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")?

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

I don't believe that whoever made this comment has actually looked at the shite that gets 'written' in mainstream 'men's' mags.

No other thoughts, really, except 'told you so'.
Maybe a (tiny) sigh of relief that this is being taken seriously. But not sufficiently convinced that anything will be done to really be that pleased.

Even bearing in mind the danny dyer story, the fact that readers were/are encouraged to send in photographs of their girlfriends for publication (and I don't think the girls are contacted for permission) and that one of them got in hot water for publishing photos of an underage girl?

I think that any right-thinking person who has seen the covers and headlines on these magazines, and keeps half an eye on the news, would not have an instinct to reject this as untrue at all.

"I don't believe that whoever made this comment has actually looked at the shite that gets 'written' in mainstream 'men's' mags."

I don't believe that you actually understood what I was trying to say.

It was a comment on why people may be sceptical of this research and how access to the quotes used may be useful in validating it.

if the misogyny is so obvious, isn't it awful that we needed a study to say so?

Exactly.

I don't think most people pay them that much attention at all, SQ.

But they pay them enough attention to be able to instantly dismiss the idea that they might be pedalling dangerously misogynist messages?

That doesn't add up.

" instantly dismiss"

No, ask for more information about the research, we were talking about wanting to know what the quotes were.

OK, I see, noble - too quick reaction by me without having read whole thread.

I absolutely agree with what you about about people assuming that mainstream mags can't be that bad. Which they clearly are.
Which is why I find the idea that there even needs to be research on this so absurd. (I'm not responding to anything anyone else has said now, btw, I'm off on my own rant.)

It's so bizarre that in other areas of 'entertainment' where there's a fear that a group might be harmed - or even just offended - there tend to be real caution, prior restraint, etc.

But for women?

Endless humming and ha-ing, occasional hand-wringing, insistence that damage needs to proven through 'research' which can probably be refuted. And then nothing.

Except more research.

"insistence that damage needs to proven through 'research'"

It's the same for lapdancing clubs. It is depressing that the same arguments are being trotted out in favour of lads mags - any woman who objects is a prude, it's only a laugh really.

It is because violence, and hate speech, against women is so normalized and common - people fail to recognise it for what it is.

What Beachcomber says and also that porn is such a vast money spinner.
Where would General Motors be without it?
And where would we all be without General Motors?

Sorry, I came back to this late, but I wanted to respond to what you replied to me, noblegiraffe.

I don't think I'd have said 'of course' people want to disbelieve these findings. It's a very specific culture that's grown up, where these magazines are normalized, in which people want to disbelieve these findings.

I can think there's an agenda attached if I have reason to think there's an agenda attached - even if it's not the one you identify. So you say I can only think there's an agenda attached if people say 'That's not bad really'.

But I think when people assume they can judge for themselves what the language is like, there's an agenda at work there too. That tells me that most people assume they can recognize rapists' language, that they can recognize misogynistic language. And yet the ubiquity of these magazines suggests the reverse, that most people don't recognize rapists' language.

I find it worrying that we feel the need to assume we'd recognize rapists' language, or spoken misogyny - we assume it's radically different from 'normal' speech. Partly this worries me because it's a similar kind of 'othering' to the rape myth that all rapists must be scary strangers in dark allies. I also think it is naive to assume, even though misogyny is so ingrained in our society that these magazines are mainstream, we can still recognize misogynistic language without needing to think about it.

I don't know if I'm communicating very well here, sorry, but I'm trying to explain why it bothered me.

I noticed that one of the comments underneath was something about most people not having conversations with convicted rapists and my immediate thought was "no, but I bet most people have had conversations with unconvicted and indeed, unreported rapists"

Yes, I bet that's right.

A mate of mine was saying how horrible this study was and how her boyfriend doesn't buy magazines like this, so she has no idea what's in them, but it must be awful.

Her boyfriend's favorite joke, which he quoted when I mentioned I was going on RTN, is 'it's not rape if you shout "surprise"'.

Nuff said.

Yes - people are also labouring under the rape myth of The Rapist. The Rapist is a psycho who cannot control himself and who is different from ordinary men.

Nope, rapists are ordinary men and ordinary men rape.

Yes.

The point of this research was to show how normalized misogyny is.

Instead people take it to be showing how abnormal lads' mags are.

I remember when Loaded came out - men's mags (apart from top shelf) were getting close to cosmo etc in being responsible and talking about issues properly, guys I knew read mostly interest (music or film) mags. When Loaded came out it was supposedly tongue in cheek and a reaction, but it was just seen as at best throwaway, at worst a mag for the biggest dickheads around. It was a surprise to all my friends that it was still going a year later - and getting even more crap.

What's sad is its position as a 'return to idiocy for wry amusement' has turned into 'we are the mag for twats' Nuts has turned into 'we are the mag for stupid twats who can't read' and the others are pretty much copying nuts.

Sad that 14 year old boys are reading it and morphing into twats to fit in. I do think it is just a bad magazine, but there seems no stopping it.

I am sure that men's mags were getting sensible and readable before Loaded cocked it all up... anyone else have a view on the history.

BTW only one guy bought the mag in our friendship group and his male friends hounded him so much he eventually stopped buying it - if he did he claimed it was 'to keep up with new developments in media'

I wonder if loaded predicted the 'idiot boy' version of society or if it started it?

BTW I don't think it is helpful to say that 'normal men rape' - it lessens the psychological deterrent to committing rape. If someone who has raped or thought about rape has to cross into seeing themselves as a monster, or feel completely ashamed and denigrated surely that conflict with their view of themselves as 'normal' has to be as big as possible.

If Loaded-type language was seen as only something weak, deficient men do, then surely it would not be being talked about as a 'normalisation' I don't think you can have concerns about normalisation and then also try to pump out that raping is a normal part of being a male - that just licences it..

Was thinking about the very same thing, missing - early '90s and Loaded being supposedly wickedly funny in an ironic kind of way.
I actually remember that New Lad culture tapping into to the insecurities of basically good men (BIL springs to mind, sadly) and kind of puffing them up into insensitive knobby twats - all in an 'ironic' way (supposedly). Except somehow it wasn't. And it definitely isn't now.

Missing - I also agree (to an extent) that ideas that lad/rapist mag language and attitudes are 'normal' aren't necessarily productive.
Firstly, I don't think they are 'normal'. I don't think 'most' men think and feel those ways at most times.

What I do think is incredibly dangerous is that these magazines normalise and legitimise these attitudes. Actually, they lionise them. (So many '-ises', it's because I'm thinking out loud.)

ElfenorRathbone I thought the exact same thing as you with regards to the comment about not many people speaking with convicted rapists. The key there is definitely convicted.

It does seem that a lot of people making comments on the guardian website missed the point of the research. Without wanting to generalise, men seem to get very defensive whenever the subject of rapists being "normal men", not psychoes comes up. I'd like to think that it would make them uneasy enough to question themselves, the actions of their friends and media aimed at them, but I don't think it has that effect on many.

I have a point I want to make, but I'm so tired that I really can't seem to make sense...

This 'othering' of rapists in theory, whist rape myths abound in practice, is at the root of the defensiveness.

That, and that most people have a pretty hazy idea of what rape is.

I think the point you wre trying to make LittleWW was one that I'm afraid to say I find distasteful - that men should all feel uncomfortable and uneasy around women in case they 'accidently' rape them. My view is that if you dehumanise anyone and make them feel that because of their gender/skin colour/income etc that they are hard-wired to a particular negative behaviour or worse that even if they do behave well and are genuinely not abusive, they will still be treated as though they are or are likely to given a tiny push.

I equate that to telling someone that they are always late - eventually they give up being on time because everyone thinks they are always late, so eventually they come late anyway because they get criticised anyway. I think that desiring men to be jumpy nervous and paranoid around women and children is actually a rather sinister powerplay and should be avoided/challenged whenever talking about this.