The women's magazine ALT for Damerne (Everything for the ladies) has apologised after coming under fire for a this week's cover, which included a headline that was a little too much for some of its readers.
The cover asks the question: “Raped – when is it your own fault?” and even though the answer inside the magazine reveals that “It is never your fault”, many readers believe that the magazine went too far in its attempts to attract readers.
“We’ve had a number of critical comments on the social media after ALT for Damerne hit the streets today,” Tine Nikolaisen, the managing editor of the magazine, said in a press release. “The purpose of asking a provocative question on the front page that refers to an article inside about rape is to create awareness about a subject we feel is very important.”
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Sending a bad signal
Criticisms of the cover included the poor signal sent to people who would see the magazine on display but not read its contents, while others on social media even said that the magazine's headline choice was akin to saying that women "ask to be raped" if they don’t buy the magazine.
The Egmont-owned magazine argued that the article was about making people aware of a judicial system that has a tendency to cast suspicion on women who have been raped.
“For us there is only one answer to the question of when rape is a person’s own fault, and that answer is never. But in other parts of society, the answer is far less unambiguous and that’s what we wanted to focus on,” Nikolaisen said. “Naturally, we apologise if someone interpreted the front cover differently and felt insulted.”
Egmont is one of Scandinavia’s leading media groups and aside from ALT for Damerne, also publishes a throng of other magazines including Euroman, Eurowoman, Her og Nu tabloid and Gastro food magazine.
