Next week New Idea will feature a half-naked George Calombaris on the cover. “I want to be a role model for all the short and stocky men out there,” he says. Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman reveals all on the cover of the Australian Women’s Weekly about how to stay fabulous in your 40s.
“I’m doing it for all the insecure men out there,” he grunts between his 112th and 113th rep. “You too can look like this!” Of course, this is all happening in a parallel universe. Generally, men don’t feel the need to take off their clothes for the cover of a magazine. So why do some women?
This wasn’t what the suffragettes had in mind when they fought for women’s emancipation all those years ago. Emmeline Pankhurst, speaking at the Women’s Franchise League in 1889 didn’t say: “One day, women will be able to remove their clothes in public and be judged on how hard they work out at the gym. What a glorious day that will be!” Let’s start with Deborah Hutton’s cover shot.
The TV personality is blessed with natural beauty: A glorious mane of hair, symmetrical features and an athletic frame. Her attributes are enhanced by a personal trainer and a bevy of beauticians _ all at the fingertips of a woman with the means to afford them.
She wrote that she did the photo shoot: “Because lack of body confidence is such a big issue for so many women.”
There’s no doubt Hutton is a smart, charming and savvy woman. I called her while on air at 2UE last week and asked: ``Most 50-year-old women don’t have the money or time to look as good as you do. This photo doesn’t depict a middle-aged body. Can you see how this might make women feel inadequate?’‘
“I don’t understand why women would feel like that,” she replied. “I work hard at looking this good.”
I thought that was my point. In the words of Erica Jong, women are their own worst enemies. As the deputy editor of the Australian Women’s Weekly, Bryce Corbett wrote in his column: “I think we (men) are less inclined to feel that one man’s attractiveness is somehow a slight against the rest of us. The sight of Brad Pitt’s abs don’t send me into paroxysms of self-loathing”.
The same week, New Idea published a cover shot of Julie Goodwin in her swimmers. I think it’s tremendous she did the shoot, “for all the little teapots out there - short and stout. We should all be comfortable in our own skin”.
Most middle-aged women are shaped more like an apple, pear or hourglass than the stick figures we see in magazines. And yet, once again, our worst enemies come out of the woodwork.
Goodwin was criticised by social commentators for allegedly pretending it’s fine to be overweight.
“It fascinates me that my health can be commented on by someone who has absolutely no medical data on me,” she wrote in her blog. “Not my blood pressure, my fitness, physical strength, activity levels or genetic predispositions.”
While I applaud the MasterChef winner for challenging the “cookie-cutter mentality that thinner = healthier” I think it feeds into the judgment of women based on looks alone. Goodwin is a great cook, loving mother and popular performer. But now the media will routinely reprint the body shot, stripping her of any complexity of character.
Hutton has a rare gift of reaching through the camera to the audience sitting on the lounge at home. But instead she’ll be remembered for her “t and a” rather than talent - and the hydra of criticism that reared its ugly heads.
“When is the persecution of women by women going to end?” asked one blogger. ``Some of us are fat, some of us are thin. “So f*#king what?”
Perhaps more worryingly are the opportunities lost. Instead of arguing over whether one should strip off for women’s magazines or commenting on each other’s bodies, we should use our time more productively.
It could be spent reading a good book, playing with the kids, painting a beautiful picture or building a career. Women are still struggling to reach the upper echelons of the business world. Do we really want to be seen as decorations?
Occasionally I read the news on TV. But I work hard to improve my skills rather than my appearance. Whenever I’m tempted to spend an extra half hour at the gym or beauty salon, I glance down at the poem taped to my desk. Here it is, paraphrased.
“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; This is to have succeeded”.
You won’t find wise words like that in a glossy women’s magazine.
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