Lads' mags in children's sight: the game is ON!

[RowanMumsnet]

After canvassing your views, we're extending Let Girls Be Girls to cover the issue of lads' mags on display where children can see them in newsagents, supermarkets, stationers and petrol stations. Have a look at our press release and survey results here. We're contacting all the major retailers to ask them to sign up, and will keep you posted about how that goes. If you'd like to cull some copy from the press release to compose your own letter to your local independent newsagent, please feel free, and post here to let us know what you've done.

Some of the retailers have asked us for examples of individual stores that are presenting problems, so if you've seen material inappropriately displayed in a specific branch, again, please post here and we'll pass the information on.

Cheers,

MNHQ

[nickytwotimes]

tesco, ayr.

tonnes of them.

[ShrinkingViolet]

Morrisons have white boxes that they sit in on the top shelf - so all you can see is the names of the magazines.
Credit where credit's due!

[ChristmasTrulyReigns]

I've noticed that in Morrisons too.

Well done.

Thin end of a very big wedge though.

[Dalrymps]

Tescos and asda, both in full view.

[Dalrymps]

Should have said, Tecsos and Asda in Berwick although I suspect it's all of them.

[Dalrymps]

Brilliant campaign by the way!

[TheProvincialLady]

Sainsburys in Queens Road, Leicester, stocks the Star just above The Guardian

[sethstarkaddersmum]

I love you MNHQ!

[LadyBlaBlah]

I would wish for this campaign that the retailers would ditch these pathetic magazines totally, never mind putting them out of view.

They are a craze gone flat anyway

The distribution figures for Nuts, Zoo and Loaded are falling through the floor.

The first one to take the lead and use their valuable retail space for something else would get such great PR

[theagedparent]

Costcutter in my town has The sport in with all other newspapers and the likes of Nuts/Zoo on low shelves.

[BeenBeta]

The best way to deal with this issue is to ask your men folk not to buy these publications.

We dont have them in our house and I am sure that if all women talked to their DH/DP/son, explained why they feel strongly about them and asked them not to buy them then sales would fall sharply.

Magazines that dont sell get shut down.

[sethstarkaddersmum]

it doesn't take much circulation to keep a magazine going though.
The newsagent in our town has several different vintage tractor magazines - yes, not just one, several. Even if all the dps and dses of MNers stopped buying them I am sure that would still leave a good deal more readers than your average vintage tractor mag gets and they somehow manage to keep going

[GeekLove]

The Co-op in Tile Hill Cov has the Sport wit the other newspapers easily at childs height. Similarly Nuts and Zoo are on the level above childrens's magasizes.

There is also a gadjets/tech mag called Stuff which always has a scantily clad women on the cover - not sure why given the context.

I WILL get round to writing to head office about the Mumsnet campaign with respect to lads mags

[sethstarkaddersmum]

stopped buying lads mags, I should have said

[GreatGooglyMoogly]

Great Campaign!

Could I just point out that in your press release it lists the 3 worst offenders, as per the survey, but doesn't include Tesco who scored 32% (but does include WHSmith at 31%).

[whoknowswhatthefutureholds]

I noticed that greatgoogly.

Is there a very simple letter (for my local newsagents who probably won;'t give two hoots but I definately want to point it out to them)

[jonicomelately]

I think this is a great campaign. Despite what BeenBeta says, I think there will always be a market for this type of thing. The only real solution is for them them to be displayed more discreetly.

[stickyj]

I wanted to ask something but didn't want to cause a fuss. I know that mags/papers etc should be hidden as the ladies in them are usually half dressed and pouting. I just wondered if anyone else has thought that maybe mags with men on (Men's Health for example) should be toned down too. Those guys are naked (and supposedly showing guys how they are meant to be) but they're still nearly naked and is it double standards? Ignore me if I'm rambling, but having looked at my son's mag (he's 17) I just wondered if it portrays an iamge that's maybe unreachable for teens/men?

[stickyj]

Just wanted to add that our local newsagent has those boxes on the mags and they're also on the high shelves. The Sun/Sport however is just on the general newspaper stand and I have mentioned it as my when my son was younger (about 7) he did used to stand and stare.

[anastaisia]

they're talking about it here

[madwomanintheattic]

how i love the liberals. i did have a small chuckle at rowan's claim that mners can start a fight in an empty room, in the middle of a fabulous barney about statistical significance. that lot don't actually care what they are arguing about, really, do they?

hey ho.

not in the uk currently, so can't contribute to the 'where' discussion, but rah rah, anyway.

[JessinAvalon]

Great - thanks Mumsnet (and thanks Tabouleh for alerting me to this).

See my post on the feminism thread about the rubbish response I got from Shell last week about their display of The Sport at toddler eye level:

Link to thread about Shell

In my experience, WHSmith and Tesco do not give a monkey's. Smith's told me a couple of years ago that they adhere to their own voluntary guidelines of not displaying lads mags at a height below 1.2m so that children won't be exposed to them.

I went onto the Department of Health website and found an age/height survey and found that the average 6-7 year old is now over 1.2m tall. I sent this information to WHSmith and asked what they defined as a 'child' but they kept answering really vaguely and in the end refused to answer anything in writing and offered to speak to me on the phone instead (weird!). I offered to come and meet them in person as their office isn't far from where I live but they declined that offer too.

Tesco are also rubbish.

The Co-op at least tries to display them on the top shelves but I only know of one Co-op that covers them up.

And credit where it's due to Sainsbury's and Morrisons who listened to their customers and covered them up. I avoid Tesco and WHSmut now and only shop in Sainsbury's. It's not much to ask, is it, for a retailer to move some poorly selling magazines to a top shelf and cover them up! (Although I am bemused as to why Sainsbury's doesn't cover up FHM.)

A few years ago, when WHSmut made the decision to bring back Playboy, its then MD said that the cover of most lads mags are the same as Playboy. Yet they put Playboy on the top shelves, covered up, and the rest at the height of your average 6-7 year old. I asked WHSmut about that too but they declined to answer!

WHSmut brings back Playboy

And this was before the likes of Nuts and Zoo were being published, which pushed the boundaries even further.

Well done MN!

[BeenBeta]

stickyj - I dont think the Mens Health mags are double standards. They are not the same - at least they dont seem so to me. There are Womens Health Magazines too.

anastasia - one of the comments replying to the article that you linked to also makes the valid point that many women's magazines might equally damage girls by by presenting false and airbrushed body images of women but they won't be banned to the top shelf.

I support the campaign but am just trying to be realistic and practical. The comments under the article are an interestng profile of the kind of response this campaign will elicit and MN need to be ready to deal with that.