No more Cosmopolitan magazine at Walmart checkout lanes

Retail giant Walmart has pledged to remove Cosmopolitan magazine from its checkout lanes.

The company has partnered with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation to make the move, in an effort to reduce sexual exploitation in the midst of the #MeToo movement.

In a statement on Tuesday, NCOSE's vice president of advocacy and outreach, Haley Halverson, said, "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."

Cosmo will still be available for purchase at Walmart in the magazine aisle.

Halverson further explained her organization's stance, adding, "Cosmopolitan, we think, is especially important to address because they really do target young girls. We see their bubble-gum pink covers, with the Disney stars that are on it, and they're targeting young girls with messages that are equivalent to the messages about female sexuality that Playboy promotes."

She continued, "This is one less drop of hyper-sexualized media that is going to be bombarding people in their everyday lives, which does make a difference, especially in this #MeToo culture that we're living in, where we really want a culture that will respect women and ensure their dignity is understood."

NCOSE says they've been working on the initiative with Walmart for months. The organization, which changed its name in 2015 to Morality in Media, has also launched similar successful campaigns in the past, convincing Rite Aid and other retailers to put Cosmo behind blinders at their checkout lanes.

USA Today pointed out that the #MeToo movement was more focused on sexual harassment and sexual assault than pornography.

But the executive director of NCOSE, Dawn Hawkins, draws a connection, saying "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." She added that Cosmo "places women's value primarily on their ability to sexually satisfy a man and therefore plays into the same culture where men view and treat women as inanimate sex objects."

Walmart responded to Fox News about the company's move to ban Cosmo from checkout endcaps, explaining, "As with all products in our store, we continue to evaluate our assortment and make changes. Walmart will continue to offer Cosmopolitan to customers that wish to purchase the magazine, but it will no longer be located at the checkout aisles. While this was primarily a business decision, the concerns raised were heard."