Protesters campaigning against lads’ mags picketed Tesco stores around the UK this weekend, urging the chain to stop selling the titles.
Supporters of the Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign protested at stores in London, Manchester, Glasgow and a number of other towns and cities across the country.
Kat Banyard, founder of UK Feminista, one of the women’s rights groups behind the campaign, told the BBC that Tesco should “show leadership” to other retailers by stopping the sale of magazines such as Nuts, Zoo and Loaded.
“This sends out the message that it’s normal and acceptable to view women as sex objects,” she said. “That’s why thousands of people have spoken out.
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“We’re calling on Tesco to show leadership on this issue and get these magazines off their shelves.”
The protest comesas the debate over the display of lads’ mags has intensified over recent weeks.
Zoo publisher Bauer Media and Nuts publisher IPC Media both confirmed they would withdraw their title from sale at Co-Op stores following the retailer’s request that the magazines should be placed in “modesty bags”.
Both titles, along with Front, had already agreed to produce toned-down front covers to avoid being placed in similar bags in Tesco stores, a move that seemed to placate the UK’s leading retailer.
Another major supermarket chain, Morrisons, already places the titles behind dark screens, shielding the majority of covers.
It said earlier this month that it would not request that the magazines be put inside bags and called for a unified response from the supermarket industry over this issue, saying that the current state of affairs was “confusing for customers”.
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