Magazine News

Psychologists from Middlesex University and the University of Surrey claim that, far from being harmless or ironic fun, lads' mags could be legitimising hostile sexist attitudes.

The researchers claim that when presented with [out of context, carefully selected, and nebulous] descriptions of women taken from lads' mags, and comments about women made by convicted rapists, most people who took part in the study could not distinguish the source of the quotes.

The research due to be published in the British Journal of Psychology also revealed that most men who took part in the study identified themselves more with the language expressed by the convicted rapists.

Psychologists presented men between the ages of 18 and 46 with a range of statements taken from magazines and from convicted rapists in the study, and gave the men different information about the source of the quotes. Men identified more with the comments made by rapists more than the quotes made in lads' mags, but men identified more with quotes said to have been drawn from lads' mags more than those said to have been comments by convicted rapists.

The researchers also asked a separate group of women and men aged between 19 and 30 to rank the quotes on how derogatory they were, and to try to identify the source of the quotes. Men and women rated the quotes from lads' mags as somewhat more derogatory, and could categorize the quotes by source little better than chance.

Dr Miranda Horvath and Dr Peter Hegarty argue that the findings are consistent with the possibility that lads' mags normalise hostile sexism, by making it seem more acceptable when its source is a popular magazine.

Horvath, lead researcher from Middlesex University, said: We were surprised that participants identified more with the rapists' quotes, and 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.

Horvath, is concerned that lads' magazine editors are not working hard enough to moderate the content of their magazines: A lot of debate around the regulation of lads' mags has been to do with how they affect children but less has been said about the influence they have on their intended audience of young men and the women with whom those men socialise.

These magazines support the legitimisation of sexist attitudes and behaviours and need to be more responsible about their portrayal of women, both in words and images. They give the appearance that sexism is acceptable and normal - when really it should be rejected and challenged. Rapists try to justify their actions, suggesting that women lead men on, or want sex even when they say no, and there is clearly something wrong when people feel the sort of language used in a lads' mag could have come from a convicted rapist.

Hegarty, of the University of Surrey's Psychology Department, added: There is a fundamental concern that the content of such magazines normalises the treatment of women as sexual objects. We are not killjoys or prudes who think that there should be no sexual information and media for young people. But are teenage boys and young men best prepared for fulfilling love and sex when they normalise views about women that are disturbingly close to those mirrored in the language of sexual offenders? He added that young men should be given credible sex education and not have to rely on lads' mags as a source of information as they grow up.

As of last week the following publications are freely and legally available in Ireland: Razzle, Mayfair, Men Only, Escort and Club International.

You may have assumed that such publications are already available in Ireland, since the general lifting of the ban on high-street pornography in the mid-Nineties. However, these have all been hit with specific bans going right back to 1935 when Razzle first started publishing.

Anyway, as of last week, these publications will be available here. They may have been sold anyway, but the publishers decided to regularise the whole thing and appealed to the Censorship of Publications Appeals Board (CPAB). This is a five-person State body, chaired by solicitor Paula Mullooly, and whose members (four women and one man) go unpaid for their curious task. This is the first time the CPAB has met since 2005.

Irish Book Censorship

See article from justice.ie

Censorship of publications is governed by legislation and administered by two voluntary boards appointed by the Minister for Justice and Equality:

• the Censorship of Publications Board, which was established under the Censorship of Publications Act 1929

• the Censorship of Publications Appeal Board, which was established under the Censorship of Publications Act 1946

Any person may make a complaint to the Censorship of Publications Board.

A prohibition order may be appealed to the Censorship of Publications Appeal Board by

• the author, editor or publisher of the publication or

• any five members of the Oireachtas acting jointly

The appeal board may affirm, revoke or vary a prohibition.

A Register of Prohibited Publications [pdf] is maintained by the Censorship of Publications Board.

Yara Mashour has made it her business to break taboos. As editor in chief of Lilac, an Arab magazine based in Israel, she has set out to challenge customs and tradition - and her latest milestone is perhaps her biggest triumph to date.

This month's Lilac, for the first time ever, sees an Arab magazine featuring a model in a bikini on its front cover. The model in question is an Arab Israeli, Huda Naccache, from Haifa.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Yara said:

Since I established [Lilac] in Nazareth, Israel 10 years ago, I set out to break taboos regarding women in society... I worked on empowering and liberating [women].

Huda is the first Arab model to appear on the cover of an Arabic magazine in a bikini. Lilac is the first Arabic magazine to show a cover with a bikini!

I don't recall this being done elsewhere in the Arab world.

Yara admits, [authorities] might censor it and refuse to allow it to be distributed. Some Arab countries like Lebanon shouldn't ban it, they are very liberal. The only barrier there is the political one... Written in Arabic, with some English inserts because the new and young generation prefer reading English, the magazine targets Arabs in Israel, as well as Palestinians in the West Bank. The title is also on sale in neighbouring Jordan.