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

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

You may already have seen/heard the news today that the Co-op has given "lads' mags" six weeks to cover up their front page with sealed "modesty bags" or be taken off sale in its stores.

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.

[swallowedAfly]

oh thanks for the update molehill.

so the coop stands alone as the publishers have refused and now we wait and see who has the guts/decency to stand with them and issue the same ultimatum.

it's a good opportunity for retailers to create loyal customers (given as said upthread women are the core customers of all these places) and show some ethics. wonder if any will?

fair play to coop. let's see if anyone else gives a damn?

[MolehillAlchemy]

I feel the momentum building towards a new era of equality for women. The co-op are legends for this decision, and they've now confirmed they won't be stocking the magazines due the the publisher refusing to accommodate the Co-op's request for modesty bags.

Back into the cave for you Nuts and Zoo! In fact that's a good plan, only allowing the purveyors of this outdated media to sell them from caves and under rocks.

[JayGatsby]

About time. Lads' mags are totally demeaning to women and having them visible - even at top-shelf level - must subliminally influence children to see women as commodities.

[Snog]

hurrah for the coop

[Hitchy83]

Totally agree with co-op, there is no comparison with women's magazines with women in bikinis or men's magazines with buff men on the cover. These magazines are purely for sexual gratification of men, the pictures are usually of topless models with massive bangers in some seductive pose! It's easier explaining to a child the pictures in women's magazines, yes son that is a woman in a bikini at the beach as opposed to that is a woman showing her assets so that men can titailate over them! They're as close to pornographic as you get and no this shouldn't be available or at least concealed from the vast majority of consumers who do not purchase nor want to see these on their grocery shop!

[NicholasTeakozy]

Tesco join the bandwagon. Hopefully this will force those other magazines like Chat, Now! and the others to review their front covers. IMO they're as bad at skewing opinion.

[swallowedAfly]

i think it also changes the climate and changes how the consumer of these mags sees themselves and their consumption maybe. and if they have to buy it under a cover maybe they won't be waving it around in young girls faces on the tube.

[GrimmaTheNome]

SGB - to be sure. Filters and bags don't tackle misogyny. What they do - the thing that I think most of the posters on this thread like - is simply that they limit the uncontrolled exposure of children to these things.

This is perhaps somewhat analogous to film ratings, which are widely accepted. All sorts of films are made and legally shown; but we control what we allow children to access.

[swallowedAfly]

look at this one for example. do you see the difference between this image (and all the text) and that of a woman in a bikini on a beach?

[swallowedAfly]

because it's so equivalent isn't it? a woman happening to be in a bikini and a pornified image of a woman posed to look like a sexually titillating object?

maybe people need to go and look at some of these covers.

[queenofeverywhere]

By the same token perhaps they should also consider putting modesty covers on some of the women's magazines featuring celeb bikini bodies on the front cover. Fair's fair!

[SolidGoldBrass]

this is quite good. (Article from the New Statesman, nothing gross, totally work-safe)

[swallowedAfly]

sorry more mad multiple posting but it certainly didn't occur to him that for the coop, or tescos, or waitrose or most blumming retailers out there women ARE the consumers. we do the fucking shopping 90% of the time and choose the products etc so the coop bloody well should listen to us over the views of some pervy men who want to see tits within a 1metre radius of them at all times.

[swallowedAfly]

honestly it was as if in this guys world it didn't even register that women were consumers. any collective noun you gave him re: society, consumers etc just conjured images of men for him. women were a little sideline niche market that you sell lipstick to.

just - well - head wall moment really.

[swallowedAfly]

one of the better lines i heard during this 'debate' here, on tv, online etc (think this one was a tv interview) was a magazine editor saying, "the thing to remember is it is not consumers who want this but feminists".

cos feminists aren't consumers right? they live on a little lentil weaving island making their own stuff out of love and leaves?

[DownstairsMixUp]

Oh this thread hasn't progressed much has it? It's not about offending, ffs, for some, it may be, for me, it's that I don't want these images in shops where children can see and think this is normal, this is what woman do, what women should look like etc, how can you not understand that?

Oh no doubt I'll get a reply, "It's your job as a parent to protect them from that" etc sort of thing, but it's not about that, is it really? It's the fact they are in frickin shops ffs where you want to pop out to get a loaf of bread and a pair of breasts are shoved in your face. Yes of course there will be other ways to access it, but why is do you think it's so NORMAL it's a part of every day culture and we should just let our kids and us, accept this? I don't know why people can't understand this.

And why you still cannot understand the context thing is beyond me. These magazines are on a shelf for anyone to see. If you walked down the road and saw a woman breastfeeding, you wouldn't blink an eye, I'm pretty sure if a woman with a thong and her breasts out saucily pouting at you, you'd react differently? Urgh. Trying to get it through to some people. I just can't.

i.stack.imgur.com/jiFfM.jpg

[merrymouse]

Really, most (all?) men I know would prefer it if the most prominent role models for their daughters in the supermarket weren't women who were at the mercy of their partners/weight/tits/cellulite.

[AnyFucker]

You sound a bit silly, FPH. Did you realise that ?

[AnyFucker]

"swivelled eyed extremists" now, is it ?

have you been at the sherry, FlatPackHamster ?

I think you need a lie down in a darkened room

They are not all out to get you, you know < soothing >

[Thisisaeuphemism]

Its amazing though, isn't it, to hear some of the crap men come up with when the status quo is threatened.

[swallowedAfly]

oh dear oh dear i'm going to have humorous images of babywearing terrorist groups dressed in boden popping into my head all night.

[swallowedAfly]

forget al qaeda - they're softcore! it's those bloody extremist mothers you want to watch out for. shoot on sight!

[swallowedAfly]

beware opinionated mothers - the new threat to democracy and human rights. i wonder what level terror alert a group of mum's asking for soft porn rags to be out of sight of children would create? people might be arming missiles right now!

[swallowedAfly]

come on ffs - read the women here - do they sound like extremists to you? does the fact they don't want sexualised images in their children's faces really make them extreme? hardcore? outrageous? the new threat to mankind? grow up and drop the hyperbole.

[swallowedAfly]

extremists

average mums who don't want demeaning pictures of half naked women shoved in their children's faces when buying a pint of milk. extremists right? virtually nazis really.

men who get downright angry about the idea of kids not being able to see half naked women whilst buying a pint of milk and outraged at the idea of someone putting a discrete cover on a soft porn mag? not extreme at ALL, perfectly normal rational defenders of human rights.

human rights? male rights perhaps.