Shiny: "The magazines aren't creating the problem. They are a symptom of it. The media reacts to what is going on in society."
Shiny, as someone who's worked in the media for the past (counts fingers) very many years , I vehemently disagree with that statement. The media is incredibly powerful, so much so that we usually don't notice the way it impacts our thoughts. Now that is real power. Advertisers don't spend their money lightly, and they still fork out for media advertising, because they recognise the power.
Try it out on yourself. Go on a total media-fast for a month, and make observations about your own thoughts, and anything else that appears relevant.
One thing that irritates me about these magazines is that they do have an impact on our lives and on the type of society that we all create. The saying 'no person is an island' is borne out here. It's the same as the fact that big city bonuses have inadvertently played a key role in pushing some people into poverty. How? Because people with more money than they need went out buying up properties and pricing 'ordinary' people out of the market. Consequently some of these 'ordinary' people virtually bankrupted themselves in order to afford the unaffordable. And then of course we all know about the role that played in the global financial crisis. Now, there are other issues at play, such as 'ordinary' people and their mortgage companies choosing to make bad financial decisions, as well as other causes of the UK's housing shortage. But the bonus issue has still played a significant role here. It's that butterfly effect.
Similarly, when women are publicly treated as sex objects rather than as whole persons, and that treatment is publicly endorsed (i.e. by not being challenged), it feeds into the overall situation where women have historically been treated as second class citizens, in a range of different ways. The existence of lads' mags, etc certainly isn't the sole cause of the maltreatment of women, but it doesn't challenge it, either. Nor is it a neutral participant in this matter. It contributes to the whole picture of female maltreatment, painting an unhealthy image of what it is to be female - which affects men and women, girls and boys.