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.

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′.

Psychologist Lydia Turner has written another significant guest blog, this time dissecting the weight loss show The Biggest Loser, and arguing that a weight-based approach can never provide long-lasting health outcomes.  

The Biggest Loser: A Danger to Health

The time to expose the dangers of the popular weight loss show The Biggest Loser is overdue. We need to look beyond the show’s manipulative emotionalism at exactly what messages it promotes about health and dealing with weight-related issues.

Here are some of the irresponsible ways the show’s trainers promote weight loss.

• Encouraging contestants to dehydrate prior to weigh-ins – even up to 36 hours beforehand;
• Encouraging weight losses of up to 17 kilos in one week even when it’s well know that such rapid loss is dangerous;
• Making those who are labelled ‘morbidly obese’ run up to 10 kilometres in the summer heat, putting them at risk of heat exhaustion and dehydration – a deadly combination;
• Encouraging contestants to continue intense exercise despite injuries;
• Encouraging contestants to continue intense exercise despite vomiting;
• Putting contestants on a starvation diet of 1000 calories per day – and overlooking those who choose to consume even less than that;
• Berating those who haven’t shed enough kilos at the weigh-ins for “letting down the team” – even when they have already lost more than the recommended average for healthy weight loss per week.

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I’m very pleased to have Sarah McMahon, a Sydney psychologist specialising in eating disorders, write another guest blog, this time on the way the radical treatment of gastric banding is being pitched to teens, with very little attention given  to the potential risks.

Promoting gastric banding to 14-year-olds: malnutrition and maintenance on the menu

I am shocked that a research article published on Wednesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association has been picked up, mixed up and hyped up by mainstream media, suggesting that gastric banding is an appropriate solution for “obese” teenagers. The research is typical of what we are seeing coming from the obesity industry, which is looking to capitalise from the condition.

What the research really found

Given the media hype, we need to look at what the research really tells us. Two groups of teenagers were randomly assigned to either a “lifestyle” group, for exercise and a healthy diet, or a “gastric banding” group, for laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding surgery with the main aim weight loss.

The gastric banding group experienced dramatically more weight loss than the lifestyle‘ group. This is not surprising. I would expect that intrusive surgery resulting in necessary food rationing is far more motivating than the “suggestions and encouragement” regarding dietary changes prescribed to the lifestyle group.

And although the extent of compliance between the groups is not clearly reported in the journal article, it requires little imagination. The reflex of a banded stomach is to vomit if the food is not small and well chewed. Not only does this force malnutrition, there is generally limited opportunity for high calorific intake. Of course vomiting is a vastly different compliance measure than the “intermittent food diaries and food counts used to measure compliance in the “lifestyle” group.

The sample size of the study was hardly robust. Less than 50 participants completed the research trial, meaning that statistically no evaluation of single health problems could be generated. This is important when considering the value of the study’s public health significance, given that the scaremongering associated with the “obesity epidemic” has gained so much momentum by medicalising the problem.

It seems that medicalising obesity somehow justifies culturally sanctioned prejudice on the basis that any intervention is “in their own interests”. Interestingly the study determined that despite the vast difference in weight loss in the gastric banding group, both groups experienced significant improvements in general health.

Further, follow up of weight loss measures were conveniently limited to two years, despite overwhelming evidence in research that suggests significant weight regain occurs from three years post surgery.

Industry promoted research

The study was undertaken by Monash University’s Centre for Obesity Research and Education (CORE). Perhaps not surprisingly, CORE receives an unrestricted research support grant from Allergen, which happens to be Australia’s leading provider of gastric banding equipment.

The lead author and pioneer of the lap banding procedure in Australia is Professor Paul O’Brien, who has previously served on the Allergen Advisory Board. Another author of the study reported consultancy with Allergen and membership of advisory boards that include Allergen, Optifast and Bariatric Advantage – all heavy weights in the weight loss industry.

It seems as though the boundary between commercial methods of weight loss, such as weight loss pills and medical interventions, are becoming blurred. Medicalising obesity to justify surgery creates an instant industry, and there is no shortage of businesses lining up to profit from it. Allergen’s webpage proposes alternative payment options, given the surgery is not covered by Medicare. These include the early release of superannuation savings or bank loans via third party medical finance.

The other side of gastric banding

Gastric banding is framed as a quick fix solution to address obesity. But does it address the real problem? Whether it is compulsive eating, binging due to psychological issues, or poor nutritional education, reducing an individual’s stomach size does not reduce the significance of these factors.

For example, eating disorders are not contraindicated, meaning that many people undertaking gastric banding may have severe psychiatric problems that are contributing to their weight gain or pursuit of thinness. I expect that this is one reason why the weight loss from gastric banding ultimately is short term and generally not sustainable.

Further, there is no standardized screening tool for the surgery. I know of countless cases of people engaging in binge behaviour who are offered the opportunity of gastric banding, at huge cost to their health. In our culture of thinness-at-all-costs, it seems that health is a reasonable trade off for thinness. Complicating this further is the fact that the subtext of our culture is that thinness equals health.

The Australian Medical Association’s 2008 report, ‘Bariatric Surgery: A Weighty Issue’, warned against the potential and inherent risks associated with gastric banding.

The cost to health from gastric banding is huge. Studies suggest that patients require follow up procedures to correct secondary health issues such as hernias, gall stones, bleeding, blood clots, infections, gastritis, correcting loose skin etc. In every 1500 cases there is one death (which can’t be corrected).

Common post-surgery complications include:

• Frequent vomiting because the stomach is unable to hold so much food or because food is unable to pass out from the stomach;
• Dumping syndrome which occurs when food enters the digestive tract too quickly, leading to adrenalin that results in nausea, palpitations, sweating and diarrhoea;
• Nutritional deficiency due to malabsorption. This means that people need to follow a lifetime program of consuming nutritional supplements and vitamins;
• Requirement for further surgery due to slippage, repositioning, adjustments and need for replacement of the band. In the aforementioned study, over one quarter of participants required revisional procedures that consisted of removal and replacement of the band or replacement of the access port;
• Permanent eating difficulties including: an inability to digest particular foods, requirement for extensive chewing, difficulty in drinking at meal time, difficulty in eating at certain times during the day, and food becoming lodged in the throat.

These associated health concerns are frightening given that gastric banding is framed as the “next step” when diet, exercise and medication have failed. Descriptions on web pages, brochures and even research reports invariably begin with scaremongering about the “obesity epidemic” followed by cartoon-style drawings of the seemingly simple procedure that will not only make the person thin, but will solve all their problems. Not surprisingly, the “success stories” on brochures and the media focus on the life that was “saved” through gastric banding.

The ability of 14-year-olds to make this decision

Given the associated complications, it is not just me who believes that it is unsafe to be proposing this intervention for teenagers. In November 2009, the Dieticians Association of Australia (DAA) released a ’Position Paper on Bariatric Surgery in Children and Young People‘ which concluded that there is insufficient evidence of the surgery as a safe and long-term solution to weight loss in teenagers. Even Allergen normally requires patients to be over the age of 18 to undertake the surgery.

This begs the question: what teenager has the capacity to make a decision so significant, given the health risks and the lifetime maintenance of such a procedure? How can a teenager adhere to the strict requirements necessary to maintain the band?  What happens when they experience other significant life changes, such as pregnancy?

We are talking about prescribing this intervention to people who are in high school  who are legally unable to drink alcohol or drive because their brain is insufficiently developed to manage these responsibilities.

Frequent vomiting, permanent eating difficulties and soiling pants may not be the alternative to “obesity”’ that teens really need.

A special guest blog posting by Lydia Jade Turner on the Jennifer Hawkins Marie Claire photoshoot controversy.  Lydia is Director and Public Health Advocate with BodyMatters Australasia and an Allied Health Professional specialising in eating disorders prevention.

As an Allied Health professional specialising in the field of eating disorders, it has been interesting to observe the comments published in response to blogs regarding the issue of Jennifer Hawkins purporting a “healthy body image” in Marie Claire. While some of these comments are helpful, others appear to be based on myths.  I believe that not only is positioning Hawkins as naked advocate for the cause, ineffective, it’s actively undoing the gains that have been made in the field of eating disorders prevention. Having said this, my response to this empowerment stunt is not an attack on Hawkins herself, but rather a critique of why using her image as a path towards healthy body image is actually harmful.

HAWKINS AS NAKED ADVOCATE

Just this morning, Hawkins was quoted as stating that she had no idea that her image was going to  be used to expose her “flaws.” However in the Marie Claire article printed earlier, Hawkins stated that even she is unhappy with her body, dislikes her thighs, and is “not a stick figure.” It makes it a bit hard to believe she could not have possibly known this article was about promoting a healthy body image. The Butterfly Foundation has said that the reason why Hawkins was used was because an average-looking woman would not sell magazines. This is in line with an Online Opinion forum poster who commented that “women demand these magazines” and “like looking at these images.” Wow. So if dark-skinned people didn’t sell well in magazines, should we just leave them out altogether? Yet another reader mentioned that it was too difficult to find an A-list female celebrity who wasn’t “thin.”The difficulty in finding an A-list female celebrity who deviates from the prescribed beauty ideal highlights the systematic discrimination against women in the media and the intense monitoring of their bodies. Positioning a supermodel as naked body image advocate reinforces the idea that there is never going to be a good enough reason to use any image other than that which meets the prescribed beauty ideal.

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