The Times on Line reports that Conservative MP Michael Gove criticised Lads’ magazines because “they promote a shallow approach towards women and encourage young men to think of them as permanently, ‘lasciviously’ available”.
He apparently is the Conservative Party’s Children’s secretary. I just wonder, from his juvenile remarks, whether he might be out of his depth dealing with children over the age of seven.
Mr Gove claims that the magazines encourage young men to contribute to the high rates of pregnancy. Someone should tell him that girls too have just a little bit to do with the high rates of pregnancy; they are the best in Europe at it.
He further claims that the images the magazines use “project and reinforce a very narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women”. He evidently has not noticed that so do the adverts in over a hundred women’s magazines and dozens of adverts on TV. Doesn’t Mr Gove know that no-one forces the women to provide the images; they are queueing up in their thousands to provide them on the internet, in magazines and newspapers. The supply is never-ending. In “The Sun” alone, Page Three girls have been anxious to strut their stuff for well over a quarter of a century.
Gove proves that his ignorance of the female sex is only surpassed by his ignorance of women’s magazines when he (surely humorously!) says that “women’s magazines, by contrast, aim to address their readers in a mature and responsible way”. He has obviously never seen a copy of “Cosmopolitan”, “Marie Claire” or any of the teenage girls’ magazines. Are the photographs of nude men published in these not meant to encourage girls and young women to think of men in a “shallow way”? Let’s have a look at just a few of the articles advertsied on the front covers of “Cosmopolitan” over the last year or so:
“75 sex tricks”
“The naughtiest photo we’ve ever run of a guy”
“Feel sexy naked”
“10 things guys crave in bed”
“Naughty sex”
“Our new sex position”
“Sex goddess secrets”
“Love being naked”
Need I go on Mr Gove? Do you still think women’s magazines are mature and responsible? If so then we can be certain that you’re joking!
At least the lads’ magazines do not go out of their way to blatantly insult women on their covers as do some women’s magazines, e.g. Cosmopolitan’s “Why won’t the bastard commit?” etc.
If Mr Gove would care to be a pragmatist for a little while, he should study some of the women’s magazines published about a decade ago, and the ways they deprecated men. He would then realise that the lads’ magazines were all part of the male backlash.
I know you need women’s votes, Mr Gove, but this is really NOT the way to get them. And, remember that men vote too.
