By Christopher Harte, via Wikimedia Commons

Sixteen. That’s the number of years tabloid magazines have spent declaring Jennifer Aniston pregnant. Rumours started gestating while the actress was still married to Brad Pitt, but really ramped up post-Pitt. Aniston has been “pregnant and alone,” “pregnant with twins,” “pregnant with John Mayer’s baby”—your body is not a wonderland when that happens—and a “pregnant bride.” She’s been pregnant in every possible situation, except the one where she is actually with child.

Just last month In Touch published a cover story declaring “Jen’s finally pregnant” complete with photos of Aniston and husband Justin Theroux on their Bahamas babymoon (please make this word go away forever. I beg of you.). In what felt like a 100 page-article, the tabloid discussed possible baby names, nursery plans, and what she is eating now. She has a special salad! It has feta!

The photos that accompanied the piece painfully dissected Aniston’s body with arrows pointing to her baby bump and illustrating how her body is getting “fuller.” In case the close ups of her mid-section weren’t enough to convince readers, In Touch pointed out a picture of Theroux paddling a floating thingy around some water. The magazine emphasized that Jen was not paddling, because everyone knows pregnant women don’t paddle. The photos also looked more like she had maybe just skipped the special salad that day and had a burrito instead. Burrito or baby bump? You decide! (I will always side with team burrito.)

Aniston didn’t seem to enjoy the cover story, or that last 16 years of them, and last week penned an essay for Huffington Post confirming she was not pregnant and calling out tabloids for using “celebrity ‘news’ to perpetuate this dehumanizing view of females, focused solely on one’s physical appearance.” She went on to criticize the magazines for defining “a woman’s value based on her marital and maternal status” and for perpetuating “this notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children.”

Responses to Aniston’s piece ranged from “how brave!” and “you go, girl!” to criticism that she has no right to rail against the magazines when she is part of the ridiculous Hollywood machine that promotes unrealistic and unattainable standards of beauty. Online commenters called her a hypocrite for shaming tabloids for focussing on her looks when she makes millions endorsing beauty products. Aniston currently shills for Aveeno and Smart Water, both of which seem harmless enough. Or wait—maybe you’re right, dear anonymous internet commenter, an insistence on moisturizing or staying hydrated totally gives me a right to her uterus.

Keeping it classy, others commented on her appearance. It’s helpful to respond to an essay about body shaming, by pointing out that someone looks like Jay Leno with a potato stuck in the middle of their face. Thanks “feminist” website. Women’s magazines applauded Aniston for her stand, but then seemed to cling desperately to the part of the piece where Aniston admits, “Yes, I may become a mother someday.”

Others used the essay as an opportunity to talk about Aniston’s acting skills. I am not a huge fan of Friends, but that’s not the point. I may not be hanging out at Central Perk, but I (and many other non-celebrity women) can relate to feeling interrogated about not reproducing. Aniston is 47, which makes the media even more uncomfortable with her lack of children and decision to not embrace motherhood. I am three years younger than Aniston and have, unfortunately, had more than one person inquire about why I am unmarried and don’t have children. At a recent meeting, a woman I had just met asked if I had children. When I responded that I had no desire to she looked at me like I had just asked the group to blue sky a large pile of human feces I had left in the middle of the board room table. (She also took the last muffin so she’s basically a monster all around.)

The same week that Aniston called out the tabloids for their dehumanizing and disturbing behaviour, it was announced that Mick Jagger was going to be a father for the eighth time. Celebrity gossip sites celebrated the news that despite his age (72), Jagger could still get his jumping jack flash up inside another human being. If Jagger had been a woman the media would have reported on the story in a very different way. Jagger was treated like a god, while any woman in Hollywood over the age of 40 who dares to have a child is treated like a freak who tricked science and must receive all our pity, skepticism, and ridicule.

The tabloids have focussed so much on Aniston’s stomach over the years I feel like I could now confidently pick it out of a police line-up. George Clooney is also childless and married late, according to celeb gossip standards, but I have never seen a paparazzi close up of the Ocean Eleven in Clooney’s pants with the headline “Full of baby batter or just awkward fitting Dockers?” Also, Clooney’s decision to marry later in life made him a desirable “bachelor” and “hard to lock down” while Aniston’s made her a sad lonely woman who was going to die alone surrounded by cats and/or burritos.

When Aniston isn’t on 24-hour bump watch she’s busy feuding with Angelina Jolie. A recent cover story declared the two had an “Explosive Showdown.” Apparently, Pitt sent Aniston an email or an edible arrangement offering condolences on the recent death of her mother and all hell broke loose. (Did she die watching By the Sea because that thing sounds so awful it’s basically like the videotape in The Ring?) Sadly, this cover story is not new. Rachel Green and Mrs. Smith have been going at it—and not in the way the majority of people would like them to—since 2005. That’s 11 years. When these ladies started feuding George W. Bush was still president of the U.S. and Facebook was barely a year old. Let that sink in for a moment.

From celebrity boob blunders to celebrities without make up to who wore it best, the tabloids are constantly scrutinizing, analyzing and pitting women against each other. The latest issue of Star features a report on Hollywood’s best and worst Mom’s complete with scores for each. Jolie gets an A+ which is amazing since, according to the tabloids, she spends all her time engulfed in a seemingly never ending episode of Cheaters. Courtney Love gets an F. As a defender of Love, even I’ll admit she probably won’t win any PTA awards, but I’d like to point out that in Montage of Heck she is the only parent of Frances Bean not shown nodding off on heroin while holding her and is also the only parent—spoiler alert—still standing at the end of the film.

The tabloids have yet to release, and probably never will, their rankings of Hollywood dads. They rarely discuss this. They sometimes talk about how Tom Cruise doesn’t see Suri, but that’s because he is a weird Scientologist, not because he is a man. There is no celebrity boner blunder coverage and rarely do men make the worst bodies’ issue, which is the tabloids’ answer to the swimsuit issue. Mickey Rourke occasionally washes up on the beach, but that’s about it.

When tabloids mention dads at all, it’s usually to praise them, sometimes for simple things like just being in the same room as their offspring. Even Charlie Sheen’s parenting skills have been applauded. A recent tabloid story about Sheen talks favourably—and weirdly excitedly—about his possible awesome new reality show. (Didn’t we already have this and it was called Two and a Half Men?) It also mentions Sheen’s great relationship with his kids, despite what must be the scores of child psychologists circling them like vultures, visions of billable hours dancing in their heads. It’s like all of 2011 and #winning and #tigerblood never happened.

But, trashy tabloids aren’t the only ones at fault. Vanity Fair recently came under criticism for its August issue cover story on actress Margot Robbie. Writer Rich Cohen basically spends the piece nursing a journalistic hard on for Robbie and the result is a sexist, offensive piece, sparking writer Roxane Gay to tweet “Every issue of Vanity Fair this month comes with a thin sheen of Rich Cohen’s semen holding the pages of Margot Robbie’s profile together.”

Tabloids’ defence is that they’re just giving the people what they want. According to an Adweek report, if you want to move magazines put Aniston on the cover. Her July 2015 Life & Style “It’s Official! Jen is…Finally Married!” (Phew!) cover was the magazine’s best-selling issues of the year and sold more than 260,000 copies. Her post-Pitt 2005 Vanity Fair cover still remains one of the magazine’s top five covers of all-time. Speculation about the contents of her womb continues to be newsstand gold 16 years on. Congrats, Jen! You may not have a baby, but think of all the burritos you can buy.

The magazine’s cover story devotes significant column inches to talking about how historic OITNB is. It’s a show about women and, more importantly, women doing something other than being the token girlfriend or token best friend to some lame leading man. Not only are the show’s female characters great, but they’re played by traditionally marginalized and underrepresented actresses—the cast includes plenty of women of colour, Latina women and queer women, as well as transgender actress Laverne Cox playing a transgender woman.

Rolling Stone was so blown away by how ground breaking OITNB is that they decided to celebrate with this revolutionary cover treatment.

Seriously, Rolling Stone? While the article features interviews with several of the show’s diverse cast members, it’s the hot white lesbian characters that get the cover. Not only that, but the show’s hot white lesbian characters—played by Schilling and Prepon—received the predictable no bra, super sexualized, male fantasy Rolling Stone cover treatment. A white tank top, preferably with no bra, is the magazine’s go to look for women. I hope the company that manufactures women’s white tank tops has sent Rolling Stone an edible arrangement for keeping them in business all these years.

At least Schilling got to keep her nipples (maybe it’s a prison thing). Cover star Nicki Minaj was not so lucky. Minaj appeared on a January 2015 cover where she was given the Barbie boob treatment: her breasts smoothed out and not a nip in sight. “Mad Genius. Manic Diva,” reads the cover copy. Is she manic ’cause Rolling Stone stole her nipples? She should be.

Rolling Stone’s horrible treatment of women is certainly nothing new and, sadly, it only seems to be getting worse. A look at Rolling Stone covers for the five year period from 2013–2009 (the magazine’s online cover archive ends at 2013—maybe because someone became too depressed by the covers to update it), shows that men graced 94 covers while women were featured solo on just 20 covers and were part of six group covers (the cast of 30 Rock, the stars of Mad Men, The Black Eyed Peas).

Rolling Stone is more comfortable putting the Boston Marathon bomber on the cover than it is a woman. In 2013, only three of the magazine’s 24 issues featured women cover subjects; including Lena Dunham, Rihanna, and Miley Cyrus. Tina Fey also got a cover, but was featured alongside two male members of the 30 Rock cast. The magazine also tends to recycle their women cover subjects, suggesting that Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are the only women out there making music—or, at least, the only women making music with enough cover-friendly appeal.

It’s as if we’ve given up altogether on music magazines doing better when it comes to female representation. Well, maybe not all of us. The Stranger, a Seattle alternative weekly, recently published its second annual “Men Who Rock” parody issue designed to highlight the sexism and double standard female musicians face. The “Men Who Rock” issue mocks plenty of the tropes in music coverage, including: the idea that women making music is a trend; the ridiculous way women are posed on covers; interview questions for women musicians, and especially those that tend to focus on tabloid over talent.

So if you’re looking to follow The Stranger’s lead and do your own “Men Who Rock” parody issue (please do and send it to me) or simply want to publish a magazine that treats women as badly as Rolling Stone does, here are the top 10 tips for dealing with female cover subjects.

1. Putting an actual dick on the cover would be in poor taste (the closest Rolling Stone has come to a dick on the cover is Sean Penn). Instead you should use a series of dick stand-ins. These can include: a rocket, the neck of a guitar, Tasti D-Lite or a ball park frank (bonus points for squirting condiments).

2. If the female cover subject is over a certain age (25) or over a certain size (two), face only please. The tighter the photo crop the better. You don’t want viewers to have to imagine Adele as a sexual being with an actual body. Floating head is best.

3. Use woman of colour on as few covers as possible. In the five year period from 2013-2009 only three covers featured women of colour. Rihanna graced two of these covers. If a woman of colour wants to be on the cover she should be prepared to die for it. Whitney Houston got the third cover spot when she died in 2012.

4. The less clothing the better. If your subject does have to wear “lots” of clothing it should look like the clothing is just about to come off, or could easily be ripped off in under a minute. I am not sure why they’ve even bothered putting a skirt on Christina Aguilera. Maybe she’s layering up for a post photo shoot game of strip poker? Sadly, there’s not enough word count left for me to get into the “What Christina Wants” cover line. And then there’s Rihanna in a pair of shorts that look like they’re made of partially eaten Fruit Roll-Ups that are ready to dissolve at any moment.

5. No clothing is really the best option. If you are worried about that poor taste thing (see rule #1) just throw on a string of bullets. You’re welcome, NRA.

6. Ban the bra? Keep only the bra? Rolling Stone has a very conflicted relationship with the bra and watching them work out their feelings about this undergarment has become extremely tiresome. So very tiresome.

7. Jailbait is A-okay. I’m all for women appearing on the cover of music magazines on their own terms to announce they’re an adult and no longer a tween slave to the cult of Disney, but that’s rarely the Rolling Stone way. Britney Spears was only 17 (Teletubbie age: unknown) when she shot this famous cover—one with which she was reportedly uncomfortable. Rolling Stone didn’t super sexualize Lindsay Lohan or the Olsen twins with their cover image; they let the display copy do that job for them. “Hot, ready and legal!” reads Lohan’s cover while “America’s Favourite Fantasy” accompanies the Olsen twins. Let’s take a moment to remember this is supposed to be a respected music magazine.

8. Make sure you sex up those cover lines! The Go-Go’s put out! Shania Twain knows what you want! Nicole Kidman uncensored! SEX SELLS! SUBTLETY DOESN’T!

9. Make sure to pose women in ways you would never pose a man. Rolling Stone tends to pose male cover subjects in the exact same way. There’s the familiar head-on face shot. Dave Grohl, Dave Letterman, Dave Matthews—they all blur into one white male face on the cover. Not so for women. Poses should suggest sex and look as uncomfortable as possible. Megan Fox looks like the only thing missing is a sign between her legs that says “insert penis here” Bonus points if the pose is just “hot woman as prop.”

10. Keep the cover conversation light with women. Highlight male cover subjects’ accomplishments, success or stick to “the Rolling Stone interview,”—a standard cover line for men from Barack Obama to Bruce Springsteen. For the ladies focus on their love life, their sex life or their looks. What’s Angelina accomplished? She’s “hot & single.” Jennifer Aniston’s latest project? Her “love life.” What’s Brad Pitt got going for him? He’s got the serious, professional and intelligent sounding “Rolling Stone interview.”