This talking make up vanity set is for BABIES. It says things like “You’re pretty!” It is for BABIES. Talk about indoctrination.

This. Especially when they don’t even admit to having a hand in it:

Or how about an article on how to pick a swimsuit for your favourite water activities?

Nuggets of advice included suggestions that girls who are “curvy up top” should wear a one-piece bathing suit with “side ties and cutouts that draw the eyes down,” and that girls who are “rounder in the middle” are better off with “busy geometrics,” which are meant to “draw the eye inward.”

I can see that but a magazine article doesn’t happen by itself, I don’t understand how someone didn’t kill it during the editing process. Several people must have looked it over and thought; “Those body image issues aren’t going to internalize themselves, let’s get cracking!”

I honestly think it is lazy journalism. Author picks up an adult article from Elle years ago and passes it off for kids. Giving their 2000 words without any thought of the audience and horrible psychological message given.

Funny because there is a battled with Lego in Europe and fighting these gendered images especially in Scandinavia. The Barbie-Mattel audience which includes the UK (hello) has no issue with peddling this kind of thing. Maybe not to THIS extreme but there is a lot of ‘pink is for girls’ mentality going on. As sometime…

I don’t think that the issue is that the advice is positive or negative about a girl’s looks. It is simply bringing up her looks at all! The message to young girls that their appearance is the most important motivating factor — or any motivating factor at all.

It would have been really cool if the swimsuits were about activity level. Girls that like to run get boy shorts, girls that like to swim get streamlined suits, girls that like to jump in the pool get frills. But no, that would just be too damn pragmatic.

Well, I too am a man (right there in my name). I understand that you have issues, and I feel for that. But I’d suggest that if you don’t see the differences on the pressures that society places on us versus the pressures that society places on our sisters that you may be a little shortsighted.

Call me kooky, but I think apologies usually go a lot further when they actually include the phrase “I’m (we’re) so sorry.” I fuck up all the time, and being actually sorry, and saying so, usually does okay by me. Are there legal/PR/business reasons to never actually say those words? I don’t think I’ve ever read a…

I was like, huh swimsuit selection based on body type. For women magazine, these are pretty commo...

8 to 12 year olds. Being told how to draw eyes away from their problem areas. I can’t even make my way to outraged. That just makes me sad.

One word: INDOCTRINATION.

This was me. Running around, climbing trees and getting dirty. A kid.

Her attempts at distancing herself may backfire if she is intimating that she hadn’t done her due diligence as publisher. Surely part of her position is apprising herself and others of the magazine’s content.

Can we get this back?

I’m trying to imagine the corresponding article in Discovery Boys.

if being a 12 year old girl isn’t hard enough with the constant bombardment of conflicting messages coming at you. But this reminds me of the lego magazine and their haircuts for the shape of your face debacle. Found it.

Can someone who works in publishing enlighten us on how this actually happened (if we are to take the apology as sincere). Like - given how obviously dumb this is I’m going to presume the it was indeed an error because no profit-motivated publication would do this knowing this backlash would ensue so then, how does…