May
27
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Dangerous Dolls: ‘Object’ and Lose the Lads’ Mags
***Trigger warning: naked photographs ***
Feminist campaign groups UK Feminista and Object have today launched a new project, Lose the Lads’ Mags.
Object are the group who challenge: “‘sex object culture’ – the sexual objectification of women through lads’ mags, lap dancing clubs or sexist advertising”.
UK Feminista is an organisation which provides training for the feminists who wish to campaign against the sex industry, ‘sexist advertising’ etc. Contributors at the advertised 2013 summer school include No More Page 3. There are no feminist groups supportive of sex work in attendance.
UK Feminista and Object have announced a national campaign targeting retailers who sell ‘lads’ mags’. Legal advice obtained by the campaign groups has allegedly shown that selling and displaying magazines and papers with ‘Page 3 style’ front cover images can constitute sexual harassment or sex discrimination under the Equality Act. Employers who object to having to look at these images, and customers who feel violated by witnessing the presence of the magazines, could have cause for a claim.
In true Object style, quotations from women who are offended are included (Though whether they are actual workers who have come forward, or merely Mumsnet and Object supporters who also happen to work in shops, is unclear).
“Tesco make enough money- they don’t need to sell this stuff. Magazines like this should not be in a supermarket and Tesco should know better than to sell them.”
“I’d prefer them not to be sold where I work. It displays the wrong image towards customers.”
There is a moralistic tone. This stuff, like this, they should know better. What does this say about the women who model in these publications, and for the men and women who buy them? What about all the people employed by the magazines, the publishing companies, the warehouses, the distributors, the stockists. What about the right of people to perform in, or consume, these publications?
It is interesting, because the campaign could have been to ban pornography magazines, or to place ‘lads’ mags’ on the top shelf out of childrens’ eye level, but instead the campaign is to ban them completely or risk being sued.
Sophie Bennett, the Campaigns Officer for Object, says:
“Lads’ mags dehumanise and objectify women, promoting harmful attitudes that underpin discrimination and violence against women and girls. Reducing women to sex objects sends out an incrediblydangerous message that women are constantly sexually available and displaying these publications in everyday spaces normalises this sexism. It is unacceptable that major retailers continue to expose staff and customers to such sexist and degrading material. It’s time we saw an end to Lads’ mags in shops and the very real harms to women that result!”
The causal relationship between lads’ mags and violence against women is stated. Mirrored by Object’s claims that lap-dancing clubs cause harm to women, the Lilith’s Project’s ( Eaves) much cited incorrect report that lap-dancing clubs caused a 50 percent rise in rape in Camden, and No More Page 3’s claims that pornography and Page 3 cause sexual violence against women.
Also included are statistics I find hard to believe, given that I am one of the only people I know who shops in WH Smith under 60 years of age… Object claim that 73 % of the UK population visit the shop…
I understand the debates surrounding objectification, sexualisation, and pornification, and I will need to unpick these and study them in depth for my research. However I am also aware that the same sex panics have existed since (if not before) the Victorian era. (A topic I wish to examine in much more detail also).
Here’s a task for you. Search ‘Vogue naked’ in google images, and see what images come up. Then compare these images to lads’ mags images. Which are ‘worse’? Which are more explicit? Is this a class issue? Is the problem that the lads’ mags are aimed at men, and therefore this makes their purpose ‘bad’, whereas the fashion magazine have a different purpose? If so, if it out interpretation that classifies the images? Do we need to re-evaluate our use of the ‘male gaze’ as PhD researcher Allie J. Carr suggests in her wonderful thesis on Showgirls?
Here is Loaded cover shot of TOWIE star Amy Childs:
Here is a Vogue cover taken from http://izandrew.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/natasha-poly-complet-naked-for-vogue.html:
(Photographer: Inez & Vinodh)
If the first one is sexist, degrading, adding to women’s inequality and oppression, is the second? Is a woman’s naked body obscene? If you enjoy looking at female bodies are you inherently disrespecting women?
Here are 2 photos from inside Vogue:
Natasha Poly completely full-frontal naked for Spanish Vogue:
(Photographer: Inez & Vinodh)
This photo is sourced from: http://www.artvalue.com/auctionresult–newton-helmut-1920-2004-german-sie-kommen-naked-french-vogue-1247220.html from French Vogue 1981 (so sexualisation is not so new). Photographer Newton Helmut, print priced between £8,000-£12,000.
Asides from the ‘what is porn and what is art’ questions, I want us to think of the ‘chicken and egg’ argument for a moment.
As the PhD student Sarah Harman of Brunel University wonderfully put it: “ How does porn influence culture’? instead I do feel that ‘how does culture influence porn?'” We talk about sexualisation and objectification as if they are causing a porn culture, but could it be that our culture is fuelling the need for such magazines? That magazines are a symptom of our culture, not a cause?
Employees claiming that they cannot sell certain products on religious grounds have lost at tribunal, so why would Object and UK Feminista believe they have such a strong case? And if they indeed won, what would this mean in law? Does a minorities right to object to these magazines override consumers’ right to purchase, models’ rights to do their job, publishers’ rights to have their lawful business?
Is this bullying?
We often talk of the virgin/whore dichotomy, but I feel it’s high time we emphasise the good guy/bad buy binary. As if the man who enjoys lads’ mags or lap-dancing clubs is bad, sexist, dangerous, and the man who doesn’t is good. The man who watches pornographic films might respect women completely, the man who protests for No More Page 3 might go home and beat his wife, or rape his girlfriend, or sexually bully his workmates, or harass sex workers. We are so keen to Other groups of men, those who read Loaded, those who purchase lap dances, that we miss the issue. Abuse to women happens by all kinds of men. It is not possible to safely distance ourselves by their sexual consumption habits.
There are high profile ‘feminist’ men who are utter misogynists (speaking from experience here).
If these magazines were banned, or merely resigned to the past through changes in consumption, would it really make any difference at all to gender inequality and harm to women? And even if you agree that lads’ mags are sexist, or merely not to your tastes, is threatening legal action every time we don’t personally like something ok? What does this say for personal freedoms and censorship?
Tellingly, as soon as the campaign went online, support came flooding in from academics and Object supporters, with one follower saying: “ I have always felt uncomfortable buying stuff in shops with breasts and open legs everywhere”. Which shops are these? These campaigns get a lot of support via online petitions, there is a LOT of money behind them, with full time staff who are accomplished media-savvy women. A counter-campaign ‘Don’t Lose the Lads’ Mags’ just wouldn’t evoke that same ‘common sense’ rationale. Most women don’t have time to go out there campaigning, they are too busy with full time jobs, study, hobbies, children, spouses, lovers, family commitments. These campaigns are spearheaded by women who represent a small minority. Why should they speak for us all?
One supporter of the campaign does a hashtag for the ‘sisterhood’ #sisterhood, presumably only those sisters who are like-minded and keep their clothes on?
These panics about women’s bodies on display are nothing new, they are just better-marketed and better-packaged.
Some great blogs on the Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign:
http://moronwatch.net/2013/05/conservative-feminism-and-the-right-to-offend.html
http://sarahwoolley.tumblr.com/post/51877933880/lose-the-lad-mags-censorship-doesnt-help-anyone
http://feministire.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/on-law-and-lose-the-lads-mags/
http://therantmistress.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/mumsplaining-matronising-and-mammaries.html
http://itsjustahobby.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/is-it-cold-outside-kat/
http://victoriamonro.co.uk/feminism-the-right-to-choose-to-bare-your-breasts/
http://ihopeyouretakingnotes.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/feminism-vs-lads-mags/
Harman, Sarah (2012) On pornography, Unpublished paper presented at Let’s Talk About Porn, Royal Holloway University, London.
plasticdollheads 
Aah, great insight. I did a content analysis of GQ verses Zoo/Nuts from a class perspective during my bachelors.
Also would it be too much of a stretch to get people to stop thinking the term “objectification” was entirely about being turned into a piece of furniture and more about the object/subject distinction. It’s less about being treated as a physical commodity and more about not being able to speak
Ho Joe, thanks for reading and for your comment. That content analysis sounds very interesting. Do you still have it?
This campaign is problematic on so many levels. Object and UK Feminsta are doing what they claim the lads’ mags do, now allowing the models to speak.
I find your point about object/subject distinction and not being able to speak crucial.
I’ll dig it out if I remember over the next couple of weeks. It’s probably poorly written but you might be able to cannibalize it.
Great thank you very much
On the pictures… I agree that the Vogue cover is at least as ‘objectionable’ (in quotes bc I’m not quite sure how I feel, but that’s how this is being framed) as the FHM one. The internal shots, though, I don’t think can be compared. Quite aside from the question of art, I don’t think the two Vogue photos here are sexually provocative. Unless an image of a naked woman is inherently sexualised?
I’m not a big fan of lads mags, but a lot of this campaign echoes No More Page 3, which I have similar objections to (and I’ve blogged about).
Great post. You rightly point out that this kind of sex panic has been around since at least the Victorian era. It was definitely around before that, but it reached something of a zenith in the Victorian, especially late in the period. While the movement itself has a different motivation than the moves to get rid of objectionable material in the 1800s, it shares many similarities in terms of the moral panic aspect of the whole thing.
The major differences in the Victorian period were class and access barriers to pornography and other materials deemed unfit. When the dominant medium for pornography was print, though the visual was a part of it to be sure, this presented obvious social barriers because it was limited to those who were literate. Further to this, much of the printed porn was allusive and even learned, making the content understandable by those with a certain level of education anyway. Even if one could comprehend everything going on in the text, one had to know where to get the stuff which wasn’t necessarily on display. One had to be adept at reading booksellers’ code and be in the know with subscription services. Then, of course, there was the issue of cost. Pornography wasn’t cheap and, if sold through the post, there was no guarantee it would ever get to you. You had to be sure the money and stamps you were putting out could afford to be lost: not a reality for many Victorians.
What this long-winded response is getting to is that, even with all these barriers — legal and socio-economic — in place, there was still a raging moral panic over objectionable material in the Victorian era. I’m refraining from making judgements on the lads’ mags campaigns because Gemma has done a swell job of that above. What I will offer, however, is the lesson we might take from the similar Victorian moral panics (look up the Society for the Suppression of Vice for more specific examples): pornography always finds a way. When English authorities all but stopped production of pornography in the UK, it moved to Paris or Amsterdam. Postal confiscation couldn’t keep up. When pornography shifted from a predominantly print-based medium exclusive to collectors to a visual one that was affordable for lower classes, as Lisa Sigel has pointed out (Governing Pleasures, 2003), the objects of pornography (women, boys, non-white races) ceased to be the exclusive property of a privileged class who used them for their own ‘high-minded’ pleasure. My point? I think it’s the same as one of Gemma’s: people (all people) have the right “to perform in, or consume, these publications” because the risk is that, if it becomes an exclusive domain, the objectification becomes hidden which, in my view, is cause for a worse moral panic.
Justin thank you so so much for this wonderful response! As you know I am fascinated by Victorian attitudes and experiences of pornography. I wish this comment was a blog post itself!
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Thank you Clarissa for the pingback, and to Jem for the pingbacks also 🙂
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There is a Nietzsche quote that goes something like this: ‘Preaching chastity is like a public incitement to promiscuity.’
I think there is something inherently dangerous about the Object and UK Feminista quest for sexual and erotic repression. Lose the Lads Mags is only one part of their vile ‘women must cover up’ campaigns. I think it will not prevent sexual harassment, I think harassment will increase it if they succeed. I think they are reinforcing the idea of female sexuality, expression and independence as something that is bad, and as you said, that male sexuality is a simplistic dichotomy of good or bad. So they are very similar to the religious right and the ‘patriarchy’ by creating fear around the naked female body and slut shamming through their campaigns.
I wonder what is wrong with them. I look at Kat Banyard with her prim and self-righteous persona and think ‘Are you asexual? How can you exist when you denying your own eroticism? How can you be comfortable as a woman when you deny a very important part of yourself? Does she not feel lust or desire when she looks at someone she fancies?’ I just think ‘OMG, there is a freak in there just dying to get out!’
I also think that the whole concept of ‘objectification’ is immature and one dimensional. People work on many different levels and sometimes we do look at the object of our desire and think ‘phroarrr!’ But the majority of us have enough common sense to remain polite and civil. Those who don’t have issues that run deeper than anything that can be caused by a mere glimpse of brazen woman.
(I am a stripper so have had direct experience of these groups.) The link below goes to a great TED talk.
Hi Edie, thank you so much for your comment. I would love you to write a guest blog on the issue if you so fancy/ have time? Very important issues raised.
I too find ‘objectification’ frustrating and limiting. It’s something I need to unpick and explore, because at the moment it just annoys the hell out of me!
Those who support the campaign just keep coming out with lines such as “It’s degrading” “It’s disgusting” “I don’t want to look at it” etc etc. I respect their unease, but it’s the unease of what, I am interested in.
It is as if they believe the female body, or images portraying the female body, and the site of danger that needs to be contained. And I don’t think that is feminist at all.
Thank you again, and thanks for the link too.
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Yes they have a very simplistic way of looking at things. Covering and hiding women because they think it’s dangerous is the wrong way to go about it. Some guys are silly and immature about sexy females but the main thing I get from the video is, well … forwards not backwards people! The centuries of shame and guilt about sex and the repression that has followed have done the damage, not females being attractive or sexual beings. This also represses men.
I know when I first started stripping there was an element of reclamation about it. (Of course the money and free time were a bonus!) But it also helps you understand this hidden area of sexuality that no one ever tells you about apart from ‘it’s bad, it’s dangerous’. We are not brought up to be able to deal with this and that is a huge gap in our education. This lack of knowledge is dangerous in it’s self. Erotic dance does allow you to reconnect with your physical self as any form of dance does, or sport for that matter. It’s a powerful thing and ex strippers who have gone on to teach burlesque, pole or striptease have tapped into a huge market. So that indicates somethings missing from the argument.
Years ago I went to meet Jo King who had just finished her London School of Striptease course. I met her with a few other strippers and our job was to watch the end of course performances of her students and cheer wildly. Which we did. We then went out for dinner with them all. The students were all professional women who work for city banks, law firms, some were doctors etc and they had transformed! It was quite an amazing thing to see. Me and another dancer were talking to each other going ‘Wow, Jo’s unleashed the beast!!!’ Something we took for granted had been accessed by these women and they were loving it!
In no way do I condone abuse of any kind, but Object and UK Feminista are approaching these issues so stupidly. I am at the point where I cannot even deal with them any more. I used to go to debates but now I can’t control my anger towards them. (Ironic how they are the ones who make me want to commit violence towards women!)
I wrote a blog post about Object and their anti-stripping campaign here: http://moronwatch.net/2013/01/why-i-object-to-object-and-all-the-other-prohibitionist-groups.html
Hi Edie, I have danced and worked in the industry in other guises myself, and To totally agree with Dr Rachela Colosi in her book Dirty Dancing? where she says once she leave dancer, you still identify as one. It never leaves you. It also frustrates the hell out of, when terms like ‘objectification’ ‘sexualisation’ ‘degrading’ are flipped round as freely as burgers, with the meanings blurred and largely lost. If I hear ‘objectification’ even one more time, I will lose the will to live!
Then the idea that dancers, sex workers, models are either damaged goods, or deluded. That no ‘normal’ woman can want to work in sex industry. Then the idea that ‘ok, even if a woman does choose to, she is complying with the male gaze and raunch culture, she must be stopped to protect other women’ (read ‘decent’ women). Arghhhh.
It’s so simplistic and offensive. Then we hear of the ‘types’ of women who are allowed to be feminist or not. What jobs we do may exclude us, what we wear may exclude us.
My friend runs a pole dancing school in Liverpool, and to hear this women are just doing it because they have a ‘man in the head’ of the ‘male gaze’ or because ‘raunch culture’ has deluded them, completely ‘does my head in’! Talk about silencing women’s voices and excluding them.
Thank you again. I remember your post on Moron Watch, will RT. If you ever do want to do that guest post… I can pay in sweets. 🙂
As a fan of striptease I know all about the lies and half truths in Lilith and the follow up Eden, Nothing there but it is still trotted out even though those people who have had any experience know the reports for what they are. I notice UK Feminista and Object are not offering funding to run a test case (Object had 7k in the bank when the company last published results). No surprise that this is just them making noise.
These is just an exercise to get them back in the news and they are probably hoping for funding or greater membership. Plus Kat Banyard needs her ego puffed up.
I’m so happy to see a woman with the same views. And thanks for the pingback 🙂
No worries, thank you for following and linking to my blog x
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Massive thanks for the link to my blog, very kind of you x
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I don’t usually comment on blogs but ere goes.. in the past I’ve have flick through and read the lad mags countless times.
Did I take them seriously and treat woman as mere sex objects no, as human being and young man I can tell the difference between fantasy and real life.
Or could it be more to do with class issues instead? Have these campaigners ask the mainly working class men and woman who stack the shelves of tesco and others there thoughts and how they feel about these magazine?
Simwise blog (simwisesucks.tumblr.com) a former glamour model has really interesting take on the whole glamour industry on taking about the banning of page three
“Seeing as this particular petition seems very middle class, backed by supposedly liberal (yet deeply middle class) ring leaders (people whom I suspect have never even read The Sun), what we really have here is not feminism, or even concern for the well-being of women-kind. It’s snobbery”
a commenter (allsande Fitzimons) on squeamishbikini made good comment
“I’m interested to know if there’s a hierarchy to the men’s lifestyle mags they’d like to get rid of, are (ahem) classier ones such as GQ and Esquire OK, while Nuts and Loaded are not? Do they risk turning this into a class or education issue, if like me they assume that barristers and doctors in their mid-30s aren’t buying the latter two titles?
A Before anyone say what about the children, I’ve two small nieces, who are more interested in the junk food and sweet department which does far damage in the long run..
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