When it comes to the ideal female body-shape the pipe cleaner is out, the hourglass is in – or at least it will be if the new equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, manages to chisel out her will on the perfect body image.
"In the autumn the minister will convene the first of a series of roundtable discussions with members of the fashion industry, including magazine editors, models and advertisers, to discuss how to boost body confidence among the young," the Sunday Times reported yesterday.
One might think that one of the first steps to boost such confidence might be to abolish school weigh-ins and make puppy fat a normal rite of passage rather than the subject of a health warning via the National Child Measurement Programme. (Can any woman think of anything more likely to have produced a fear of being on the chunky side than turning up to school one morning and being plonked on a set of scales? If that's not going to make you skip your Dairylea dunker as a lass and develop a lifelong fear of bread, one wonders if a picture of Kate Winslet's thighs is going to do it.)
"All women have felt that pressure of having to conform to an unrealistic stereotype, which plagues them their whole life." Featherstone explained. "It is not just the immediate harm; it is something that lasts a lifetime."
And you might think Featherstone had a point – it is after all, pretty demoralising looking at image after image of Naomi Campbell after Keira Knightley after Eva Mendes and not feeling as though the jam doughnut you just stuffed in your mouth wasn't really so irresistible after all – but then Lynne goes and recommends that we now need a new set of curvaceous role models, to replace all the whippet-thin ones, like Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan in Mad Men.
So I'm sitting here, with my images of Joan, and I'm feeling a little queasy. I'm thinking even if I eat 12 doughnuts, my hips are never going to bloom out like that. What is she wearing, some sort of side bustle? Has she got pads on under there? There she is, Joan, with her immaculately coiffed red hive of a hairdo – while the Hill barnet looks like someone's just rubbed it very fast with a balloon. Joan's embonpoint is so formidable it could have your eye out – and the Hill eyes stare down at the Hill chest and command the Hill fingers to Google "conical bras – Madonna – Girlie Tour". Joan is encased in the best dress money can buy. The Hill wardrobe looks askance at the Hill wallet and sees a moth fly out.
It's time to get the point, Lynne. The Hill ain't ever going to look like Joanie. Giving the British woman Joanie as a role model is never going to make her feel good. At least Kate Moss's hair sometimes stands on end. At least Cindy Crawford's got a damn mole. If we're talking about images of unattainable perfection, Joanie, with her hips, bust and stature could take home a newly-invented Nobel for the accolade. Oh sure, she looks like she could pack a few Big Macs – although I'm sure Featherstone would warn us against those – but as an ideal she is quite as unattainable as any other. Her BMI, in fact, is precariously near that of a model's – at 5 foot 8 and 140 pounds it works out as 21.3 (according to Joanie's driving licence). In other words, she's the equivalent of an old-fashioned perfect 10.
Rather than replacing the old impossible images with new impossible images (as the creative director of Harper's Bazaar pointed out, the fashion industry exists to create the fantasy you'll never live up to) an equalities minister should throw out all notions of obsessing about feminine beauty and concentrate on helping young girls think about the size of their achievements rather than the flatness of their navels, and the scale of their ambitions rather than – in Joanie's case – the rather spectacular power of their bosoms.
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