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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

, 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'.

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 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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

My point is that I think the misery-porn (and the misogyny of the sleb mags which reduce women to their cellulite and who they're having sex with) is actually more socially harmful than the wank-lite of Nuts, etc. Yet a lot of people will be going ooh, well done Co-op for covering up the mild sexual titillation, we'll just ignore the spite and scaremongering and stupidity-encouraging of the rest of the media.

SGB - I don't disagree about the relative harm to adults; however the primary focus of this was the effect on children, who probably have no interest in reading that trash. So in this context it's the images rather than the text which is relevant.

a) I think Co-Op are "asking us what we think" because they are looking for cookies and free publicity.

b) Why don't they just not sell misogynistic wank fodder? Surely if these magazines warrant being covered up they should only be available in adult stores.

They want to have their cake and eat it by still getting the revenue from selling this crap/not piss off publishers and advertisers whilst getting a pat on the back for 'thinking of the children'.

In reality this move just legitimises selling misogynistic material - because they are doing it 'responsibly' and 'protecting non wank fodder buying consumers' . Load of crap if you ask me.

Yes it is good that children won't be exposed to these images in a supermarket but children shouldn't be exposed to porn because it doesn't belong in supermarkets, not because it is sneakily hidden from view by a pervert cover.

And we are expected to be grateful for this crumb of recognition that women and children have a right to not be exposed to porn as they go about their daily business. Gee thanks.

AnyFucker

FPH, do you think that the kids on a shopping trip to Asda, for example, should look out for themselves when bombarded with images and ideas like those being discussed here ?

or would it be better for the grown ups to make some decisions on their behalf ?

That would be nice. "ooh quick, hide the boobies, THINK OF THE CHILDREN WHEN THEY SEE THE BOOBIES GOD YOU MONSTER FOR NOT WANTING TO HIDE THEM" isn't grown-up decision making though, is it?

If it was based on evidence - and it isn't - then I'd have less of a problem with it. Even the government's review indicated that there was no evidence to show that semi-naked women at an Asda supermarket counter was harmful. Even the swivel-eyed nutters who got the Co-Op to cravenly cave in to them aren't claiming it's harmful to kids. They're flanneling on in their usual way about patriarchy or oppression or something.

boobies? really flatpack? i mean really????

you're talking to adult women here and they are breasts, breasts that we all have on our bodies. not titillating 'things' bobbing around on the benny hill show but breasts which are part of adult women's bodies.

please don't use the word 'boobies' with adult women - or anyone preferably.

FPH - I have daughters and step-daughters who hate to see the lads magazines displayed on the shelves in the supermarkets, in the same way that they hate to see people on trains in cafe's reading the sun with the page 3 visible. Why should our daughters's (young teenagers and younger) opinions be pushed aside? The 'evidence' from my family is that it makes my children uncomfortable so I would prefer for the magazines (and page 3 of the sun for that matter) to be out of sight (at least). I'm sure if you have any children who can speak to you in an open manner (without being bullied into agreeing with your opinion) they will give you the same answers to the question of whether or not the magazine covers make them feel uncomfortable.

*daughter's

Flatpack (and many others) spectacularly fail to be able to differentiate between misogyny and the objectification of women though out society and the insidious repetitive messages conveyed via the media about the female form, and the human body being a very nice and lovely thing.

It's very depressing really isn't it?

and it's not just about our daughters. It's about sons too - the boys who will grow into the men our daughters will partner with.

One word in reply to you, FPH (it being all your ridiculous reply deserves)..... Context

It's been used a lot on this thread, and you don't wish to consider it, or don't appear to understand it, that much is clear

Your use of pejorative terms for campaigners does your limited view no favours either

have been pondering this as i get on with stuff today and what i can't get is this:

why would anyone object? if they're fine with it then fine but surely if a significant number of people are offended by it and a significant number of teenage and younger girls claims it makes them feel uncomfortable and unhappy then surely they count? you can still buy the magazines, they're not banned, this campaign is asking for covers to be put on.

so what's the problem?

the only thing i can think of is that people seriously objecting (apart from those set to maybe lose money) are those that actually resent the very idea that women and girls should be listened to and have a say in things. it just seems outrage that women's opinions are being heard and god forbid acted upon.

Grimma: but surely headlines in 100pt type and bright, enticing colours screaming about children raped and murdered and 'Who will love me now mummy's in heaven' are more upsetting to a child old enough to read them. A picture of a couple of women flashing their underwear and sucking on bananas or whatever can be dismissed by Mum as 'Oh they're being a bit silly/playing a grown-up game' whereas 'Forced to watch Dad kill my sister' is going to speak directly to a child.

This isn't to condemn these magazines entirely: their readers often find them a good source of help and support ie there's health advice, bargains, legal advice and humour as well as all the horrors. But when we're talking specifically about What Children See On The Shelves I think it's a very important part of the discussion.