Men's mags "normalize hostile sexism" by using same language as convicted rapists

[Camerondiazepam]

Has anyone seen this?

Any thoughts (other than "we told you so")?

Another 'No shit, Batman' moment.....

In other news; bear shits in woods.

Am really glad it's being picked up, though.

The issue, not the shit

Is there an example of the quotes they used?Bit difficult to comment without any examples (am probably reading article wrong though)

Telling that the researchers have to preface their comments with 'We're not killjoys or prudes....'

Very interesting - and totally unsurprising. Hope it gets a lot of good coverage and not just putdowns from the 'PRUDES!' brigade.

It's amazing that morons have managed to put anyone anti-porn on the back foot isn't it.

Actually I suppose it's not that amazing when you consider that half the media is owned and run by porn-promoters.

wow...just wow. I knew I didnt like lads mags...now I know why.

Personally i think the mens mags are more at fault than the celebrity ones.
Not just for the reasons above but also for telling men how women should look. High Street Honeys anyone?
When a man pressures his partner to look a certain way or to lose weight ( and ive seen posts on forums where a man has moaned that his partner is a size 12 or 14 instead of a 10) you can bet hes been at least partly influenced by mags like FHM or Loaded etc.
I think men would like us to believe that its the womens mags/fashion mags that are at fault but thats not always the case.

This Guardian article has some quotes. Can you tell if they're from a rapist or a lads' mag?

Go and smash her on a park bench

A girl may like anal sex because it makes her feel incredibly naughty and she likes feeling like a dirty slut. If this is the case, you can try all sorts of humiliating acts to help live out her filthy fantasy

There's a certain way you can tell that a girl wants to have sex . . . The way they dress, they flaunt themselves.

Just read the lads mag quote in the Guardian article and was nearly sick. The idea that young lads could take that as advice for a normal relationship is scary.

It's a good article.

I think the idea that we need quotes or 'we can't judge' is odd though - no-one is asking us to judge any more, that's the whole point of the research isn't it? I mean people have been drawing parallels for donkeys years in an anecdotal way, but it's great to have research where someone has really gone into it.

Now I understand research is there to be questioned and reassessed if necessary, but I doubt we could do it by looking at a few examples of quotations and trying to 'judge' for ourselves.

"I think the idea that we need quotes or 'we can't judge' is odd though"

But the suspicion when reading the conclusions of the research would be that they deliberately selected middle-ground quotes - mildly sexist pronouncements which would identify one as a prat but not necessarily a potential rapist.

The quotes published in the Guardian show that they didn't need to do this, the sexist attitude displayed in the quotes which turn out to be from lads mags clearly have that threat behind them which could identify the holder of such views as a danger to women.

Seeing some of the quotes used partially validates the research. Obviously their methods still need to be scrutinised.

I think it's good that people see this research which confirms views they may have held for years and instead of accepting it without question, they want to make sure that it's sound.

I sort of see what you're saying noble - all research does need to be questioned.

I just don't really think we have the expertise to 'validate' research. Or rather, you may, but I certainly don't and I really doubt that most of us are, in RL, researchers in this area!

It just struck me, because despite Bed Goldacre and people like him popularizing the idea of questioning research and learning how to see problems in published studies, it's quite rare for people to be so sceptical in other contexts.

The point here is that lots of people I've spoken to or who've posted in response to this study, assume they will be able to see the truth easily.

Obviously, I think myself that the quotations show pretty clear and obvious misogynistic views towards women. But the fact someone had to do that study - the results of which have obviously shocked some people - suggests a lot of people were not previously aware of the shared language.

I think it's an oddly tangled set of attitudes - if the misogyny is so obvious, isn't it awful that we needed a study to say so?

I don't know if it is rare for people to be sceptical of research in other contexts. I know that if I read about some new wonder drug trial my first thought is 'was the trial on animals or humans?' and the second is 'what was the sample size?' because those are the most obvious questions.

Here the most obvious question was 'what were the quotes like?' and it is unsurprising to me that people were asking this question.

The thing with the misogyny being obvious - it is only obvious if you actually read the magazines. Most people don't and therefore are unaware of their contents. The research comparison with rapists is interesting, but the real story is the sorts of things these magazines contain. Most of it flies under the radar because it isn't extreme enough to warrant its own headline - Danny Dyer's appalling article being an obvious exception. But put the quotes together and compare them to rapists and it is a news story that you can write without being tutted at for your conservative attitude.

Fair enough. It's just my impression that people are often less sceptical of 'research says x' than they could be.

I think you're right about reading the magazines - so many people I think just assume 'oh, I know a guy who reads those, he's my son/friend/brother/workmate and he's ok, so they can't be so bad'. And I wonder how many boys start reading them, maybe they do feel a bit shocked, but assume this is what being a man is, so they carry on? I could be wrong but I think some of these magazines are intended for quite young audiences.

The real problem is people being skeptical on a pick and choose basis.

I have chatted to people on MN who when you point out that there is no evidence to support the treatment of colic with infacol say 'well infacol must work coz it made my DC better' but when you point out the FF has just been shown to increase the rate of SIDS get all 'oh but what is the sample size? and how can you possibly control all the variables?'

So in other words when they want to believe its true they are happy to take the say so of someone they met in the pub once, and when they dont they suddenly feel they know more about statistical analysis than the paid professionals....

It winds me up somewhat...I dont know if that came across

The problem with pointing out that there is no evidence to support the treatment of colic with infacol is that clinical trials test whether infacol works better than a placebo and conclude that it doesn't. Crucially, that doesn't mean that infacol has no effect because the placebo effect is well documented.

People will obviously be sceptical on a pick and choose basis according to their pre-existing beliefs - researchers are guilty of this too and this is why we now have systematic reviews of the evidence.

But I wouldn't criticise people for being sceptical of this study by asking to examine the quotes; that is merely sensible critical thinking. We want more critical thinking, not less!

I wasn't criticising people for being sceptical of the study, though.

I was observing that people choose to be sceptical, and in this situation, they choose to be sceptical about the findings because they want to disbelieve them.

It's frustrating that the journal paper hasn't even been published yet, so we can't even comment based on the full version.

I used to buy lads' mags when I was in sixth form as they were a lot funnier than women's and had interviews with interesting people; that was back in the mid 90s and, whilst I was pretty desensitised then, I'm pretty sure you didn't see statements that verged on incitement to violence such as "Go and smash her on a park bench".
Their judgemental language seemed to be more along the lines of "dump her if she isn't fun enough / moans when you go to the footy or look at other birds in the pub" - rebellion against the New Man idea.
Lads mags then were part of a new media trend, and they saw themselves talking more to middle class student boys, than a larger, less educated audience now. That change in market plus the mainstreaming of violent gonzo porn probably explains a lot of this. (Incidentally I am conceptually sex / porn positive but I do dislike various trends and types of content.)

Interestingly, this sort of statement, "There's a certain way you can tell that a girl wants to have sex . . . The way they dress, they flaunt themselves" is something I'd consider par for the course - when said about either sex - in some kind of cheesey dating / pulling guide. But if someone said it in front of me in conversation these days, they'd get a lecture.

" they choose to be sceptical about the findings because they want to disbelieve them."

Of course they want to disbelieve them. The idea that mainstream men's magazines promulgate the same sort of misogynistic shite that rapists spout is offensive to the extreme. Hence the demand to see what exactly is being written in the lads mags.

The reaction to the quotes is the important one. 'Bloody hell, that's awful' is the expected reaction. If anyone reacts with 'That's not that bad really', then you can start to think that their scepticism comes with an agenda attached.

Interestingly a lot of the comments at the end of the guardian piece say exactly that of the anal sex / humiliation quote - that's not that bad really.

"The idea that mainstream men's magazines promulgate the same sort of misogynistic shite that rapists spout is offensive to the extreme."

Why? What is offensive about it?

The idea that they might is offensive. No right-thinking person would countenance the idea as acceptable and therefore the first instinct is to reject it as untrue.