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Two magazine covers are sending very different messages to boys and girls.

 

A business owner and mother has gathered international support for her point-by-point take down of two magazines for children – one for boys and one for girls.

Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll posted the covers of the Girls’ Life and Boys’ Life magazines to Facebook after discovering their alarming differences.

The mother of five from Israel targeted the editorial staff of the Girls’s Life magazine and used Boys’ Life as a comparison.

“Your cover has a lovely young lady with a full face of makeup and you invite your readers to ‘steal her secrets,'” Keats-Jaskoll said.

“The BOYS’ LIFE cover has in bold letters: EXPLORE YOUR FUTURE surrounded by all kinds of awesome gear for different professions — doctor, explorer, pilot, chemist, engineer, etc. subheading — HERE’S HOW TO BE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE.”

Keats-Jacksoll continued to take examples from each publication to illustrate her point.

“You to girls: Be like this girl. Wake up gorgeous, steal a girl’s secrets, slay on your first day, have fun, make friends…and kiss…and get all A’s,” she said.

“BOYS LIFE to boys: Be what YOU want to be. Here are some of your awesome choices! We’ll show you how!”

The business owner then pleaded to the female staff behind the magazine to be the firestarters of change.

“You are women. Working, professional women. Is this the message you are proud of? Is this why you became publishers, writers, graphic designers? To tell girls they are the sum of their fashion, makeup and hair?” She said.

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“You CAN fight the tide of objectification of girls. You CAN create covers and stories that treat girls as more than hair, lips, and kisses.”

Mother and business owner Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll. Source: Facebook.

Girls' Life's founding editor and publisher Karen Bokram told Mic.com the magazine held much more substantial content if a reader were to look beyond the headlines.

"Our content of the entire magazine is for our audience and our audience has the same interests which is learning how to be the best version of themselves and that extends far, far beyond beauty and clothes and hair, which they know, because they read the whole magazine," she said.

"That's impossible to tell when you don't go past the surface. And we all know what happens when people judge a book by its cover."

The post has since collected almost five thousand likes since it was posted four days ago.

Users have commented on the post to share their support for the public call out.

"You are so right. While I chose to shorten my career and be a stay at home mom, it's ridiculous that our culture (women) can only complain about being objectified or limited by glass ceilings or lower pay, when it's perpetuated to be ambitious for your looks/personality in our media," one parent said.

"I don't buy my daughter (age 8) magazines like this because of the content. If they were girl power magazines or focused more on brains AND beauty not the other way around I might be enticed," another parent said.