Why do women hate themselves, asks Mirror
Today, The Mirror asks "Why are women never happy with their bodies?" And good day to you too, The Mirror! Popping on its passive aggressive hat for the duration of the article, the red top in question goes on to tell us that women across the country are in turmoil about their tummies and in a panic about their posteriors.
According to the piece, British women are "worrying about their body size and shape every 15 minutes - and only two per cent claiming to be happy with their appearance."
We take particular offence at the use of the word 'claiming' here. We think they Mirror may very well be suggesting that this two per cent is in denial. Naughty Mirror.
Anyhoo, the article continues: "From Botox to bum implants, if we're not stressing about our weight, we're worrying about our wrinkles and hitting the panic button - or calling the plastic surgeon, anyway." Indeed. In fact, while writing this here piece, I will of course be taking a short break in order to call Dr Richardson, my cosmetic surgeon, to discuss how to stitch up the bags under my eyes.
The Mirror, however, doesn't decide to ponder why more and more women are feeling a bit rubbish about the way they look. Instead they start going about how women who are thin are feeling as just as awful as women who are overweight. Yep, it seems that The Mirror want us all to take a good hard look in the mirror (pun sort of intended) and shake our heads forlornly, whatever our size. Well, we suppose it's equality, of a sort.
For some reason or other, they've chosen not skip over the fact that tabloids may have a teeny tiny role to play in the whole 'making women feel bad about themselves' shebang.
In fact, the piece features a chat with a psychologist by the name of Julie Seed, who wisely states, "There is so much pressure in the media to have the "perfect body" but, in truth, there is no such thing."
I wonder who on earth she could be talking about...
PS Turn to page three of the Mirror to see pictures of Amanda Holden's bottom. Or page 12 where Lindsay Lohan gets slagged off for having pale legs. Or page 17 where Jennifer Aniston's low cut top is fussed over...
"women who are thin are feeling as just as awful as women who are overweight"
This is entirely unsurprisingly, since a thin woman can't walk past a magazine stand without the covers of Heat and every other magazine screaming at them that being thin is wrong and disgusting and we should all be overweight and embrace our "curves" (rolls of fat, in the case of celeb magazine favourite Beth Ditto).
I swear, the backlash against super-skinny was supposed to point out that not every woman can be a size 4 (NOT zero! We are not Americans!) and those who aren't shouldn't have to feel bad about that, but instead what it's doing is trying to convince anyone below a size 10 that they are wrong and disgusting and conforming to some sort of impossible ideal, despite the fact that some women just are like that.
The whole thing makes my blood boil, it really does.
But but
The Mirror loves women! That's why they have photos of Amanda Holden's bottom. They really really love us. They just think Lindsay's misguided and want to help her – she'd be a better person with some San Tropez. And Jennifer Aniston just doesn't know what's good for her.
It's so depressing.
I wrote an article about this a couple of years back, but it's got a lot worse. I resent the fact that magazines like Heat seem to believe that the most interesting thing about a female celebrity is what she weighs. The 'anti-skinny' stance is dressed up as a health concern and a backlash against the 'size zero' thing, but actually the range of acceptable body sizes is probably narrower than ever. And that's before the 'Circle of Shame' with it's close-up mockery because Elizabeth Hurley's got cracked heels, or Cameron Diaz dared to sweat. How is this supposed to 'empower women'? It sure doesn't make me feel better about myself.
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