Monday, August 04, 2008

What Michael Gove Didn't Say

Michael Gove has spoken out today about the downsides of lads' mags like NUTS and ZOO. This is what he didn't say but could have...
I believe we need to ask tough questions about the instant-hit hedonism celebrated by the modern women's magazines targeted at younger females. Titles such as Nuts Cosmo and Zoo Elle paint a picture of women as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available. We should ask those who make profits out of revelling in, or encouraging, selfish irresponsibility among young women what they think they're doing.... The relationship between these titles and their readers is a relationship in which the rest of us have an interest. The images they use and project reinforce a very narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women. They celebrate thrill-seeking and instant gratification without ever allowing any thought of responsibility towards others, or commitment, to intrude. The contrast with the work done by women's magazines, and their publishers, to address their readers in a mature and responsible fashion, is striking."
Do we really need to start telling people which magazines they should be reading? I have never bought a copy of ZOO or NUTS in my life, but I do subscribe to STUFF (a magazine about new gadgetry, rather than what you may have been thinking). Perish the thought, but it has a semi naked woman on its cover every month. But I buy it despite that. I think we have quite enough interference from politicians in our personal choices as it is, thank you very much. The debate on ConHome is an interesting one, and essentially boils down to one of libertarianism v authoritarianism. If you had any doubt about it, let me put myself firmly in the libertarian camp.

It's a shame this passage has destracted from an otherwise excellent speech from one of the Shadow Cabinet's brightest minds. I'd encourage you to read the whole speech HERE. I agree with virtually every word Michael writes/says but I really do disagree that escapist magazines such as these are having any effect whatsoever on family breakdown.

More on this from Shane, Donal, Tom Harris, Andrew Lilico and Guido.

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

Iain, if you thought the Cameroons would be libertarians, you were mistaken.

This sort of "my right to do what the hell I want and stuff anyone else" only passes muster with those who were ex-YCs, which Cameron et al never were. They have a wider conception of society, which missed you all by when you were tied up at conferences getting ratted, calling for decriminalised drugs and prostitution, and shitting in the beds of the wets at some red-brick poly in 1980-dot.

Anonymous said...

patrician crap, just like Cameron's last venture into telling us how to run our lives.

I fear that a certain Catholic ex-guardsman is still leading the party with Cameron as his pretty boy front man.

Anonymous said...

If he has a bright mind then we are truly screwed, meet the new boss same as the old boss..aaaaghhhhh! mans a fool.

Anonymous said...

I don't think you're seeing the point that Michael Gove was making. He wasn't telling people what magazines to read, rather that the images and attitude towards women which these magazines present is encouraging people to view all women in this flippant and shallow way. I think you'll find that Elle and other female magazines give career, health and relationship advice without making men come across purely as pieces of meat. I don't think many issues have an array of naked men gesticulating lewd acts on the front cover. Perhaps that's why most women are looking for fulfilling relationships and not one night stands. I think Gove just wants Nuts to provide more mature and responsible articles instead of just churning out mostly smut.

Another point is that these types of magazines are available publicly in newsagents, airports, shops, visable to children of all ages. I don't think Elle has ever threatened to offend or belittle anyone passing by.

Anonymous said...

He has a right to have an opinion on the merits of a mag. I am not a big fan myself. However I think that politicians should think long and hard before writing or saying anything that even hints at a desire to censor. There is much worse stuff out there than silly lads mags.

This nonsense can only distract from any serious debate about free speach.

Banning anything that might offend anybody especially when some people are looking for offence like a medieval witch-finder accusing women he knows are no more witch than he is. Would leave us free only to repeat officially sanctioned oppinions.

Anonymous said...

The lesson of the Major years was surely that when Tories make moral judgements then they will sooner or later be 'judged on their morals'.

I am sure that Mr Gove is sincere on this issue but unfortunately it is a hostage to fortune and an open invitation for journalists to start digging up embarrasing stories about previous minor indiscretions that anyone even vaguely associated with the Tory party may have commited many years ago.

Mr Gove otherwise made an excellent speech - sorry that it got drowned out by this.

Anonymous said...

The problem with feminism is that it has told women that being a "house-manager" is a worthless life.

Women have gone out to work and most don't like having to compete working long hours (as managers) in boring jobs (in law, accounting, IT) or in heavy intellectual jobs (against semi-autistic rocket scienticts). When they get to their late twenties they realise work was not all sh*t and giggles like their feminist mothers had thought. Instead of just admiting that the western society, in general, suits (boring, aggressive, competitive) male minds, feminism tells women to act more like men in the workplace.

But what has happened women have tried to do this , but at the same time done the opposite. They have embraced the culture of celebrity. They buy Heat, Gossip, Hello. They spend billions on beauty products. In Canary Wharf when there are great many professional and competent women the beauty shops and second only to the sandwich bars.

Women are increasingly aware they have to offer their sex to men and not their minds. Men don't want an intellectual equal to go down the pub with and discuss the meaning of life - they have their mates to do that with.

Harriet Harpie and her evil sisters have made the marriage contract so one sided it has been shown for what it is - a financial contract that no financial adviser in their right mind would advise you to sign. Men used to go along with marriage but so many fathers have been burned they now see marriage as a con. Women celibrate it because they are getting claim to at least half of all past and future assets. What's not to like for them.

Disney and childrens toys bring women up believing they are entitled princesses. As they get older most seem to think they are entitled and have "godesses inside them" - so the advert goes.

Women are encouraged to use "their tits" (by Trinny and Susannah) to distract from their double chin, to wear a short skirt to make their legs look longer, to use teeth whitener, longer eye lashes, smoother hair. They fall out of pubs and flash their knickers. Fall in to bed and take the morning after pill.

Men, as has been shown are attracted to high estrogen women (big eyes, thin nose, full lips, smooth skin, large breasts, high waist/hip ratio). Beauty is neurological. Experiments show make up obscures the brains judgment on beauty.

Men increasingly see women as sex objects because they are acting more and more like sex objects. Men are increasingly impatient with women because women are acting increasingly entitled and demanding. Men are increasingly wanting to stay single because they realise marriage is biased against them.

Women you only have yourselves to blame.

Give me a fast car and a slow woman any day of the week.

Anonymous said...

Well said Michael Gove and about time someone did....You know you are absolutely right when it pisses the whinging liberal types off...We have had 11 years of them and look where it has got us..

Little Black Sambo said...

"I think ... I don't think ... I think ... Perhaps ... I don't think". Sarah's air of diffidence fails to conceal an authoritarian mind. And think of the CHILDREN.

Anonymous said...

Well said, Iain. What is being proposed? That an official censor pre-approves newspapers and magazines? Let people get on with their lives. Enough of nanny telling us what to do. I am sick and tired of getting that from Labour. The last thing I want is for the Conservatives, on the verge of forming a government, to start doing the same.

Alex said...

A lot of people on thsi blog seem to think that Gove was talking about banning these magazines, which he clearly was not, and I don't buy the argument that this is a slippery slope. There is clearly a difference between what is undesirable and what is so unacceptable that it requires banning or legislation.

The problem that MP's have with telling us how to live our lives is that they have no greater moral authority than we do and there only instrument to change behaviour is legislation, so Gove should have kept his mouth shut.

Raedwald said...

When I was about ten, we had the equivalents of these in Parade, Tit-Bits and Reveille - mags that a curious prep-school lad in the 1960s could buy without any questions. Vulgar but enlightening. The stories went right over our heads, but we understood the pictures well enough.

Poor Michael must have had quite a sheltered youth.

I'm not sure even Mary Whitehouse complained about them - she probably thought they were good for forces morale.

Yes, this silly para ruined what was otherwise a stunning speech text.

Daily Referendum said...

Michael Gove needs to avoid portraying the Conservative party as the party of the Victorian Dad.

Daily Referendum said...

Javelin.

Brilliant.

Anonymous said...

Gove is, was and always will be a paid-up memeber of the authoritarian welfare/warefare party. These people are not an alternative to Labour. They simply disagree on exactly how much to loot in tax, how many wars to wage, and how much welfare to distribute. A plague on the lot of them.

david kendrick said...

On the issue itself, you are spot on, Iain.

But the more important point is that one of the brighter members of the shadow cabinet seemed to be unaware of the impact of what he said. Surely he knew what would be quoted---how politically clumsy is he?

Anonymous said...

And here was I believing that Mr Gove was a bright man who might have an idea or two about how to fix this society once the Tories return to government. If this is it then he might as well cross the floor of the house and join the Labour party. There may be a few ministerial vacancies shortly.

Anonymous said...

The Labour Party is busy setting fire to its own genitals (but making sure that the most enormous crowd has gathered first, in case anyone still thinks they aren't utterly deranged and unfit for office).

And Gove manages a set of "Tories Ban Nuts Mag" headlines.

And ConHome's frothing God-botherers pour kerosene on the fire. In industrial quantities.

Brilliant.

Anonymous said...

You can find something deplorable without wanting to ban it.

Actually, I think a lot of women's magazines are sex-obsessed and vulgar. Have a look on the shelves. It's very hard to find a women's magazine which does not have the words SEX or SEXY somewhere on the front cover.

Unknown said...

Why can't a politician make a judgement about something without people thinking they are going to legislate on it? Especially when he makes no mention of such an action.

Noone listens to the church about moral issues, so who is going to take the mantle of leadership of our society? (separate from our government). The alternative is the media, no thanks.

Lola said...

Javelin - fast cars slow women. Given a choice between 100 laps round Spa in a Lola T70 or a jazzy weekend with a pneumatic starlet I for one am on the ferry. As Kipling said 'a woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke'.

There that's wound up all the ladies. But as I live with lots of women and as, like a steeple jack beyond a certain point all dangers are equal, I really couldn't give a damn,.

Lola said...

Ian, thank you for putting up the link to Mr Gove's speech. As usual the selectivity of editing for effect has distorted his message.

Mind you it's given me a lot of laughs, so that's a Good Thing.

PS Do you mind being addressed by a stranger as Ian? We have not been introduced and I have no permission to use your given name.

Iain Dale said...

Lola, I prefer Iain! :)

Lola said...

Iain: Ooops!

Anonymous said...

Pole dancing clubs, personal adverts,all demeaning to the female sex.
They are going to be banned by Cameron I take it?

Back to bloody basics. Down go the polls and the conservatives are well and truly F....D!

Gove is a big time prat and has ruined the chance of government.

Anonymous said...

'Escapist'? Rubbish. People who read (use) Nuts are not escaping from anything. This is not, nowadays, a sexually repressed society. There are sexualised images everywhere in this society, and there are few restrictions on how sexuality is discussed.

This situation, in my opinion, is better than the alternative, the extreme of which is the tension and suppression of the Victorian era. But Nuts and Zoo are a part of the dark side of this freedom. They are the corruption of freedom of sexual expression - objectification. The the freedom to express individual sexuality is transformed, in these magazines, into the treatment of women as commodities.

Obviously, we can get too hysterical about these things - the women in such magazines are working under much less coercion than (for example) prostitutes - but there is still something extremely tawdry and shallow about this type of publication. And Michael Gove (much as it pains me to give credit to these wolf-in-sheep's-clothing Tories) was right to say so.

Unsworth said...

"It's a shame this passage has destracted from an otherwise excellent speech from one of the Shadow Cabinet's brightest minds."

Pedantic, but it's 'detracted' or 'distracted'.

Actually it has done both. It's the silly season I know, but Gove should have put the essay in a drawer for a while, and then re-read it before issuing it. Not a well-considered position, really.

James Schneider said...

Pleased to hear that true to form you are sticking to the principled libertarian line. This paternalism and authoritarianism is going to come back and bite the Tories in the ass.

Once more you've proved your critics wrong. You are not a slavish Tory mouth piece but very much your own man.

Anonymous said...

"A look through the Register of Members Interests reveals Michael was elected thanks to payments to his constituency party from Red Fig Ltd.

Red Fig Ltd, which specializes in interactive television and promised “non-stop TV action,” provided their services for Miss World 2004 and helped to launch – yep, you guessed it, Nuts TV. You can read their very proud press release here."

http://www.recessmonkey.com/2008/08/05/gove-caught-by-the-nuts/#comments

How can he be so monumentally stupid...

Anonymous said...

I agree with Sarah (6.51) - If you compare the two there are actually vast differences. Zoo once had a competition offering a boob job for your girlfriend but no space for the girlfriend to give consent or sign up to it in any way. Women's mags don't offer to surgucally enhance your boyfriend.

And Javelin has some very strange views on what feminisim is. It's not dismissing being a 'house manager' (as he puts it) as worthless; it's realising that whichever half of a relationship stays at home or goes to work, they should be treated equally. If the father stays home then he should equal paternity leave. End of. Bottle feeding is always an option.

Chris Underwood said...

Gove: caught by the Nuts

Share on Facebook | Posted on August 5, 2008 at 9:31 am | Trackback URI


In these immoral times of easy values and scant virtues, it’s good to see that moral arbiter Michael Gove picking up the mantle of Back to Basics and sticking it to lads mags like Nuts.

Writing on conservativehome he says:

“I believe we need to ask tough questions about the instant-hit hedonism celebrated by the modern men’s magazines targeted at younger males. Titles such as Nuts and Zoo paint a picture of women as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available.

“We should ask those who make profits out of revelling in, or encouraging, selfish irresponsibility among young men what they think they’re doing.”

Indeed we should ask those who make profits from the wages of sin.

So Michael, perhaps you’d like to tell us why you took £2,000 in April 2005 and it seems you’re still ‘soliciting’ money from, a company that set up Nuts TV?

A look through the Register of Members Interests reveals Michael was elected thanks to payments to his constituency party from Red Fig Ltd.

Red Fig Ltd, which specializes in interactive television and promised “non-stop TV action,” provided their services for Miss World 2004 and helped to launch – yep, you guessed it, Nuts TV. You can read their very proud press release here.

It seems Gove’s still taking money too – according to his latest register of members interests entry, he says:

“Donations to my constituency association have been solicited or encouraged by me from:

Red Fig (company donation)”

Now we’re sure Michael wouldn’t like to be seen making ‘profits out of revelling in, or encouraging, selfish irresponsibility among young men’ so perhaps he’d consider paying back the good people at Red Fig.

P.S. Interesting to see that Shadow Foreign Affairs Spokesman Keith Simpson has suggested a summer reading list for his colleagues which includes David Runciman’s “Political Hypocrisy.” Looks like someone got an advanced copy!

So if you believe in political hypocrisy, press the Red Button NOW!

David Lindsay said...

Gove is right, even if those of us increasingly feeling our age are almost heartened to learn that something so utterly of the Nineties is still part of popular culture at all.

But Gove and others need to face the fact that both those publications and the lifestyle that they encourage are simply the operation of their own beloved "free" market, which cannot be in goods and services generally but not in alcohol, gambling, drugs, prostitution and pornography.

The commercialisation of sexuality in general and of women's bodies in particular is a vast social and cultural problem.

In this fortieth anniversary year of Humanae Vitae, the only really good thing that Pope Paul VI ever did, we need to acknowledge that the root of this problem is the poisoning of women in order to make them permanently available for the sexual gratification of men.

We might also consider that even the World Health Organisation, hardly a Vatican puppet, describes Natural Family Planning as 99.8% effective (how could it not be?).

But, of course, it can only be done by a faithful married couple acting as such. So it is out of the question. Isn't it?

Anonymous said...

Anon 12.07:

Hang on, surely if he was cheerleading for Nuts etc. we would be accusing him of being bought off? You can't have it both ways; and politicians shouldn't be expected only to take money from people whose position they will champion.

Anonymous said...

"Do we really need to start telling people which magazine to read?"

Erm Iain, all this nudge stuff you people think means you are leading the intellectual debate is actually all about telling people how to lead their lives.

Anonymous said...

Crikley Javelin

You really don't seem to like women very much.

Philipa said...

Now magazines have an effect on family breakdown? Oh good grief. When most homes have a PC and men can flirt in chat rooms and download porn who cares about magazines for cripes sake? Per-lease.

Family breakdown is caused by some &r$€hol€ busying himself (or herself) with something other than their family interests and the other spouse getting past fed up.

Some people call on religious rules which in Christianity is a paternalist society which means women are back to sleeping with the landlord. Oh yes, cry some men, but wasn't the world a better place then! Not if you were a woman it wasn't in a miserable or abusive marriage.

The changes in society since the Sixties are manifold yet everyone seems intent on blaming 'the breakdown of marriage'. Well all societies ills are not down to the breakdown of marriage, it's just a convenient and popular soundbite. False but popular.

I agree with cath, it's "patrician crap, just like Cameron's last venture into telling us how to run our lives."

Philipa said...

Blimey, catching up on the comments I see 'Javelin' hasn't met many professional women has he? I remember getting that speech from a fellow student at Uni (apparently I shouldn't have been studying engineering because I was female and therefore unable to think like a man) I asked him how many professional women he knew. Turned out the only adult female he knew was his mother. She was a housewife.

Anonymous said...

javelin said...

"The problem with feminism is that it has told women that being a "house-manager" is a worthless life."

That's one of the problems.

There is also the matter of reducing men to being nothing but walking sperm banks and open wallets for women to plunder at will.

Philipa said...

Anon said : "There is also the matter of reducing men to being nothing but walking sperm banks and open wallets for women to plunder at will."

But it's ok to reduce women to skivvies you can have sex with is it? What was the benefit of marriage in the good old days? Oh yes, sleeping with the landlord. How thrilling.

No mention of women with open wallets men can plunder then. It happens.