Anne Summers review of Natasha Walter’s Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism was published in the Australian’s Review section on the weekend.

In the review, titled ‘The tyranny of self-perfection’, the long-time Australian feminist campaigner for women’s equality admits she had “no idea” about how bad things were for girls in a hypersexualised culture:

…This reviewer has to confess a comparable ignorance….I had no idea.

For feminists such as me who have been preoccupied with statistics and watching public indicators of progress such as women breaking barriers in politics, in business and other public domains, the cultural revolution that has enveloped girls and young women during the past decade or so was completely off my radar.

I kept fobbing off questions about whether I thought raunch culture was incompatible with feminism: how relevant was that, I thought, compared with the important stuff….?

So Walter’s book was quite an eye-opener.

She documents a culture in which sexual allure is equated with empowerment and girls are driven to strive for an air-brushed perfection that is as artificial as it is unattainable. Every aspect of the culture seems to reinforce this message, from the normalisation of the sex industry via the explosion of lap-dancing clubs throughout Britain to magazines directed at girls that “relentlessly encourage their readers to measure up to a raft of celebrities whose doll-like looks are seen as iconic and whose punishing physical regimes are seen as aspirational.”

Girls today, says Walter, think sexual confidence is the only confidence worth having and will do anything to achieve the mandated appearance… the information I found most distressing was how young women feel obliged to shape themselves according to the expectations of the idealised female their boyfriends have acquired from pornography…

All this is especially germane because 10 years ago Walter wrote a book The New Feminism that argued that feminists should not be concerned about the growing sexual objectification of women…Walter has now changed her mind. Big time.

Summers goes on to say that she finds the material in Walter’s book “sobering” and “challenging”.

While I find it somewhat difficult to understand how so many prominent women actively working to raise the status of women failed to notice  the wrecking ball impacts of a pornified culture which constricts the freedom of women and girls by reducing them to sexy dolls while dressing it all up as ‘choice’, I am glad they see it now.

But while Summers started so well, her conclusion is unfortunate – and wrong.

She writes: “No one — not Walter, not me — wants to be thought a prude, so no one is going to actually take on the hypersexualised culture that is supposedly spoiling the life chances of girls today…”

Summers had “no idea”, as she says, about what was happening.  But is seems she also has “no idea” about the global movement against it.

No one is going to take on the hypersexualised culture? That’s a big call and contradicted by the facts.

There are many of us who have taken it on. Some key players appear in my book Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls (one of a number of books on the subject in recent years, including Living Dolls, The Sexualisation of Childhood, The Lolita Effect, So Sexy So Soon, Pornified, What’s Happening to Our Girls?, Female Chauvinist Pigs, Bodies, etc). Then there’s  Kids free 2B Kids, the Australian Council on Children and Media, The Australian Childhood Foundation, Choices for Children, and the dynamic new counter cultural agitator movement Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation (www.collectiveshout.org).

Then there are individuals who have come together to lobby for change, including Julie Gale, Maggie Hamilton, The Hon Alistair Nicholson, Steve Biddulph, Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, Noni Hazlehurst, Professor Clive Hamilton, Dr Emma Rush, Professor Louise Newman, Dr Cordelia Fine, Dr Renate Klein and others.  We are all part of a global movement against sexualisation/objectification, led overseas by activists, advocates and academics such as Dr. Jean Kilbourne, Dr Diane Levin, Professor Gail Dines, Professor Ros Gill, Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon, Dr Melissa Farley, the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood in the US, Object and Pink Stinks in the UK, and many others. The American Psychological Association’s Taskforce on the sexualisation of girls took the issue on, with a major report, and more recently, the UK Home Office, with a compelling examination of the problem.

Propelled by evidence of harm, all have acted together to bring about change. They haven’t given a stuff about being labelled “prudes” or anything else, recognising the vested interests at play that would try to shut them down.

Given the major battles Summers has engaged in over decades, I would have thought she was made of sterner stuff.

Today, two guest posts which are critically important contributions to the recent push for compulsory child weigh-ins and other interventions to supposedly reduced childhood ‘obesity’. The first by a Melbourne writer, (who asked that her real name not be used but who is known to me), who says poignantly: “When my parents started weighing me, I was already sensitive about my weight. Their efforts only served to create a punishing lifelong obsession”. The second is a re-print of another personal piece on the same issue – also profoundly expressed - by Elizabeth at My Spilt Milk.

To weigh, or not to weigh? In an age of fear and media hype about childhood obesity, it’s a loaded question. A parent myself, I understand anxiety about our children’s health. And in an image-saturated culture where ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ seems woefully antiquated, I fully understand how we turn ourselves inside out with worry about how the world will treat our precious charges.

In a recent post on Mia Freedman’s blog, ‘Obesity: Helping your family’s health by making them hit the scales‘,  Freedman shares a story about ‘Val’, friend of comedian Wendy Harmer. After noticing one of her children has gained a few kilos, Val decides that getting each family member to regularly step on the scales is the best way to keep them honest, and trim. Freedman admires Val’s ‘no-nonsense’ attitude to weight control. I’m afraid I don’t share her enthusiasm.

There’s a world of difference between the way an adult with healthy body image might process that message, and a child who may be anxious about their weight. Then there’s the question of what each child’s ‘healthy weight’ actually is at any stage of their development. And then there’s the issue of how we teach kids about moving their bodies, and making good food choices – without making too big a deal out of it. And I’m quite sure that scales don’t have much to offer any part of the problem.

Most mornings of my life between the ages of eight and fourteen, I was weighed by my parents. Like Val, they felt I was gaining weight and worried that I’d get fat. Like most parents, they wanted to teach me about healthy eating and weight control, and save me from the cruelty that other kids can dish out. And they thought they could achieve all this by keeping close tabs on my weight.

They began to scrutinise every piece of food that came anywhere near me. Weigh-ins became a lecture or praise, depending on my result. At one stage, I was taken to evening weight loss groups, where my weight was recorded on a card and grown women smiled at me with sympathy. They told the eight-year-old me that it was good I was starting early: I wouldn’t get a boyfriend unless I was slim. But seeing as I was growing, not shrinking, and the number on the scales reflected this, I very quickly learned to see my weight as a measure of how badly I was failing at life.

It wasn’t that my family ate poorly. My father was a health fanatic, and my mum cooked good, nutritious food. It was just that my body was doing things my parents didn’t trust. And because I wanted to please them by producing a better number on the scales, I became anxious about starving myself whenever I could. I really wanted to have a better body, the right body: one my parents would like.

The more control my parents exerted, the more out of control my eating became. To curb my adolescent hunger at age 12, my mother took me to the GP for appetite suppressants. At one point, food was locked away. And then there were the occasional school weigh-ins. Those days I felt so sick with fear and burning shame I’d want to run away so I wouldn’t be forced to hand my peers more ammunition, or show them exactly how heavy a failure I was.

My eating was chaotic: starving to be ‘good’, then bingeing in secret, doused in self-hatred and shame. I’d eliminate fat, then carbohydrates, and meticulously record all calories and fat grams in neat columns. I’d calculate percentages of calories derived from fat and every day aim for decreasing totals of each. I’d obsessively exercise, chain-smoke and drink black coffee to avoid eating. I’d spit food into the bin instead of swallow it. And the scales became a punishing ruler: I’d weigh myself dozens of times a day, filled with fear over what the number would say each time.

When I finally reached ‘thin’, my parents’ control over my eating finally stopped. But when the nervousness in their voices told me it was time to stop, that I’d lost enough weight, I can’t deny a dirty sense of satisfaction. No, I’d keep going, thanks. This is what you wanted.

While it was true that age eightI had begun to gain a little weight, it was called ‘puberty’. Despite everything, until my mid-teens I was a healthy weight – if a bit heavier than most girls my age. That makes sense. I’m also quite a tall woman, muscular, broad-shouldered and physically strong. I look scrawny at 70 kilograms. And I often wonder what might have happened if, instead of reacting with fear, my parents had responded thoughtfully to my growing body.

If my parents had recognised that my body shape was more like my grandmother’s than my older sisters, would my weight have stabilised, found its natural place? If my parents had never let the scales dictate their emotions, would I never have let them rule mine? Would I have learned how to respond appropriately to the hunger signals of my growing body? I was never given the chance.

I’ve no doubt my parents thought they were doing the right thing, keeping tabs on the number on the scales, carefully watching every mouthful, joking about my fat knees and muffin top. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Parents have no way of knowing exactly how any child might respond to overt attempts to control their weight. In the end, we need to ask if the interventions we plan for our children are going to do more harm than good. We need to see the red flags ahead, and slow down. We need to respond, instead of react.

A recent Mission Australia survey indicated that body image tops the list of young Australians’ concerns – and this anxiety over our bodies is starting early. It would be the rare child that doesn’t listen up and listen hard to how our culture views people who are heavier than most. We mete out harsh and relentless punishments to those whose bodies don’t fit our mould, and we say we’re doing it for their own good. But we’re agonisingly slow to learn that shaming people about their weight and relationship with food just doesn’t work.

Despite my parents’ best efforts (and mine), I didn’t stay thin. And I’m quite sure my body didn’t turn out as it was meant to. I’ve now lost and gained weight over a sixty-kilogram range, and I’m still technically ‘obese’. In attempting to change my body shape to suit our cultural preference for thinness,’ I’ve told myself how stupid, worthless, hopeless, disgusting I am. I’ve starved and binged more times than I can count. I’ve had substances injected into me I can’t even identify. And all of this simply because I learned very early that my body was wrong, and needed to be controlled. I was taught to pursue a body type I could never achieve, nor maintain.

In a recent submission to US First Lady Michelle Obama, author and dietician Ellyn Satter wrote:

“Research shows that children who are labeled overweight or obese feel flawed in every way – not smart, not physically capable and not worthy. Parents who fear obesity hesitate to gratify their child’s hunger for fear s/he will get fat. Such labeling is not only counterproductive, it is unnecessary.”

I couldn’t have said it better. I am an accomplished woman, with gifts and talents I am very proud of. I’ve raised beautiful children, and fought my way back from post-traumatic stress disorder and post-natal depression. Every day I work hard to overcome the limitations these, and other traumas, have put upon my life. And yet, there’s not one waking hour that I don’t obsess about my weight, my appearance, my body and the food I put into it. There’s not one hour that I don’t wonder how I can starve my way into becoming a more physically ‘acceptable’ human.

When my parents started weighing me, I was already sensitive about my weight. Their efforts only served to create a punishing lifelong obsession.

In subjecting her kids to a regular session on the scales, Val may think she’s making a light-hearted joke. She may not think she’s making a big deal out of her children’s weight and appearance. But will her kids perceive it that way? If they’re anything like me, they might just learn the damaging message that they’re only as good as their last weigh-in. They might get the message that their body is wrong, and needs to be controlled. They might learn to feel, like me, flawed in every way.

Scales of Injustice

Now that I donate blood regularly, I am weighed a few times a year. This is the most frequently I have stood on scales in recent memory. It’s been interesting, to me, to note in numbers how my weight has altered (mostly increased) during this period of post-partum body adjustments, depression, medication and other health events. The number on the scale doesn’t mean very much: it is a number. It would seem very high to some, but then, I know that my dense body is heavy even when not particularly fat. So I don’t fret. But I can’t share that number with you here, as much as I would like to have that kind of fearless candour. It is still too early in my fat acceptance journey, perhaps. Or maybe it’s because I know what numbers mean to other people.

I know what numbers can do.

Like many people, high school Physical Education classes were not funtimes for me. I was labelled as unfit and unco-ordinated very early on in my school career and thereafter it didn’t seem to matter what I did. If I tried hard to improve my fitness, I was laughed at (mostly by other students: one notable time, by a teacher.) If I dawdled and wheezed, I simply confirmed the stereotype. If I listened too hard, I heard the slurs whispered behind my back as teams were picked or we lined up at the swimming pool, bodies exposed to scrutiny. Sometimes the hostility was overt.

A few times, we were weighed in class and those weights were listed publicly. I remember the trembling shame, and the flooding relief to not be heaviest. I remember the knowledge that I would never be popular until I was thin. But my body doesn’t do thin. It didn’t do acceptable in those formative years any more than it does now.

Kate Moss was it-girl of the moment (how little things change!) and my body, my unwaif-like body, was never going to make it onto the ‘hot’ list. And because I am obstinate and strong, I decided to just bide my time until I could choose to be around less-judgemental peers. But that wasn’t an option for everyone – fad diets were a weekly event for some of the students at my boarding school and I sporadically joined in. I remember telling a friend, mid-diet, that she was perfect how she was, and being laughed at. I was a fat girl, a lost cause, what would I know?

I feel like I need to say here that I wasn’t that fat. I wore straight sizes. I was active. I may have been in the D grade team, but I played sport. But it was apparent to me that in the eyes of my adolescent peers, and also my family, my body was outsized, unattractive and out of control.

My stepmother wasn’t generally big on body shaming but she did worry about my weight. Inconsistency raised me: my parents encouraged me to restrict portions one day, indulge the next. They loved me with food because physical and verbal affection were generally out of their range. And they singled me out from my siblings by making me do extra exercise. A lowlight was when my stepmum publicly informed a few other mothers from my primary school that I had graduated up to adult sizing (something that frequently happens quite suddenly to girls about to hit puberty). They were audibly shocked, no doubt thinking, gosh, I’m glad that hasn’t happened to my daughter yet. It’s twenty years later but their judgement still smarts.

It wasn’t that I didn’t try to control my body. I documented my first serious attempt at a diet in a notebook. I drew up tables and stuck them on the fridge, indicating which days I would be allowed to have dessert. I was eight years old.

Eight is the same age of the daughter of one of the commenters on this post by Mia Freedman about weighing children, and about the age at which most girls are beginning to be aware of their weight. In her post, Freedman asks: “We’re obviously keen not to give our kids any complexes about their weight but does that mean turning a blind eye to weight gain for fear we might say the wrong thing?” Apparently, Freedman accepts the premise that the growth of a child’s or adolescent’s body requires commentary, and that such commentary could actually control that growth.*

The problem with these types of arguments about weighing children to ‘fight childhood obesity’ is that they show little understanding of how diet–weight–health interact: that is, in a far more complex and non-linear way than is popularly believed. A number on a scale doesn’t shout to your body: hey, stop growing as you wish to grow (largely due to genetic factors) and fit neatly onto this chart, dammit! But it may say to the adults around a child: start putting undue scrutiny on this child’s appetite, start singling her/him out for ’special’ exercise or food, start making her/him feel less than for not looking the right way.

What infuriates me most about the idea of frequently weighing children and adolescents – or publicly weighing them – to keep them ‘on track’, is that it singles out the fat kids, and the solid kids, and even the underweight kids. It perpetuates the disproven notion that weight and health are intrinsically linked. I’m all for improving the health of young people. I think reducing our reliance on processed foods and increasing people’s activity levels are admirable goals. But when you aim these goals almost solely at vulnerable people who are already singled out by their appearance and who are already at risk of low self esteem, you do them a huge disservice. And actually you do everyone a disservice. Because thin children need nourishing foods and plenty of fun exercise in the fresh air, too.

More than that, we all need to stop buying into the lie that a single aesthetic ideal is a virtue to strive for, or the answer to everything. It has taken many years to overcome the damage done in PE classes, but finally I don’t much care what the scales tell me. They can measure how much the fluids and tissues of my body weigh. They do not know if I am strong or healthy. They also do not know my worth.

Concerned parents, teachers, public health authorities and popular culture commentators with successful blogs take note: We must not make the mistake of letting some children think that they are worth less — worthless — because they weigh more. Numbers on a scale are not nuanced, they are not intelligent, they are not loving, they do not listen. They are no substitute for real information about health and wellbeing and they are not a parenting tool. Our children deserve so much more.

* N.B. It is common sense that where sudden weight gain is large or coinciding with other symptoms (other than puberty) then that is a good reason for a health check with a good GP, and subsequent discussion. But for a typical increase in chubbiness? For heaven’s sake, children ought to be allowed to just be happy in their bodies. Bombardment with fat-shaming media is never far away so parents aren’t actually required to join in. Besides, shaming children into restricted eating and/or exercising will not make them lose weight – unless it pushes them to starve themselves. For more information on how children can regulate their own food intake and body size, Ellyn Satter is a good starting point.

French-Marie Claire goes sans air brushing, but not sans camera tricks, makeup, lighting and models already near ‘perfect’.

French actress Louise Bourgoin graces the cover of this month’s edition of French Marie Claire – hailed as the “totally non-airbrushed April issue”. Leaving aside the fact that it’s not totally non-airbrused because the women in the ads still are – should we rush to congratulate Marie Claire for its bravery? Should we declare this a step in the right direction for body image?

Digital enhancement is only one part of a modelling shoot. No one is saying how long the hair and makeup took, what camera tricks were used, or how the models to be depicted au naturale  were selected in the first place.

Even if the models in these issues haven’t been kissed by the photoshop fairy godmother, we are still being presented with an unrealistic expectation of how women should look.  Existing beauty standards will not be compromised, even if  Mr Airbrush takes a day off.

And I’m sure the editors picked the model who could put the best body forward, sans airbrushing.

We’re told these non-airbrushed images are supposed to make us feel good about ourselves. That’s what readers of Australian Marie Claire were informed when Jennifer Hawkins was featured on the cover “naked and non-airbrushed.” I wrote about this in January, arguing that making Miss Universe a poster girl for poor body image – with her dimple on the thigh and ‘uneven skin tone’ – treated women like idiots.

Using pretty much flawless young women in the first place hardly proves that models and celebrities are just like us. Give us a break.

If Louise Bourgoin hasn’t been airbrushed, then it means she really is that skinny. So, even though she may have a tiny wrinkle somewhere near her eye, the fact is that the thin ideal continues to be held up as what all women need to attain. As one fashion writer said: “If airbrushing is supposed to blur out any blemishes and/or imperfections — then Bourgoin is perfect”. Photographer Benjamin Kanare points to some of the tricks used to get the best outcomes:

…Burning out the skin using overexposure, soft light, adding a half blue filter to whiten the skin, pulled back images, large smile’s for celebrities so their nasal labial folds are hidden, pulled back hair with hands stretching the skin and smoothing the wrinkles. Using grainy film and converting the images to black and white to neutralize the skin tones.

If young women deserve to know when images have been digitally enhanced, don’t  they also have a right to know about these techniques as well? Also, is this move just a one-off jump onto the anti-airbrushing bandwagon or is Marie Claire going to keep the blow torch of its models in future issues? It seems unlikely.

Eating disorder specialist Sarah McMahon –who has written for me before - gave me her thoughts:

The value of removing the digital Barbie-fication of models remains in question when magazines continue to promote one beauty ideal that is generally tall, fair and ectomorphic [characterized by long and thin muscles/limbs and low fat storage]. In the absence of airbrushing, magazines will endure by utilizing the world’s most beautiful models (who generally do not require “digital enhancement”).  The French edition of Marie Claire featured Louise Bourgoin. Comparable “non-airbrushing” initiatives in France by Elle and Harpers Bazaar have used supermodels such as Cindy Crawford and actresses like Monica Bellucci. In Australia late last year we saw Sarah Murdoch’s “un-airbrushed” shoot on the front of The Australian Woman’s Weekly. These magazines continue to uphold the homogonised beauty ideal that contributes to body image disturbances through selecting models who incite unrealistic and largely unobtainable beauty ideals.

Ultimately this begs the question: what are the public health consequences of promoting such beauty ideals? This is an easy question to answer as the consequences are very well documented. Study after study reveals that promotion of a thin and homogenized beauty ideal contributes to body dissatisfaction and dieting- risk factors for the development of disordered eating.

 This positions body image disturbances and ultimately eating disorders as a very serious public health issue- indeed a public health crisis. Tokenistic marketing activities by magazines giving lip service to this issue is simply not good enough.

Spain is one country taking the issue seriously.  In 2007  Spain banned ultra thin models from the catwalks following a number of models literally starving themselves to death. In April 2008  an “anti-anorexia” bill was passed, banning uber-thin models and making it a crime for anyone to incite “excessive thinness”, food deprivation or extreme dieting.  A new law bans  the broadcasting before 10pm of TV ads that promote beauty products and treatments that suggest surgical or chemical ways to achieve a perfect body. The moce was prompted by concern that the ads were fueling a rise in eating disorders in young people.

 But all we’ve got is the unsatisfactory  recommendations of the National Advisory Group on Body Image and a Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct which appears to have achieved not much at all.

.Before-and-after airbrushing images of Britney Spears released

It’s difficult to know who is really behind the release of the Britney Spears before-and-after airbrushing images for Candie’s (shoes). Some accounts say Britney released them herself, others question it, given that Spears didn’t actually release any statement and the pics appeared in The Daily Mail.

As Jezebel says:

As helpfully pointed out by the gigantic arrows, in the final images Britney’s calves and thighs have been made slimmer, some barely-visible cellulite has been removed from the back of her thighs, and tattoos and bruises have been airbrushed.

If it is Britney herself wanting to highlight what airbrushing does, I think that is a good thing. But again, I can’t help wondering about the use of lighting, camera angles, and the other tricks already mentioned. The more cynical part of me (rescue me Satchel Girl!)  looks at the ‘before’ pics and wonders if there’s been some airbrushing done there as well?

The fact is, Britney is still presented in a sexualised and objectified way, inviting comments that focus on her body: cutting her up, analysing her piece by piece. For years Britney has attracted cruel comments for how she has looked, condemned for “baby flab”,  mocked for wearing outfits that show her tummy, the usual ‘is she pregnant or just fat’ jibes.  The Daily Mail reminds us of “A display of her flabby tummy on tour last month….”  

Because Girl with a Satchel knows so much about these things, I asked her opinion late last night:

It seems odd that Britney would release these photographs, though this is the girl who produced a highly orchestrated MTV comeback documentary as a prelude to her post-breakdown comeback. If a celebrity wants to increase her female-friendly factor, whether that be to boost sales or attempt to genuinely connect, inspire and motivate women, then showing her real/authentic self is usually a good start. And can’t be any worse than having your butt splashed across the tabloid papers and magazines thanks to a courteous paparazzo.

Britney’s probably one of the most airbrushed celebrities of our time, as her career came to fruition in the 90s when we weren’t all so aware of the practises being used in the magazine industry. To see a relatively unpolished image of her online could be a good thing for her young fans.

But the fact that these images have been fed to The Daily Mail, a tabloid dubbed ‘The Daily Hate Mail’ by the feminists at jezebel.com for its often masochistic treatment of women, as opposed to a more women-friendly title (does such a thing exist?) smells like ’stunt!’

Is this a case of pop star one-upmanship? After all, Jessica Simpson is on the cover of Marie Claire sans makeup and airbrushing this month, in aid of her new show, The Price of Beauty.

Now of course, showing women not digitally enhanced is better than what ACP’s former Art Director Louise Bell and colleagues once did, as told here:

What limits did you attempt to stick to? I was an art director at a time where retouching or “airbrushing”…was a very new technology. And Mia [Freedman] and I just went for it! We literally did as much as we could get away with – different heads on bodies; you name it.

Speaking of different heads and different bodies…

Here’s 23-year-old star of  The Hills, Heidi Montag. Heide was on parade this week, displaying her new “bikini body”. She’s had:

A mini brow lift; Botox in her brow and frownline area; a nose job; fat injections in her cheeks, nasolabial folds and lips; chin reduction; neck liposuction; had her ears pinned back; a breast augmentation revision; liposuction on her waist, hips and inner and outer thighs; and a buttock augmentation.

But she’s still not happy.

Even though she can’t jog anymore (for fear of knocking herself out?) and can’t let anyone hug her because it hurts too much, she wants to go up another breast size, “but I can’t legally right now. The limit is 800cc and I have 700cc”.

Thanks Heide, for contributing to the body insecurities of all your fans. But maybe being able to run along the beach and share affection is overrated?

See also Newsweek, ‘Heidi Montag, Version 3.0′.

Youth Minister Kate Ellis wrote a terrific endorsement for my book Getting Real: challenging the sexualisation of girls. I was – and am – very grateful to her for doing so. Ms Ellis wrote:

Young women and girls today face extraordinary pressures to meet body image expectations that are unhealthy, unhelpful and unrealistic. The contributors to this book make a valuable contribution to an important national debate on how we can help young women to grow up with a healthy self-image and with the freedom and strength to be their real selves.

I believe the Minister is sincere in her commitment to addressing this issue. But her photo shoot for Grazia – which goes on sale today – raises questions about whether her message needs to be more consistent and whether there are a few dots still to be joined up.

Lydia Turner, a Sydney psychologist specialising in eating disorder prevention and who I’ve published here before argues that the Grazia shoot is problematic on a number of levels: sending conflicting messages about body image, encouraging judgement and surveillance of other women’s bodies and reducing a member of parliament to her sexual desirability.

Yet again we’ve seen another body image blunder pushed into the spotlight with Minister for Youth, Kate Ellis, donning tight-fitting leather clothes and dominatrix-style 8-inch heels in a bid to improve body image in Australian women.

According to the Courier Mail in the shoot done on an athletics track in her electorate of Adelaide, the 32-year-old minister sports a pair of killer $1790 Gucci heels and a curve-hugging $695 leather Karen Millen dress and looks more like a runway model than a Member of Parliament.

“I really enjoyed it!” she said of the experience. “I didn’t think it would be so much fun – I didn’t want it to stop.”

Celebrity magazine, Grazia, had approached Ellis to model for its annual ’Body Image Special’. They thought she would say no. She gave an “enthusiastic yes.”

Grazia tells us Ellis was voted the sexiest MP by her male colleagues and recently “chuckled” when invited to pose for lads mag Zoo.

Ellis said her reason for modelling was to “spark a debate on body image” (she said similar when posing in a bikini for The Daily Telegraph not too long ago). She wanted to draw attention to the results of the body image survey in Grazia. But something just doesn’t sit right.

When Ellis was asked whether or not her images were airbrushed, she dodged the question, replying that she had made her views about airbrushing “clear” to the magazine editors. Ellis avoided disclosing whether or not the images were airbrushed, yet disclosure of airbrushed images was one of the key recommendations put forward by the National Advisory Board on Body Image – a board Ellis initiated.

Flipping through the magazine, it’s hard to understand how Grazia’s editors could possibly think they were doing women any body image favours – and harder to understand why Ellis would want to support a magazine like this.

The cover itself shouts “Jen: You voted her BEST BODY. Posh: You voted her TOO THIN. Beyonce: You voted her KEEPING CURVY COOL.” On page 16, four female celebrities are lined up side-by-side, each with numbers scrawled across their image indicating the percentage of readers who approve of their bodies. Beyonce scores a lousy 13%.

Yet when discussing the results of the body image survey, the headline of the article screams “Why are we our own worst enemies? 71% of [women] judge other women based on their bodies” as though it was oblivious to fact that it actively promotes women monitoring and surveillencing other women’s bodies.

In her opening editorial, Editor-in-Chief Alison Veness-McGourty announces that “curves are back” and that women should rush out to buy pencil skirts so they won’t have to be “endlessly watching [their] weight.” Yet the top four out of five most popular articles listed on Grazia’s website focus on dieting. Fad dieting. Dieting to make you “thin by Friday.”

Throughout the ‘Body Image Special’, article after article features celebrities talking about why they loathe their bodies. Sienna Miller confesses that she is “all in favour of airbrushing” and that in ten years time she will “probably be stuffed full of botox and fillers … with fake lips!” How is this supposed to be empowering?

While Ellis says she intends to “work with industry” to improve women’s body image, it’s difficult to imagine how effective this approach might be given that the fashion industry’s profits are significantly inflated by instilling a sense of inadequacy in its consumers. It is also unlikely that a voluntary code of conduct will ever be adhered to.

How will corporations agree to something that runs contrary to their profit margins? Just look at the Weight Council of Australia. It is a voluntary body that requires businesses in the weight loss industry to adhere to a set of guidelines, designed to protect the health of Australians and the quality of weight loss product. Of the tens of thousands of weight loss businesses in Australia, only five are members.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone when Grazia quotes Jennifer Aniston, “looking good is the best revenge!”. But what is Ellis doing supporting this tokenistic stunt? Having recommended, through her National Advisory Board, that a diverse range of body sizes and shapes should be portrayed in magazines, it is rather odd to then engage in a photoshoot that upholds current beauty standards and allowing images of oneself that are most likely airbrushed. Perhaps she just wants to look glamorous in a fashion shoot but needs to cover it in tokenistic body image/self-esteem jargon?

Perhaps most frustrating is that young, smart, high-profile women are routinely subjected to sexualised scrutiny, regardless of their profession. Natasha Stott-Despoja, Stephanie Rice, Julia Gillard, Penny Wong, Gabriella Cilmi – who recently stripped to “prove” she’s “all grown up” – the list is endless.

One of the functions of sexualising powerful women is that they become less threatening. Their abilities fade into the background while whether they are ‘hot-or-not’ becomes the only focus.

It seems the message girls and women are continually sent is that until you’re hot, you don’t count. Girl With a Satchel Erica Bartle summed it up well when she wrote, “…even smart MPs have to fit the fashion mould to become successful”.

Instead of giving in to the pressure to sexualise herself, Ellis could have taken the offer to pose for Zoo and later Grazia, as opportunities to speak out against the pressures on women to consent to objectification. She could have highlighted this as a problematic message sent to girls.

How awkward would it be if you found out that all the men in your workplace had voted you the sexiest worker? If every time you spoke you had to worry about whether they were actually paying attention or just checking out your breasts? Your boss would be strapped for sexual harassment for handing out the survey to begin with.

Yet Ellis accepted the ‘honour’ of being voted sexiest and has allowed herself to be presented in a sexualised manner. And she still wants to be taken seriously as a MP with a portfolio caring for young people.

‘Mick of Brisbane’ provides an example of how some men see the Grazia shots. He commented online in the Courier Mail April 4: 

“She is the sexiest politician I have ever seen!!! I wonder if she would do a photo shoot for Penthouse? With all funds raised going to the community of course!!! I think she could pull off a centrefold with ease!!!”

Yes, Mick, as long as it’s for a good cause. So many of the comments posted in response to Ellis’ photoshoot have been about whether she is ‘hot or not.” Because that’s what counts.

There are no easy solutions to our current plague of body image problems. At the same time, none of us should have to put up with faux attempts to put things right. Grazia is merely giving the appearance of wanting to empower women. Ellis’ participation only upholds existing beauty standards while catering to the sexual fantasies of men.

Given that girls and women are already taught that their worth is measured by how sexually desirable they are, having our youth minister reiterate that message just trivialises an issue she seems to care deeply about.

Emma Rush, who co-wrote the Australia Institute reports Corporate Paedophilia: The sexualisation of children in Australia and Letting Children be Children: Stopping the sexualisation of children in Australia  and who I’ve published here before, wrote a response to a piece by Emma Tom in The Australian last weekend. It didn’t get published there, but it will get published here.

It is a matter of grave concern that children continue to suffer sexual abuse, and in large numbers. And it is understandable that survivors such as Emma Tom (The Australian, March 20) have strong opinions about what does and does not cause child sexual abuse. But her suggestion that the sexualisation of children has no impact on the prevalence of child sexual abuse is at odds with the views of Australian leaders in child health, welfare and development. 

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“I was startled by what some young women were saying to me about their inability to access dissent; their inability to hear voices that were presenting an alternative” – Natasha Walter

I’m half way through Natasha Walter’s new book Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism. It is a compelling read, laying bare the forces of sexualisation, objectification and raunch culture and their destructive influence on the health and wellbeing of women and girls everywhere. So much of the book echoes the findings of Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls. It is encouraging to see a coalescing of global concern around the pornification of culture and it’s wrecking ball impact on girls’ lives.

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Nice to know I’m not the only one with a negative critique  (also published in On Line Opinion Friday)of the Lady Gaga machine. Here’s an extract from a piece by Jim Schumacher and Debbie Bookchin titled ‘What’s Next From Lady Gaga: A snuff film?’  recently published on Huffington Post:

What if glitzy Lady Gaga is exactly what she appears to be: The latest manifestation of a culture industry that pushes the boundaries of civility and sexuality to the extreme in order to make a buck? And worse, pushes it on our kids long before they want or need to be presented with some middle-aged ad executive’s personal sadomasochistic sexual fantasies?

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Since my last piece on the cyberbullying taking place through Facebook, other sites targeting girls for their alleged flaws have been found.  One identifying young women not considered  “marriage material”.  Another naming and shaming ‘12-year-old sluts’.  Another for girls labelled “bitches”.  British girl Poppy Bracey recently took her life  as a result of a cyber bullying campaign against her.  Poppy was 13. She was harassed for being “too pretty”. (Some commenting on the story said girls like this just need to toughen up).  It seems no girl can ever be good enough. She must grow up trying to shield herself from virtual darts and real-life abuse, coming at her from every direction.

The piece below by Melbourne blogger Elizabeth (left) at My Spilt Milk  (whose comments I have valued on my  posts), is a passionate exploration of these online monuments to cruelty. Elizabeth nails the hypocrisy of Facebook in banning breastfeeding images while allowing sexualised depictions of women, harrassment and abuse to flourish on untold numbers of sites.

Since when did it become okay to hate women and girls so publicly and to judge them so mercilessly? 

There’s a new page on Facebook. It’s only two weeks old but already has more than a million members. I’m not going to post the link but of course it is easy to find. You don’t have to go far to find online domains where women are held up for ridicule and contempt. 

This is a site for anyone who wants to post pictures of girls they have judged to be sluts.

Some girls appear in overtly sexual poses. 

Others are doing that common tween pouty thing with their lips and surprised eyes. Which apparently means they are sluts. 

Then there’s the young girls of 13, 14 or 15 having fun with their friends, smiling and fooling around as young girls often do and somehow ending up on this site. Because even innocent mucking around with your besties is to be interpreted as sluttish behaviour. 

One average normal young woman is standing in a front yard looking relaxed and happy in a long blue summery dress. This girl cops a torrent of abuse on the site. Because girls can’t just look or actually be relaxed and happy. They must be covering up for the fact that they’re really sluts. 

Other images are of larger sized girls posted purely to be ridiculed. And they are. Condemned for being alive, though some men comment that despite their obvious hideousness, they could still manage to find some use for them. 

There is even a picture of a woman with a bashed face. 

It is revealing that the girls whose images have been put up here are either condemned for their whorish ways  - or condemned for not deserving the slut title. So they can’t win. Either they are too slutty or not slutty enough. 

Each girl or woman is analysed based on her body parts and what she is wearing. The text includes allegations of their prostitute-like ways, describing multiple STD’s, multiple pregnancies to multiple fathers, and all the sexual acts they have ever allegedly performed on multiple men. 

Some images are clearly posted for revenge. Often full names are used. What means do these women and girls have to defend themselves? How do they deal with it? What does it mean for them in their daily lives at school or work or at home or anywhere, to be identified to the whole world as a slut? 

By allowing this site, Facebook is a conduit for bullying, harassment and abuse. 

These are some of the comments. I’ve left out the pornographic ones which means I won’t be citing most of them. 

“Tripple ew”, “She’s so ugly”, “Meat”, “Pig”, “Dog”, “Vomit bucket anyone?” 

This site is a temple to human cruelty. 

One of the pictures of a larger girl looking depressed provokes special attack. 

Just yesterday a man calling himself ‘D.j.Stack’ labelled her a “baarbarian” [Sic. But you get the idea]. He also questions whether she really qualifies as slut material: 

“and i doute thats slut material because i wouldnt even look at that, nor do i think many would.” 

She is a ‘that’, not a real person. 

Who is the real barbarian in this picture? 

Another image of a larger bodied girl at the beach attracts the comment: 

“It looks like someone threw pancake batter against a wall and it slid down”. 

So the women whose images are posted on this virtual dartboard are insulted with the label slut. But they are equally insulted if they are seen as slut imposters: pretenders to the slut title. 

For example: “She couldn’t be a slut if she wanted to be”. 

And:  “She’s too f***ing ugly to be a slut. who would f***k that? 

Again, she is a that. 

In the image of the bashed woman, her eye is swollen and black. Why is she here?  Because she’s a slut too and she deserved what she got. That’s what one of the commenters said. 

A couple of images of men have been posted on the site. One male helpfully points out that men can’t be sluts “cos only the bitches are sluts”. 

And there you have it. 

The creator of the site, in a display of faux concern, writes: “’Lots of people have uploaded fan pics of people they know. That’s not cool guys that’s bullying.” 

So why have you left them there?
Images of young girls stripped and performing for a webcam have been removed in the last 24 hours.  As has an image of a 10-year-old girl. 

But it’s not enough. The whole site remains harmful to the mental health of girls whose images have been posted – in many cases most likely against their will or without their prior knowledge. 

Its presence is also harmful to girls who may fear their faces could soon appear there any day, meaning they too will wear the virtual scarlet letter.

This site facilitates cyber bullying, cyber stalking and harassment.  It puts girls and women in significant danger. 

Will Facebook leave it there for ever, until every girl and every woman is labelled a slut?

The UK Home Office just released the Sexualisation of Young People: Review by Dr Linda Papadopoulos. It is a compelling, thorough and strongly evidence-based paper which should be read by anyone concerned about the impacts of the pornification of culture on girls and boys. Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls is cited a number of times (the quote above from the Executive Summary is taken from Betty McLellan’s chapter ‘Sexualised and Trivialised: Making Equality Impossible’). It’s good to see our work acknowledged in this significant report.  Given that we share the UK’s cultural DNA, I hope this report will bolster efforts to address this issue here and add momentum to the push for a review of our own Senate Committee inquiry recommendations, which Emma Rush wrote about here earlier. 

See also ‘Clamp down on lads’ mags to avoid ‘pornification’ of society, says study’.  Also have a look at the following articles: ‘Review into sexualisation of young people published’ , ‘Fears over sexual images and children’, BBC, and the Guardian.