supposed to feel about ourselves, when we are human, with the natural sag of skin or the stretch marks of pregnancy, maybe a touch of cellulite on our thighs, all pasty from the British winter?
Even my bookish boyfriend lingers on the photographs of beautiful women in magazines, turns the page more slowly when thereâs a pretty actressâof course he does, itâs a natural response. As an enlightened feminist, I hesitate to admit this, but it hurts. You want to say, âThey donât really look like that,â or âThatâs airbrushing,â but of course that would be ridiculous. Iâm sure Tom doesnât compare my flawed body to their sublime perfection; really, he loves me for who I am. But still, these are the digitally enhanced expectations of femaleness that boys and men see all around them. What a let down our naked bodies must be.
Even outside the unreal world of celebrity, where appearance is everything, the same thing is happening to high-profile women in the media. Look at the broadcasters, look at the female reporters. The Countryfile presenter Miriam OâReilly was controversially sacked from the BBC in 2011 for being too old: she was fifty-three. (Of course I should add that she successfully sued for age discrimination, and is now back on the BBC.) There are still intelligent older women out there with gravitasâAnna Ford, Joan Bakewell, Kate Adieâbut they themselves have spoken about the pressure to hold onto their positions. And Iâve noticed that they appear more often on radio than television these days.
* * *
Is this a feminist issue? Of course it is. Yes, thereâs pressure on men to smarten up their act, but nothing like the same degree. Look atJeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, or Kenneth Clark. None of them is a work of artâyou might even say they are succumbing to the ravages of timeâand yet they are held in high regard for their intellect and experience. Look at Boris Johnson, our philandering, shambolic mayor of London. He makes a virtue of his scruffy appearance, all schoolboy hair and crumpled shirts, and women find it charming. I myself find Boris quite sexy. Mature male actors, broadcasters, and politicians can be overweight and graying, whereas women are over the hill at forty-fiveâor is it thirty-five these days? And why is Bruce Forsyth, in his eighties, hosting Strictly Come Dancing with the ex-model Tess Daly, who is half his age? Or more to the point, why isnât he hosting the show with a cohost in her eighties?
As a woman in her early thirties, I find it difficult. No woman can escape the pressure not to be frumpy or overweight, never to age (and how much harder must it be for teenage girls these days). Women are judged on their looks, men are not: thatâs why the personal is political.
There are countless examples of the objectification, the sexismâsometimes close to hatredâof women and their bodies. Recently, while researching an article for Grazia magazine, I asked a few female friends in their fifties and sixties what kind of journalism they wanted to read, what they were interested in and concerned about. The answer came back: getting old and getting fat .
As well as the mediaâs obsession over weight, the latest thing is pregnancy scrutiny: whether the baby bump is too large or too small or just right. To me, this is an extension of the same old sexism: a judgmental attitude about womenâs bodies and shape. A recent interview with Mariah Carey opened with the male journalist commenting, âSheâs much larger in real life than in her airbrushed album shotâ (he neglected to mention that the singer was pregnant with twins). Thereâs the idiotic requirementto look glamorous (in five-inch heels) well into the final trimester; then the stern assessment of how quickly women lose their baby weight. âI just snapped back into shapeâ is what we hear from underwear models, back on
Even my bookish boyfriend lingers on the photographs of beautiful women in magazines, turns the page more slowly when thereâs a pretty actressâof course he does, itâs a natural response. As an enlightened feminist, I hesitate to admit this, but it hurts. You want to say, âThey donât really look like that,â or âThatâs airbrushing,â but of course that would be ridiculous. Iâm sure Tom doesnât compare my flawed body to their sublime perfection; really, he loves me for who I am. But still, these are the digitally enhanced expectations of femaleness that boys and men see all around them. What a let down our naked bodies must be.
Even outside the unreal world of celebrity, where appearance is everything, the same thing is happening to high-profile women in the media. Look at the broadcasters, look at the female reporters. The Countryfile presenter Miriam OâReilly was controversially sacked from the BBC in 2011 for being too old: she was fifty-three. (Of course I should add that she successfully sued for age discrimination, and is now back on the BBC.) There are still intelligent older women out there with gravitasâAnna Ford, Joan Bakewell, Kate Adieâbut they themselves have spoken about the pressure to hold onto their positions. And Iâve noticed that they appear more often on radio than television these days.
* * *
Is this a feminist issue? Of course it is. Yes, thereâs pressure on men to smarten up their act, but nothing like the same degree. Look atJeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, or Kenneth Clark. None of them is a work of artâyou might even say they are succumbing to the ravages of timeâand yet they are held in high regard for their intellect and experience. Look at Boris Johnson, our philandering, shambolic mayor of London. He makes a virtue of his scruffy appearance, all schoolboy hair and crumpled shirts, and women find it charming. I myself find Boris quite sexy. Mature male actors, broadcasters, and politicians can be overweight and graying, whereas women are over the hill at forty-fiveâor is it thirty-five these days? And why is Bruce Forsyth, in his eighties, hosting Strictly Come Dancing with the ex-model Tess Daly, who is half his age? Or more to the point, why isnât he hosting the show with a cohost in her eighties?
As a woman in her early thirties, I find it difficult. No woman can escape the pressure not to be frumpy or overweight, never to age (and how much harder must it be for teenage girls these days). Women are judged on their looks, men are not: thatâs why the personal is political.
There are countless examples of the objectification, the sexismâsometimes close to hatredâof women and their bodies. Recently, while researching an article for Grazia magazine, I asked a few female friends in their fifties and sixties what kind of journalism they wanted to read, what they were interested in and concerned about. The answer came back: getting old and getting fat .
As well as the mediaâs obsession over weight, the latest thing is pregnancy scrutiny: whether the baby bump is too large or too small or just right. To me, this is an extension of the same old sexism: a judgmental attitude about womenâs bodies and shape. A recent interview with Mariah Carey opened with the male journalist commenting, âSheâs much larger in real life than in her airbrushed album shotâ (he neglected to mention that the singer was pregnant with twins). Thereâs the idiotic requirementto look glamorous (in five-inch heels) well into the final trimester; then the stern assessment of how quickly women lose their baby weight. âI just snapped back into shapeâ is what we hear from underwear models, back on
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