Lad’s magazines: Advice to a daughter

[David51]

Lad's magazines are the curse of the nation
Because they promote your objectification.

Some see these comics as sex education
But they are notorious for misinformation.

Lads may end up with ideas quite perverted
So you should make sure that your needs are asserted.

Internet porn always gives him a thrill
So he needs to know if it makes you feel ill.

In lapdancing clubs there's a lot to discover
So make sure the facts are known to his mother.

Getting a boob job, he thinks, is your duty
But you should rejoice in your natural beauty.

Stockings are one of his favourite sights
But sensible women prefer to wear tights.

He's got this idea you should shave down below
But that is the time you should tell him to go.

Your lad has a plan but you know that he's wrong
And telling him so will make you feel strong.

I've sent this on a viral around FB.

Does that mean you sent it to all your Friends M'Lady (and which version)?

Yes, since when was a tit in the same classification as a cock? Men with naked chest, same as women, nipples for both. And in womens magazines there are also pics of mens arses.

Men's magazines show an idealised plastic representation of women, right?

So do women's magazines. There are far more photographs of idealised model women in women's magazines than there are pictures of men's 'perfect' bodies. The same is not true in reverse, so no - I don't think women's magazines are better, but they are as bad at objectifying women as men's magazines. Trying to turn the argument round to 'but women objectify men too' is erroneous.

I think most feminists would agree that women's magazines are problematic as well. But does that mean its OK for men to carry on using pornography? I don't think so.

Two wrongs don't make a right, as they say.

David, we are talking about lads mags here, it depends wether you class a woman in lingerie, or with her breasts on show as pornographic. Personally I don't.

Men's chests and women's breasts in our society have exactly the same level of erotic association?

Strange then that there aren't more women going around the high street topless in summer isn't it. I wonder why that could be?

So why is there so much outcry at women breastfeeding?

It is strange sin't it.

I had no idea that if I walked through the high street in summer with my top off that no-one would think anything of it. It's amazing what you learn on here isn't it

But it's not really a question of which body parts are shown, more to do with reflecting a certain attitude to women.

That line in the poem about 'marks out of ten' is based on the infamous 'Assess my Breasts' competition run by Nuts (not Zoo, my mistake) where reader's girlfriends were encouraged to send in photographs of their breasts to be graded by male readers.

The bit about 'boob jobs' picks up on a Zoo competition where male readers could win breast implants for their girlfriends.

Whether or not you call that pornography it shows a disrespectful attitude to women that isn't compatible with treating them as equals.

Fab!

Sardinequeen - I don't approve of men walking around barechested in town centers. That should be kept for sunbathing at the beach, same as women going topless!

If a woman walked down the high street without her top on in summer she would likely be arrested.

A man wouldn't.

It is ludicrous to say that in our society a man's exposed chest and a woman's exposed chest are exactly the same.

This argument is bonkers

Not the only thing that's bonkers

Oh yes, of course it's bonkers to think women should be portrayed as human beings not fuck toys.

We're all completely demented. Barking in fact. The idea that women are human? ROFL, what a scream.

David51 - I meant to say, btw, that I agree completely that lads mags are horrible and that 2 wrongs don't make a right. I love the poem.

I just felt the need to respond to the argument that women's magazines are just as bad about men. They are not at all! They are equally bad to women. Both are wrong and your highlighting of the hideous lads' mag culture is absolutely justified and to be admired. Sorry if you thought I was being negative - I was absolutely not.

I'm struggling to think of women's mags that are dominated by sexy half-naked pics of men - Heat does Torso of the Week but that's in a sea of pap pics of famous women wearing bikinis / short skirts in order to criticise their bodies.

Take a Break? Woman and Home? Vogue? Grazia? Stylist?

If anyone can think of any - let me know and I will subscribe complain.

Also what David51 says - feminism has a lot of issues with female-targeted press anyway. That just doesn't happen to be the subject of his poem.

And yes - stockings much better than tights fer yer lady bits [canistancombiemoticon]

The People's Friend. Those watercolour drawings on the cover and stairlift adverts are just a cover.

Interesting the comparison of men's and women's glossies and the images of women contained therein.

I guess the difference is that lads' mags often show and indeed portray women as objects of sexual gratification.

Whereas women's magazines tend to show unrealistically idealised images of women that are sold as being aspirational.

I agree, neither is a healthy view of a woman.

The difference, I guess, is the market they are aimed at and what they signify to the consumers of those magazines.

One invites men to objectify women as lust objects, the other invites women to feel they should try and spend money/starve themselves etc. so they can stop feeling inadequate about their appearance.

And as Laura Mulvey would have it, the airbrushed, over made-up models in the Chanel adverts etc. are still "the object of the gaze" so it can be seen as another type of objectification.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say exactly, but both portrayals of women are insidious and can cause damage.

PS at Tondelayo's [canestancombiemoticon]

IC Yes the fashion mags just offer a different kind if objectification, where women objectify themselves.

Like everything else in philosophy, objectification is more complicated than you might think at first. Ive been working my way thru an academic article that covers the feminist aspect:

Feminist perspectoves on objectification

The following quote relates to what you were saying:

Women in patriarchal societies feel constantly watched by men, much like the prisoners of the Panopticon (model prison proposed by Bentham), and they feel the need to look sensually pleasing to men (Bartky 1990, 65). According to Bartky: ?In the regime of institutionalised heterosexuality woman must make herself ?object and prey? for the man. ? Woman lives her body as seen by another, by an anonymous patriarchal Other? (Bartky 1990, 73). This leads women to objectify their own persons.

YES!

That summarises it nicely.

I was wondering why I still like to wear make-up etc., even though I'm not consciously trying to sexually attract someone (DH, bless him, makes it clear he doesn't care whether I wear make-up etc. or not).

That's as good an explanation as any, I reckon.

Thanks for that explanation. It fits in with what I am currently studying at uni relating to 'other' and the male gaze amongst other things. I am very, very new to identifying myself as a feminist and was feeling confused about the fact that I do constantly wear a lot of make-up, and shave my bits.

In between my essay writing and child rearing duties today, I will read more on women objectifying themselves.

One thing I always find striking is the way that those women who really obsess about appearance eg cosmetic surgery addicts get to a point where they dont care what men say any more. Theyve internalised this patriarchal view & made it their own so it no longer matters whether their real life partners agree or disagree with what they are doing.

Yes Katie Price is an object lesson in that.

She no longer looks normal and she's not even seeking to be. The object of all her surgery seems to be to create a distortion of what the patriarchy demands women look like, it's almost subversive what she's doing except that as it's obviously born of self-hatred, it's not subversive because you wonder whether she's aware that she's doing it.