Walmart has taken a stand against the exploitation of women and the #MeToo crowd is furious.
In a statement, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) announced it has been working with Walmart for months to “take a stand against sexual exploitation” by removing Cosmopolitan Magazine from the checkout aisles of 5,000 Walmart locations.
The NCOSE statement notes that "Cosmo sends the same messages about female sexuality as Playboy. It places women’s value primarily on their ability to sexually satisfy a man and therefore plays into the same culture where men view and treat women as inanimate sex objects... Customers should not be forced to be exposed to this content when they are trying to check-out at the store."
NCOSE executive director Dawn Hawkins added:
This is what real change looks like in our #MeToo culture, and NCOSE is proud to work with a major corporation like Walmart to combat sexually exploitative influences in our society . . . Walmart’s removal of Cosmo from checkout lines is an incremental but significant step toward creating a culture where women and girls are valued as whole persons, rather than as sexual objects. We are grateful for Walmart’s cooperation and for Walmart leadership’s recognition that corporations must do their part to change #MeToo culture.
As you might expect, journalists in the mainstream media have taken the opportunity, not to report the news as it is, but to use their platforms to criticize Walmart’s decision.
An article for Business Insider notes, “reducing Cosmopolitan to a sex-obsessed publication is a tired effort to deemphasize the work of other women and pigeonhole women's media.”
If you’ve ever seen a Cosmo headline, you’ll know what’s wrong with that statement.
