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′.

“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.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been involved in a few campaigns against the sexualisation of girls, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a company act on complaints as quickly as this one did.

On Tuesday I posted a blog about a ‘tweenage’ push-up bra sold at Best & Less. A number of people got active and wrote to the company to protest. Adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg was one of them. Here’s his letter (warning, anyone offended by the term ‘cretin’ should not read further):

I am a child and adolescent psychologist who has worked for 25 years in the field. I am incandescent with rage with the bone brained individual in your company who thought it would be a brilliant idea to sell push up bras to prepubescent girls!

There are so many reasons why this runs counter to what we know is in the best interests of young girls – it is difficult to know where to start.
I can only refer you to the American Psychological Society Taskforce report on the impact of early sexualisation  and hope that you reprimand the cretin who made this decision and immediately withdraw the product.

Sincerely

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg 

Then I received this response from Best & Less.

Dear Melinda,

We are writing to you regarding your recent blog and comments relating to bras labelled “Tweenage”.

Best & Less prides itself on its strong family values and has strict guidelines relating to the sale of products for young people. As such Best & Less does not stock or sell push up bras for children.

The bras in question were intended to be a women’s petites range from sizes 8AA through to 12B. They were made to current Australian standards for women’s bras and were displayed in our women’s underwear department. Regrettably an error resulted in the incorrect branding and labeling of these bras as ‘Tweenage’. As a consequence, they were removed from sale in all of our stores across Australia as of yesterday, 2nd February.

We have taken procedural steps to avoid any future branding or labeling errors of this sort.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Christine Ryan

Best & Less

That’s one hell of an error in the branding and labeling department. But the company has at least responded to community concern and acted quickly, unlike others who have featured on this blog (responses from Roger David: zero).

I hope all of you who have taken any kind of action against corporate sexploitation will be encouraged by this outcome.

We magnify the body, we perfect the silhouette, we help to cheat

That was said about push-up bras by a woman who manages a French company which invented them.

A bra now being marketed to girls who haven’t even hit their teens and, mostly, will not possess anything that needs support, let alone need a lacy push-up number.

In yet another example of the sexualisation of girls, Best and Less is selling the Tween-age Push-up Bra. Tweens have been defined as aged 6-12.

Now, as most people know, push-up bras are designed to show off cleavage. Obviously the inventors of the tween push-up bra don’t care if there is no ‘cleavage’ to start with. They will help a young girl cheat and make it look like there is. Underwire padding, boosting: helping create the illusion that this little girl is much more developed than she really is.

And why would you want to do that exactly?

Why would a child need to have her body magnified? What is a perfect silhouette for a child? Why would a child be required to cheat? Why adultify little girls?

We are telling little girls that their bodies are not acceptable as they are. And that their bodies are supposed to draw attention, primarily male attention. The earlier these messages hit them, the more ingrained they become. They are being groomed to see their bodies as sexual objects.

Normalising and encouraging the appearance of breasts on prepubescent children puts them in danger.

We are witnessing the disappearance of spontaneity, unselfconsciousness, curiosity and fun in girls – qualities that were once valued for their role in developing a strong sense of self identity; enabling girls to journey into adulthood in a natural and healthy way. But now they are body conscious – indeed self-loathing – at younger ages, wracked by fear and self-doubt, wondering if they are good enough.

The manufacturers of the push-up bra for little girls know this, and are preying on it.

They need to be held accountable. Tell Best and Lest what you think. Email:feedback@bestandless.com.au, Ph: (02) 95613400.

Some mates and I are about to launch Collective Shout to name, shame and expose corporations and marketers who objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services. Stayed tuned.

Came across this on Girl w/ Pen.

These tips put the responsibility where it should be:

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

Abuse is, like, so hot right now

Which brings me back to those t-shirts.  Because abuse is, like, so hot right now (thanks Kelly, great line, so pleased you took on the pro-rape slogan apologists).

This one below is the featured rape chic t-shirt on Zazzle. I mentioned the slogan earlier, but somehow it’s worse seeing it on an actual body. And I’ve since found out  it’s sold by an Australian online company hosted out of Los Angeles:

The text promoting it reads:

“Remember to yell!  Now we know this is a little controversial, but you know you’re laughing. Just remember to let them know before you go for it. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the effort.”

In a stunning act of hypocrisy, Zazzle also has t-shirts alongside the rape-as-a-bit-of-a-lark line, that say “Real men don’t rape” and “I was raped and I won’t be silent”.

So why sell shirts with rape-proud slogans that mock probably the greatest human rights violation known to women? Why flog items that contribute to a rape-enabling environment which leads to more rape victims in the first place? (I wanted to say rape survivors, but not all do). Maybe Zazzle  just sees that as market expansion for their full range of  shirts for rapist and victim?

You know, I was really hoping to focus on something other than anti-women t-shirts this week  and blog on a topic which might hopefully maintain the interest of the 13,000 people who visited this site in the past four days in response to global coverage of objectifying items of apparel.

But just as I was tossing around a few ideas for the next post, a young woman sent me photos of these t-shirts (thanks Jackie) which she found in a Supre store in Sydney’s CBD.

Now some of you will know that this isn’t the first time the pimps-r-us clothing store has come to the attention of this blog (Treating little girls as ho ho ho’s). As a result of a raft of complaints over its “Santa’s Bitch” and “North Pole Dancer” t-shirts, Supre’s Karen Hermann told us, in writing, that “Santa’s Bitch” would be removed. But Supre was playing fast and lose with the truth  (Update: Looks like Supre was serving up untruths for Christmas).

And now they are flogging this “Pussy Power” tee for $7.50.

Supre, why would you use a porn inspired title for women’s genitals as the slogan for girl’s clothing? Will a 10,11 or 12-year-old girl, perhaps drawn to the image of the little black cat, understand how wearing such a shirt could be interpreted; the message it could send in a culture which already treats young girls as hot and sexy mini women?

Why would you put her at risk like this? And don’t tell us you had in mind soft cuddly kittens.

This isn’t a store where adults get their clothes. It’s a cheapie chain frequented by flocks of young girls who should be allowed to enjoy their few short years of girlhood without being targeted as walking billboards for pornified messages about who girls are and what they are good for.

This is what Jackie thought of Supre:

Flood Karen Hermann’s inbox.

First up, Lydia Turner (discovered here first!) in ABC’s The Drum Unleashed today about the failure of “weight-loss” dietary products and the death and injury they cause. Then Julie Bindel on men who use prostituted women and why, followed by a podcast with Diane Levin, co-author with Jean Kilbourne of So Sexy So Soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids. Beth Doherty then blows the lid on the reality of the Summernats car festival held in Canberra recently.

Lydia Jade Turner

Australia’s disordered eating epidemic

“Prescribing diet pills and re-wiring people’s intestines doesn’t teach them how to live a healthily, it merely puts them at risk of disordered eating, weight cycling and irreversible medical complications” >more

Men who buy sex: Who they buy and what they know

A research study of 103 men who describe their use of trafficked and non-trafficked women in prostitution, and their awareness of coercion and violence. Melissa Farley, Julie Bindel and Jacqueline M. Golding

Read Julie Bindel’s article on the research in The Guardian, 15/1/10

So sexy so soon podcast with Diane Levin

The Summernats Sideshow

Beth Doherty describes Summernats as:

‘a drunken porn fest where women become decorations and objects adorning the trays of souped-up holden utes; where “show us your tits” for four days becomes an acceptable banner to place on a promotional tent; where women who wear white T-shirts shouldn’t complain if they’re sprayed down with a hose; and where women who are sexually assaulted are ‘asking for it’ just by their attendance‘. >more

The try-hards at Roger David are promoting two new t-shirts for the boys, featuring women who are gagged, with strips across their eyes and semi-naked, as the latest fashion statement.

The woman in the ‘Annie Hollywood’ t-shirt  (produced by ‘Blood Is The New Black’) looks as though she has been roughed up. She appears disheveled and exhausted, her image reminiscent of a crime scenes photo. The other two women have a strip across their eyes, suggesting a loss of identity and dehumanisation. Their semi-naked bodies are pimped through a t-shirt.

The designs are not iconic. They’re not retro (even if adapting a Roxy Music album cover). They’re not art.

What we are seeing here is the glamourising of abuse, the suggestion of sexual aggression, a hint that women want to be treated roughly.

The abuse is glamourised not just for the perpetrator, but for the victim too. As though it’s not only hot to be the pimp, but it’s sexy to be dominated, coerced, submissive, abused – possibly even raped.

It’s as though a little bit of the pimp cool that’s pushed by Hollywood, MTV, in hip hop and rap (see earlier post ) will rub off on the wearer, just like the wearer of a global brand hopes that some of the brand’s ‘personality’ and ‘cool’ will rub off on them.

Roger David really like their domination and abuse tees. They feature as first items on their home page and on their Facebook.

But it’s not just Roger David mainstreaming contempt for women wrapped up in a tee.
A mate came across this at the Birkenhead point Authentic outlet store in Sydney the other day.

What is this? A plug for trafficking? Bring ‘em over, the more exotic and servile the better!

Then there’s others available from online stores , treating rape as a joke and portraying little girls as little sluts.

“It’s not rape if you yell Surprise!”

• “It’s not rape it’s surprise sex” 
• “Sometimes no means yes”
• “Your little princess is my little slut”

…to name but a few.

A sexual assault survivor told me that for her, the t-shirts are highly triggering of assault memories and she suspects that other survivors will find them so too. So as well as putting women and girls in physical danger, t-shirts like this serve as a form of mental torture too.

Women gagged, women who can’t see, women transported away from their homes to service men elsewhere. We have to ask why the demand for these shirts and why men’s stores are pimping these porn-industry inspired messages about what women are good for.

Let Roger David know what you think.

This on Nine MSN

At last we can see  “plus sized” women posed seductively, mouths parted slightly, dull eyes staring off into the distance, draped over some inanimate object looking passive and desperate for male attention.

SHOCK horror: nude supermodel has dimple on thigh. In a move labelled daring and revolutionary, this month’s edition of Marie Claire features nude photos of Australian model Jennifer Hawkins airbrush-free. The shoot reveals “brave” Jen with all her flaws.

And what exactly are these impediments? A tiny crease in Hawkins’s waist, a slightly dimpled thigh and “uneven skin tones”.

Quelle horreur. As if this isn’t enough, Hawkins notes an additional flaw: her hips. She has them. Miss Universe 2004 is really the Elephant Woman.

According to Marie Claire editor Jackie Frank, the Hawkins images were inspired by a survey of 5500 readers that found only 12 per cent of women were happy with their bodies. That’s right, nude pics of a woman considered one of the world’s rarest beauties are supposed to cheer the rest of us up. The pictures will be auctioned this month, with proceeds going to eating disorders support group the Butterfly Foundation.

That Hawkins has been enlisted in the cause of girls who hate their bodies and are, in many ways, victims of the dominant ideal of female beauty kind of messes with my head. How can these pictures possibly help women feel good about themselves?

Labelling hips, a little dimpling on the thigh, a small waist crease (which looks like what happens when any woman sits down) and supposedly uneven skin tone as flaws is already problematic. Who decided these were flaws and not part of being a woman? And if these are flaws, then how are other women supposed to feel feel?

And what about all the other flaws Hawkins, 26, will accrue if she has kids and when she ages?

The problem is the emphasis on physical attributes over any other qualities a woman might possess. And a freak-of-nature body that gets 24-hour-a-day attention and the best of care to earn its owner an income. Most women will never have a body like this.

Why would an editor and an organisation concerned about body image choose a Miss Universe title holder as the pin-up for the love-yourself-just-as-you-are campaign? The images attract comparisons and judgment, and provide more opportunity for objectification. They have already prompted a rash of emails from self-appointed male judges who said Hawkins was pear shaped, that her bum was unappealing, that her breasts were too small, that she should have kept her clothes on.

More worryingly, the images have prompted women to compare themselves with Hawkins. “She wants to make [women] feel more comfortable about how they look, gee thanks, I now feel worse! I’m a size 10 and I still have more rolls than her!” wrote one.

Another email included a bulimia reference: “If anything is going to have me running to the toilet with my finger down my throat it’s a picture of Jennifer Hawkins naked.”

And who exactly is going to bid for the photos, you wonder.

Perhaps the Melbourne man who posted this comment on the Herald Sun website : “*Pant pant pant* OF COURSE Jen should’ve stripped, what a silly question to ask!”. Or Kit Walker of Geelong, who asked: “Where and how many of these magazines can I get!!!”Or perhaps the charming Darren of South Morang, who referred to his imminent Hawkins-inspired sexual arousal: “It’s likely to have a very positive effect on my body, that’s for sure.”

The whole PC beauty shift is for so many just a hilarious bit of theatre. But there is nothing amusing in mocking or encouraging the anxieties that cause untold misery and suffering to so many women. And the hypocrisy is everywhere, rising up to hit you in your flawed face. In the same newspaper promoting Jen “flaws and all” in a banner headline on its front page were three full pages of “Best bikini bodies: How 10 celebs got the perfect figure”. And who is featured there? Hawkins for “best overall body”.

“Our former Miss Universe easily has one of the most envied bikini bodies in the world,” it says, and Hawkins provides advice on how to “get a bikini body quickly”. (Other celebs are given accolades for “best bottom”, “best post-baby body”, “best tummy”, “best thighs”, “best boobs and abs”, and so on.)

Women are expected to believe that enlightened advances are being made in this quite monotonous and unimaginative regime.

This has been identified elsewhere, in regard to the tobacco and alcohol industries, as air cover: giving the appearance of social responsibility while really not doing much at all.

Marie Claire and Hawkins and her flaws, which aren’t really, will do nothing to lessen body dissatisfaction. Because it’s not really about celebrating a diversity of women’s bodies, as advertisers in the magazines spruiking body improvement products well know.

If Frank and fellow editors are serious about the body image problems their magazines have helped to create, will we see less airbrushing, less attention to the “thin, hot, sexy” cult and more real women, rather than insulting and meaningless token gestures?

See Melinda’s article as published in The Australian