The joke's on you
"How feminism can help you get laid." "Get off my back; finally the male perspective." "Things you need to know #1. Definition. Husband: What is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted." Plus lots of photos of scantily clad women in soft porn poses with accompanying stories about lingerie.
It all looks very much like those engineering students' magazines you would come across at uni and wonder how a bunch of people ever got the time and energy to put together such a decrepit collection of words and space.
But no, this one's the big time. Those young yobbos graduated — and now they get paid real money to put this stuff out. It's called Men's Stuff and it retails for $4.95 an issue at your local newsagent, with contributors including Anthony Ackroyd and Ignatius Jones.
The magazine was launched on April 26 by an independent Sydney-based publishing group, which intends to market it nationally. It's described as a "new mag for Aussie blokes", a lifestyle magazine that is uniquely "Australian".
"We don't like to take things too seriously", publicist Denise Shaw told me. I spoke in more depth to its editor, Gerry Reynolds. He says the magazine is aimed at the 30s-something Aussie bloke who has grown up knowing about feminism but who, if we really let ourselves be honest about it, can "still laugh at tasteless jokes and still objectify women".
He also makes a counter claim — that the target audience in fact supports feminism.
Which are we to believe? Actions surely speak louder than words, as do pictures and editorial content. Page three of the first issue features a picture of a woman in a miniskirt, taken from the floor (i.e. looking up her skirt), with her stilletoed shoe holding down a man's grimacing head. This accompanies the caption, "Things you need to know #1: Women don't just want equality — they want revenge".
Intrigued, I asked why, if the magazine purports to support the ideals of feminism, it would run this picture.
"It's a joke", he said curtly.
Then, more justifications. "We're not a political movement, we are magazine publishers." "We are just a mirror" of the real world of Aussie blokes and the issues they are concerned about. In fact, Reynolds claimed the magazine was about men being self-deprecating.
What a con job. Despite the claims that "the magazine is not part of any backlash against women", its readership is forced to draw another conclusion.
The magazine is a crude play on the men-who-feel-dominated-by-feminists. And what could be much more backlash than that?
They tell us it's all in fun, it's just a joke, haven't you got a sense of humour. In the game of providing a serious alternative to the low-grade mags already in circulation, it looks like they're the ones who missed the punch line.
By Kath Gelber