? as in they have to start somewhere?

and yes SGB i'd happily see the misery porn that you quite rightly point out has a class element to it (on this point class does have a relevency as those mags and the likes of JK really do have class as the bearded lady in the cage) gone too. i'd personally far rather my son accidentally caught a bit of nonsensical charicatured violence on a film on tv than an episode of JK - one is far easier to explain and process than the other. obviously i aim for neither at 6.

Thought not

SGB - yes, they are pretty nasty. I suppose in the drawing of lines as to what should be targeted for covering, the pictures are smaller (MIL used to have them - I can't remember seeing too obviously bad images on the covers) and the headlines require some level of reading and comprehension so won't affect very young children.

Do you have something to counter it with ? Don't repeat what you said previously btw, because it was crap.