To think Lad Mags aren't the real problem

[Mengog]

Over the last couple of years feminist groups and others have really doubled down on the campaigns against Lads Mags and Page 3.

Yet time and again I'm more shocked at the gossip Mags. This was sparked off by a headline about Cheryl Cole, calling her "a bag of bones" on Heat or something similar.

Not too long ago the front of FHM featured Kelly Brook on the cover with the headline 'Beautiful'. This was next to a gossip mag calling her "Fat".

AIBU to think the wrong magazines have been targeted?

Yes, but you cannot simply tell women 'don't judge yourself. Have self worth', because it becomes another impossible standard. It is really complicated - that's what I'm getting at when I say it's not enough to throw up our hands in shock and be surprised - we have to analyse it too. And I think then, self worth grows out of that.

Ellie - I don't think men stepping in and telling woman they shouldn't read this and that is a campaign that will work. Much like a white person telling black people not to listen to Rap music as it uses racial stereotypes and negative racial language.

I think it's fair to ask the question. If it's not seen as a big enough issue, then I've been told.

allyjay By 'society' teaching men to do this and women to do that, I assume you mean human society all the way back to the beginning of existence? The issue, if you are looking at human behaviour, is that today we believe we should have evolved as a species beyond our natural human instinct to breed. To say, we no longer need to recognise or obey genetic instruction because we live in a civilised world, and we should be better and more intelligent than that, and recognise the difference between instinct and modern day requirements, completely misses the point. Most humans do not even think. They just act on instinct because it is programmed into them by thousands of years of evolution. It doesn't occur to them in the moment that they don't need to act in this manner.

If you want to protect DD from this, the best thing you can do is put a brick through your television and stop allowing gossip mags in the house. Children learn what their parents teach them, even if they teach them to believe what is on the little electric babysitter.

I expect you're right, ellie, but it's more than that, isn't it? My mum never has read gossip mags, banned TV for years, and was a thoroughly crunchy, lentil-weaving type.

And when I was 15 I thought buying Vogue was the height of sophistication and my poor mum was an idiot.

YANBU.... Lads mags may not be especially healthy, but they pale into insignificance compared to stuff that can readily found on the internet. It's like trying to crack down on alcohol drinking by targeting shandy but ignoring vodka

JeanneDeMontbaston But the question, did buying Vogue at the age of 15 undermine your confidence, your value system, or I pare your sence of self-worth? Did it change who you thought you were? Or was it an expression of your freedom to explore the world around you?

If my daughter approaches the world at 15, with a sense of wonder and curiosity, and feels free to explore and discover on her own, I suspect she will not be oppressed by what she reads in magazines or sees on television.

Parents begin to teach their children their gender roles and norms at the age of five. The least anyone can do is stop watching the fucking telly and teaching their children what is normal. Cos' those who teach their kids this is normal really have no right to complain.

Yes, I think it did undermine my confidence.

But, these things are not easily separated, are they?

I think children know about gender roles far earlier than 5. My niece is only 4, but she understands quite well what gender roles are. She doesn't have any exposure to TV at all (which would probably not be my choice, but she seems quite happy).

I suppose what I'm getting at is: it's not really parents' fault that the world is as it is. You couldn't possibly stop a child from learning about the society he or she lives in. Even a toddler is going to meet other toddlers and adults than his or her parents. And even the most ridiculously on-point feministy mums and dads are going to have gender stereotypes in mind.

t has, I think, almost always been the case that the most efficient way to get people to police themselves, is to make them do it to themselves, either peer-on-peer or by internalising.

Who is making anyone write for any magazine or buy any magazine?

That's a rather naive comment.

No one has a gun to my head when I do anything in the world. Hence the term 'police themselves' - it's a common phrase, meaning that people are encouraged to make themselves (or members of the same group) do something.

And who is encouraging anybody to buy any magazine they don't want to?

No it's just jealous insecure women that's the problem

And who is encouraging anybody to buy any magazine they don't want to?

Who does? Store managers/business owners of places where you find them.
By using simple tricks and exploiting human psychology. Displaying sweets by the checkout (and various magazines discussed in this thread) does encourage people to buy them.
I thought that goes without saying.

"Over the last couple of years" Er, is this post from 2005? Lads mags have largely died a natural death, and good riddance.

You don't have to buy the magazine to receive the message on the front cover.

So Ellie are you basically saying men are 'hardwired' to objectify women and women are 'hardwired' to be jealous of other women for the way they look? Because I think that's total rubbish. We've been socialized into accepting that these patterns of behaviour are the norm. This is nothing to do with humans reproducing and human sexuality and everything to do with the social roles men and women have been assigned by society. And as we live in a patriarchal society.......

These roles are social constructs. Not biological fact. And I find that the 'men can't help looking at tits' argument because its biology, hideously depressing and old fashioned.

Oh and Redsoxfan do fuck off, there's a dear.

Surely the rules of supply and demand play a part.

While the market sees a demand for the women's "gossip" magazines they will carry on printing them, getting photographers to snap photos of Cheryl Cole -whatever her name is nowadays- or Judy Finnigan coming back from Tesco without any makeup on etc.

I can't believe how many titles there are nowadays, it must be generated by demand? It's all very well saying they are bad/demeaning but women are generating the supply because they like looking photos of overweight or anorexic stars in their bikini and reading the latest gossip.

Yes, education may help, but then again we would have to change a lot about society- especially the current lunacy around people fawning over "stars" who have about as much talent as a toothbrush.

In the end we buy the magazines we choose to buy and it is our own responsibility. Sweets at the checkout are quite different being targeted at children.

andrew, do you really think people spend huge sums of money figuring out how to appeal to people indirectly - how to market goods - and it's all wasted?

These are quite well-known patterns: we make 'choices' within a context, because we're social animals who pick up cues.