Walmart Pulls Cosmopolitan Magazine From Checkouts

[jpak]

Source: Bloomberg

Walmart Inc. is pulling Cosmopolitan magazine from its checkout counters, bowing to pressure from an activist group that sees the publication’s racy covers as “sexploitation.”

The world’s largest retailer will now sell the Hearst Corp. publication just in its magazine aisle, spokesman Randy Hargrove said on Tuesday. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation -- a group with roots in fighting pornography -- said it had been working “behind the scenes” with the retailer for months on the decision, which makes Walmart’s checkout aisles “family friendly.”

“While this was primarily a business decision, the concerns raised were heard,” Hargrove said in an email.

Walmart’s move comes amid rising sensitivity to sexism and gender discrimination. Internally, the firm has made gender diversity a bigger priority over the past decade, yet is still facing lawsuits from women who say they were denied opportunities for promotion.

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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-27/walmart-pulls-cosmopolitan-magazine-from-checkouts-amid-pressure

[Skittles]

1. guns and ammo are OK, cleavage is not

[Ferrets are Cool]

6. +1

[democratisphere]

2. I have a sensitivity to tabloid trash magazines and newspapers promoting

fake news and total lies. The publications like the National Enquirer should no longer be located in the checkout isles or register endcaps. Instead they should be relocated to the restrooms with the rest of the sh't.

[MaryMagdaline]

3. They teach girls how to get diaphragms and pills

They must be punished.

(Total trash magazine BTW).

[crazycatlady]

19. They've also expanded political coverage related to women's issues

For many young women (late teens, early 20s), these stories might be the only political stories they read.

[MaryMagdaline]

23. I've noticed that Seventeen Magazine also expanded political coverage from the time

when I was young.

[crazycatlady]

25. Teen Vogue is also very good with political coverage

There's a great article in there on Emma Gonzalez now that's worth reading.

[Dawson Leery]

4. Guns good, sex bad.

[badhair77]

5. Did Cosmo have some of the first ladys past photos on the cover?

[meadowlark5]

7. If it weren't for Cosmopolitan, I might not have ever left my small, rural midwestern hometown

I know that sounds ridiculous, but I grew up in the midwest in the late 60s, 70s and graduated early 80s from high school. I purchased my very own subscription to Cosmo and eagerly awaited my new copy each month. I read about strong women, women with careers, women who took control of their reproductive health and sex lives. Even though I was smack dab in the middle of the US in a cornfield, I knew from Cosmo there were bigger and better things out there. So I made steps to get out.

Before that, I dated a hog farmer and almost got married to him. That's what was expected of a young girl not going to college (we had no money to send me to college), get married and have a family. But I did move and go to college. If I had stayed, I would have been miserable.

[riversedge]

8. I am glad it worked out for you.

[paleotn]

9. This...

[Skittles]

10. you should let the magazine know

that's a wonderful testimonial

[meadowlark5]

11. Hmm.. maybe

It's been a looooong time ago.

But to this day, it was reading that magazine that opened my eyes. I sure wasn't getting any of that information from anywhere around there.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. Great story, but know that it is Cosmo giving you a better life that horrifies them, not the sex.

[meadowlark5]

13. That's why I told my story

Without it, I might have just done the norm. So the magazine had an influence on me. And some parents don't want that kind of influence on their children. Cosmo is probably viewed by those kind of parents as a liberal magazine that encourages girls to go on the pill and have sex.

[Orange Free State]

15. Yup, I have definitely seen some of those bigger and better things right on the cover, yup...n/t

[milestogo]

14. But can you still buy high capacity magazines?

[Hortensis]

16. The religious right has goals in common with this movement.

Cosmo's covers are often the stage just before soft porn, and perhaps this sort of thing will encourage Cosmo to at least keep their hot women what could almost be considered street clothes.

But there's such a thing as movements going too far also, and we should note the coming together of goals between left wing zealots and right wing. When does opposing "sexploitation" begin empowering shaming and oppression for lack of modesty? The forces on the right are not just enormously powerful, they're extremely well organized and always looking for advantage.

The righteous support expressed by some here for defining hitting on a woman as harassment struck me as just a little too pre-Handmaidenish for comfort. I don't believe eager secular cultural revolutionaries have thought this through.

[Cold War Spook]

17. I guess these people

never take their children to the beach. Actually, I think the way some people dress to go to Walmart is worse and it has nothing to do with sex.

[Bengus81]

18. But you can see women on those carts showing the crack of their ASS.....

Guess that eye candy is ok eh?? Re-enforces why I step foot in a Wally world about once every 5-10 years.

[hatrack]

20. Why? Did it talk about S-E-X on the cover?

Like every other issue of Cosmopolitan for the last, oh, 30 years?

[dembotoz]

21. do the tabloid remain...don't know i do not go to wallyworld

[MosheFeingold]

22. Politics aside

Cosmo has some of the worst ideas for women, ever.

It's completely bi-polar: "Trap the man you need!" "You don't need a man!" "Lose ten pounds on the grapefruit diet" "Don't eat citrus fruits!"

Probably responsible for more body image issues for woman than any one given magazine.

I once read a scholarly article by a team of male and female psychologists about how bad it was. Particularly about how the various "tests" were all completely wrong. Let me see if it exists on the web.

[Blue_Tires]

24. Really?

I happen to know the average Wal-mart shopper likes Cosmo cheesecake as much as any other red-blooded American if not moreso....