Walmart Plans to Remove Magazine From Checkout Lane

According to NPR,Walmart plans to remove ‘Cosmopolitan’ from its shelves at 5,000 stores across the country due to it’s overtly sexual cover and content.  The store will still sell the magazines, just not in the checkout lane. Cosmopolitan calls itself a “bible for fun, fearless females” and had no immediate comment on the chain store’s decision.

“Walmart will continue to offer Cosmopolitan to customers that wish to purchase the magazine, but it will no longer be in the checkout aisles,” the company said in a statement. “While this was primarily a business decision, the concerns raised were heard.”

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation raised concerns about the magazine, saying that it was similar to porn and fighting for its removal from shelves for years. This movement caused  Cosmopolitan to get removed from Rite Aid stores and Delhaize America.

“Cosmo sends the same messages about female sexuality as Playboy,” NCOSE said in a statement. This statement also criticized the magazine for placing a woman’s value on their ability to perform sexually, playing into a culture where women are treated merely as sex objects, and for targeting young women by placing former Disney stars on its cover, despite having articles that are sexual in nature within them.

In a Facebook live session on Tuesday, NCOSE’s Vice President of Advocacy and Outreach Haley Halverson said the move represented “one less drop of hyper-sexualized media that is going to be bombarding people in their everyday lives.”

Is this the beginning of change or is it simply an attempt to save Walmart from public ridicule?