Walmart to pull Cosmopolitan from checkout-line shelves

Walmart is removing Cosmopolitan magazine from checkout line shelves after pressure from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), the group announced Tuesday.

“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,” Dawn Hawkins, executive director of the anti-pornography group, said in a statement. “Women, men, and children are bombarded daily with sexually objectifying and explicit materials, not only online, but in the checkout line at the store.”

Founded in 1962, the NCOSE bills itself as the “leading national organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health crisis of pornography.”

The group successfully pressured Walmart in 2015 to place Cosmopolitan behind blockers in checkout lanes.

Neither Walmart nor Cosmopolitan have commented publicly on the news that the magazine would be pulled completely.

“You can go through and buy your groceries with your family knowing you don’t have to be exposed to this graphic and often degrading and offensive material,” NCOSE Vice President of Advocacy and Outreach Haley Halverson said in a Facebook live session Tuesday, USA Today reported. “Instead, all of these magazines will be moved, in isolation, to the magazine racks.”

Ms. Hawkins added, “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.”