This week marks the launch of the campaign Lose the Lads’ Mags, spearheaded by feminist organisations UK Feminista and Object. Depending on who you believe, this is either an attempt to free employees and customers from “an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment” that could arise from exposure to sexist pornographic content – or, in the words of Loaded and FHM journalist Piers Hernu in a report by the BBC – “a deeply sinister and disturbing attempt by a group of fundamentalist, fanatical feminists…to bully supermarkets into removing lads’ mags from the shelves”.
As far as deeply sinister and disturbing acts by fundamentalist groups go, this one seems fairly civilised. The lawyers and campaigners behind Lose the Lads’ Mags are unlikely to turn up, Spring Breakers-style, in pink balaclavas, toting pistols at the local Tesco Extra. Any facet of the Equality Act that may or may not be used against employers is unlikely to be found “disturbing” (unless you’re a person regularly given to using that well-worn phrase, “IT’S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!”) And as for fundamentalism: while we’re taking the dictionary definition of feminism as the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men, charges of ‘fundamentalist’ egalitarianism don’t seem very threatening at all. Unless, of course, you’re a sexist.
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