As I mentioned the last time this blog went live, I only occasionally follow up on old posts. It is an even less common occurrence for me to write a response to my own post but that it what I'm going to do briefly this morning. In light of some of the responses that I got about my most recent post on the lads' mags debate, I feel that it's important to clarify and expand some of the points that I made last time out.
Firstly, I would like to clear up some of the comparisons that I used in my last post. When I was talking about why I don't buy football and gadget magazines (because I can get access to the relevant content online anyway) I was not meaning to compare football and gadgets to women. As it was rightly pointed out to me, football and gadgets are 'things' and women are not - the confusion might have impliedly given rise to objectification which was, of course, not intended.
I then went on to say that the front cover of some magazines, such as those aimed at knitting fanatics or horse lovers, contain things that I do not want to look at. I was merely trying to make the point that the magazine stand in any given shop caters for a plethora of interests, some of which are relevant only to those who buy them. As for the front covers of lads' mags, my experience is that they are never overly explicit (I'm not sure they are allowed to be anymore) and any offence that they cause purely depends on individual sensibilities, rather than causing offence to everyone who sees them.
Another point that was raised with me was the method of advertising used by shops like La Senza. It was argued to me that these adverts of girls (and 'girls' often seems like the most appropriate word with some of them) are there to sell products to women, rather to show women in a different light. However, I still fail to see this how those images, which are two or three times larger than life, do not have the same effect as the front cover of a magazine. Why not just have the products on mannequins in the window rather than have beautiful young women dressed in only their underwear? The footfall past that shop today will be massive, yet this campaign fails to take account of the fact that these women are dressed the same as the women who adorn the pages of lads' mags. If someone could explain this to me then I would be grateful.
My final point is about the whole campaign more generally. In my last post I called it 'narrow minded' and I firmly stick by that. Not only are this group merely targeting a symptom of a wider problem, they are doing so with very little evidence. One of the most infuriating things about how Ms Banyard argued on TV was that when she was pressed for the 'extensive evidence' that she had about the impact of lads' mags on domestic abuse and sexualisation of women. There does not appear to be any aside from a few soundbites from people shopping and working in the 'big four' supermarkets. Their efforts would be better focused on dealing with the problem of domestic abuse which is caused by other, more pressing things such as alcohol and football.
It goes without saying that I find domestic abuse abhorrent and that everything should be done to make people feel safe in their own homes. The Lose the Lads' Mags campaign does not cast its message wide enough and goes after a medium which provides people with a living, facilitates freedom of expression and on the power of the lack of evidence, does not contribute to the wider issue as much as Ms Banyard might have us believe
Thanks for reading and thank you to those who really engaged with my last post.
Martin.
