Lads' Mags - a question as "Zoo" Magazine closes in Australia

[QuiteIrregular]

Probably not a huge surprise, given the downturn in "lads' mags" over the last decade, and no doubt there's plenty worse on the Internet, but I thought I'd ask -what do people think of lads' mags? Are they just a distraction from more serious issues, or did they legitimise attitudes which were damaging elsewhere?

Personally I think the latter, though I'm no expert on the media landscape. Found this link on Twitter, which suggests Zoo readers seemed to be missing the "ironic" aspect to "ironic sexism" - some pretty unpleasant stuff mumbrella.com.au/meet-zoo-weeklys-women-hating-anal-sex-obsessed-readers-132118

I'd agree. You just have to look at the utter bulldust that an ex editor of Loaded magazine writes now to know how deep the misogyny goes.

Lads mags were the worst thing to happen to the men of my generation. They tried to lock us in a box built of arrogance, anti-intellectualism and a commitment to an unexamined life. Worthless sh*t rags. I'm glad they're going.

Well. They were awful. They made an awful lot of women and girls feel very uncomfortable in a lot of different environments. It's not fun being confronted with imagery showing how men view you in the shops, and i think for me it was worse when I was at secondary school, I found eg sitting next to a man on the bus looking (well it was usually page 3 when I was that age) really embarrassing. It made me feel deeply uncomfortable. Especially when they used it as a prop for mild sexual harassment / trying to make females feel really uncomfortable, which both page 3 and lads mags were good for.

Anyway that's quite a personal reaction.

I have heard a lot that younger men are more sexist than men of my generation, I wouldn't be surprised if publications of these types had gone into that.

Personally I'm glad that these aren't "normal" and therefore you can randomly look at some tits while out and about wherever, any more. Although there was a thread where someone had a bloke next to them on the train watching porn on an ipad, so, that's not great! I don't know if that could ever become normalised though? As I guess it's an 18 + rating whereas the sun and the lads mags were fine for anyone.

I'm not seeing anything particularly surprising about the comments that have been made about the women in the pictures, in that article though.

That casual misogynistic/women hating media has just moved online, they just can't make money selling physical copy. Am glad they no longer exist but I don't think it reflects aa shift in men's views.

Well, I'm happily surprised there; Australia is still fairly sexist in general.

The history of lads mags is interesting. The very first issues of Loaded, FHM, Nuts, Zoo etc contained a balance of articles about sport, cars, society and some soft glamour.

Whenever these magazines offered a one-off issue full of semi-naked ladies, their sales shot through the roof. (eg the "send us pics of your girlfriend naked to win a prize" phenomenon)...

So like any capitalist business they worked out what made the most profit, which was soft porn, and adhered to that.

You ended up with pages full of soft porn in publications with normal origins.

Lads mags reflect a deeply misogynistic culture, and capitalise on that. Like strip clubs.

Banning lads mags sends the message that contitutionalised sexism is not alright. So good work here.

*institutionalised

I don't know if I would call that history interesting, or just wildly depressing!

FFS....a woman was joining in on that site!! I wonder sometimes why I'm a feminist when some women can be such ridiculous man-pleasers!!!
But then I look at my wonderful daughters and my wonderful sons and remember..