Lads' mags sound like rapists

Louise Nousratpour
Friday December 9, 2011
The Morning Star

Experts warned today that so-called lads' mags are legitimising hostile sexist attitudes among men.

Researchers found that when presented with descriptions of women taken from the publications and comments about women made by convicted rapists, most of those surveyed could not distinguish the source of the quotes.

The study of men aged between 18 and 46 showed that the majority identified themselves more with the language expressed by the convicted rapists when they did not know the source.

The psychologists from Middlesex University and the University of Surrey also polled a separate group of women and men aged between 19 and 30 to rank the quotes on how derogatory they were, without revealing the sources.

To their surprise, most of the participants in this experiment found the lads' mags quotes more offensive.

Dr Miranda Horvath and Dr Peter Hegarty, who led the research, warned that lads' mags contributed to the normalisation of hostile sexism by packaging their anti-women material as a bit of harmless fun.

Ms Horvath said: "Rapists try to justify their actions, suggesting that women lead men on or want sex even when they say No.

"We are concerned that the legitimisation strategies that rapists deploy when they talk about women are more familiar to these young men than we had anticipated."

From February, many major supermarket chains and petrol stations across Britain have agreed to place lads' mags on the top shelf - out of the eye line of children.

But Ms Horvath said that this was not enough to address "the influence they have on their intended audience of young men and the women with whom those men socialise."

Mr Hegarty warned: "There is a fundamental concern that the content of such magazines normalises the treatment of women as sexual objects."

And Anna van Heeswijk of the women's rights group Object said that if ministers are serious about tackling violence against women they must tackle the associated attitudes peddled in the media.

"The Leveson inquiry is currently looking into the culture and ethics of the press. These disturbing findings unequivocally demonstrate the need for the portrayal of women to be included in the remit of this inquiry," she said.