The problem is that with all of the bullshit aside, they need to sell the magazine to some dwindling population still buying them.
The "heartwarming", positive cover is indeed heartwarming and a good message, but is also pretty lame, and unlikely to sell magazines.
I also question whether this is typical shallow/ignorant internet outrage. When I was a kid, Boy'a Life was a Boy Scouts magazine, and had annual themes that appeared every year at the same time. If you looked at the May/June cover, the annual Boy Scout Jamboree issue wouldn't be as "internet offensive".
It's mentioned in the article. Boy's Life actually has a noble mission behind it, whereas Girl's Life is for-profit trash (essentially). The parallelism between the names of the two is an unfortunate coincidence. Near as I can tell the Girl Scouts don't have a magazine, but if they did, it would be a better comparison against Boy's Life. Maybe they should publish one?
Maybe it's just my lack of need for external influence, but why is this a big deal? I think women can and should be whatever they want to be. A trashy magazine shouldn't change that.
Should A Girl's Life change the tone of their stories? That's up to the market. As long as their demographic enjoys what they print (which translates to $$$), they'll continue to run it. Should people be outraged by it? If they choose to be, yes. But at the end of the day a consumer is a consumer, and if they want trash they'll get it.
I can not provide links right now, but reading up on "stereotype threat" will probably explain why this still matters.
I a few words: the same person performing the same task will perform lower if they are aware of a stereotype that says that their group performs worse at the given task. It is reproduced for white and black, male and female, etc.
Some of the flagged comment in the discussion were very sexist. The rest of the flagged comments were people a bit aggressively calling them out. I guess all the up and down voting triggered a flame war detector.
Which is really sad, I really hoped we can all agree that your sex does not determine whether you are a good engineer.
When huge groups organize to force gender norms to be crystallized into society, it prevents the evolution of that society to respond successfully to dangers and problems that face it.
A great example of 15 million or so people adopting this was the Mormon Proclamation on the Family [0], which set a mission statement for their religion that continues to result in political problems and furor.[1] [2]
These groups organizing to fight against existence of their taboo are a great issue, one that will often organize to prevent testing the unknown. I don't know if it's my relative youth and inexperience, but it seems to be getting worse than it was in times past, when entire cultures migrated or philosophically shifted (e.g. Polynesian settlement, the Enlightenment, etc.).
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
The "heartwarming", positive cover is indeed heartwarming and a good message, but is also pretty lame, and unlikely to sell magazines.
I also question whether this is typical shallow/ignorant internet outrage. When I was a kid, Boy'a Life was a Boy Scouts magazine, and had annual themes that appeared every year at the same time. If you looked at the May/June cover, the annual Boy Scout Jamboree issue wouldn't be as "internet offensive".
[+] [-] home_boi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CydeWeys|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] relics443|9 years ago|reply
Should A Girl's Life change the tone of their stories? That's up to the market. As long as their demographic enjoys what they print (which translates to $$$), they'll continue to run it. Should people be outraged by it? If they choose to be, yes. But at the end of the day a consumer is a consumer, and if they want trash they'll get it.
[+] [-] krastanov|9 years ago|reply
I a few words: the same person performing the same task will perform lower if they are aware of a stereotype that says that their group performs worse at the given task. It is reproduced for white and black, male and female, etc.
[+] [-] hammock|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trav4225|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcusgarvey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krastanov|9 years ago|reply
Which is really sad, I really hoped we can all agree that your sex does not determine whether you are a good engineer.
[+] [-] informatimago|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tomrod|9 years ago|reply
A great example of 15 million or so people adopting this was the Mormon Proclamation on the Family [0], which set a mission statement for their religion that continues to result in political problems and furor.[1] [2]
These groups organizing to fight against existence of their taboo are a great issue, one that will often organize to prevent testing the unknown. I don't know if it's my relative youth and inexperience, but it seems to be getting worse than it was in times past, when entire cultures migrated or philosophically shifted (e.g. Polynesian settlement, the Enlightenment, etc.).
Links:
[0] https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-and-church...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008...
[2] http://kutv.com/news/local/defeated-in-the-us-lds-church-tak...
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] krastanov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CydeWeys|9 years ago|reply