see if this will work, a photo of my marvellous daughter from Redhill, student, works 'part-time' in F&Bs there. Incredible person, and she is my daughter,
http://en-gb.facebook.com/profile/pic.php?oid=AAAAAwAgACAAAAAJPP299dLNCW...

Hi Hannah,

Thanks for responding! As you know I'm a huge huge fan of this campaign, I just think it's a shame that it's become associated with Joan/Christina Hendricks. How interesting that the question actually came from the journalist! That really does show the priorities of the press...

I thought it was a great article, and the comments clarifying the original quote in the comments make it even better.

It's a farce that someone saying 'women come in all sizes' gets turned into someone trying to define a new archetype of body image. Plurality doesn't seem to be a concept that the press can deal with. But maybe the internet might change that for the better.

Trouble is I know what sort of women I prefer. Now I'm only 5'8" so the new Miss England is a bit big for me.
But we have a 5'11" glorious blonde, and oh yes she is a first year undergraduate reading Law at Nottingham University. But then I went to Nottingham too. Photo in The
Independent.

Sorry, forgot to add that I agree with your analysis, although I think most people had a bit of a chuckle at Lynne Featherstone's expense over it. You're probably right about the asking around the office thing.
I have also discovered a new indicator of a boring dullard: Mention this contreversy or perhaps the American interviewer who turned into a gibbering idiot when thinking of Christina and the bath, and they simply reply "She is soooo hot", as if they have to educate me (one) in this fact. Also, they ride fixed gear bicycles.

Nice pic above. Always liked a bit of Maureen O'Hara on a lady.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsalGVMWhjc

"Unfortunately, following her comments, aspirational photos of Joan in a range of tight dresses have illustrated nearly every report on the anti-airbrushing campaign"

Nice to see New Statesman bucking the trend by illustrating this blog with an aspirational photo of Joan. Presumably the landscape photo format of the page design precluded the use of one where you could see her tight dress...

Good piece Laurie. There's an opportunity cost for fashion victims too, because all that mental energy invested in superficial crap instead of identifying and meeting personal needs not only prepares an acceptance of prejudice but positively reaffirms it. It’s a waste of life. I’ve met teens that are practically impossible to talk to because there is nothing in their heads. It’s frightening and depressing. But please don't forget there are young men who suffer from eating disorders and associated miseries too, albeit not in the same proportions. It is however, inescapable to an extent. 'Television's Ben Fogle' didn't get where he is just by having marginally more brains than a spaniel. Tall men earn more. Some of it is just animal instinct we can’t avoid, despite ourselves. In your piece on young tories you somewhat unnecessarily identified someone as prematurely balding you know..

No it doesn't matter, just wondered. Maybe "Overexposure" will be the next big thing. "Bleched Men", or something.

As primly stable noted, that's not quite what Lynne Featherstone was saying.

However, I think the emphasis should shift from finding "ideals" to encouraging young men and women to be the healthiest they can be, the best weight for their height and build, and eating balanced and well.

There are naturally skinny women, and those blessed with curves like Joan. And then a vast multitude in the middle. Pear shapes, apples - aspriring to look like Joan is just as unhealthy as apsiring to look like Kate Moss.

We need to say to young people that the best shape you can be is your own, when it is fully fit and healthy. There are no good and bad foods; you need moderation. There is no good and bad shape; you need to be healthy.

Language is also important. I don't think its helpful to vilify skinny people or call fat people curvy. (Not Joan, but Beth Ditto for example)

Ditch the adjectives and just focus on health.

Hey Laurie. Love your pieces, long time listener first time caller. But I think your article I think misses a bit of an analysis of Joan's character and rather allows an ideal type cipher to stand in place. So it falls into the trap of not actually looking at what Madmen says about particular issues, but, in an inverse of celebrating it, just criticises its ideological use, which I don't actually think is actually occurring. I mean is there any evidence that "young women are shopping for circle skirts, ordering vodka Martinis and swallowing the line that Joan is a sassy, inspirational character who should be applauded for being allowed to appear on prime-time television weighing more than a packet of crisps"? Surely if they have watched the series, they might well have come to quite a different conclusion. The point is that despite its supposed glamour, advertising is pretty ugly.

Joan's character is actually very complex not to mention melancholy, much like most of the characters in the show, its difficult to imagine anyone having actually watched the series thinking she was merely sassy and inspirational. Her struggle seems to want to become something more than a very efficient and skilled manager and office sex pot, which she clearly is, but people have simply put her into this box. There is also the issue of power in her character. For example, Joan is raped, by her husband, in a horrifying display of sexual punishment. For me anyway, it would be more interesting and important to discuss these kind of things, rather than a for and against her body shape, or for or against the ideological use of that body image - which I guess is kind of what you are saying anyway.

-well precisely, Tamsin. That's why I want a Peggy doll.

Laurie - I know you agree.

And now, Laurie, I agree with you - barring the final sentence.

Hi Laurie

Enjoyed the article - and I quite agree about the Joan character (thought I have only got as far as the end of series 2 of Mad Men!).

The reason as to why Lynne Featherstone chose to name Christina Hendricks is actually this - she didn't. Lynne said that we need to see a wider variety of body shapes and sizes portrayed positively in the media. The Sunday Times journalist who carried out the interview then asked Lynne what she thought of Christina Hendricks, and Lynne said she thought she was a good example of someone who didn't fit with the current trend towards extreme thinness. Then of course, this was made to be the main point of the article, and as you rightly point out, every other media outlet used it as a good excuse to print pictures of an attractive woman. I certainly don't think Lynne was thinking of Joan's character at the time.

cheers

Hannah
www.campaignforbodyconfidence.org.uk

...also that most of the articles that have covered this go 'nyer nyer they picked Joan from Mad Men so this campaign is obviously stupid'. They couldn't be more wrong...

monkey_man, he's not my type....

and I'll have a pair of sunglasses please. 15 bucks? - a steal.

Human League's, from Sheffield, version of the path of least resitance in human thought and actions from the late 1970s,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6QLi2agHKU

"EhtchTee
12 August 2010 at 12:27
Further to my Maureen O'Hara clip above, the other side of the coin, that ran after her, cowboys, yes, godamn yank cowboys,"

Women want real men. Eat your heart out and happy trails.

Buckskin's stallion leaves a big pile of steaming dung for the Brit dudes to sniff up.
((OO))

> In her mission to encourage advertisers to label airbrushed images of idealised female beauty, Featherstone has the wrong role model but the right idea. The Joan character is the living, breathing, breast-heaving embodiment of the idea that one cannot fight misogyny in the advertising industry. This campaign offers the bold and simple notion that one can, and that if the health and happiness of young women are at stake, the government should.

I had to read the article closely and this passage in particular, before I realized that actually I agree with it very much. But I think it may be worth following up with the idea that we might use MAD MEN to figure out what minefields there are to navigate in formulating clear role models. MAD MEN does a very good job of showing what American and Western societies are fabricated on. Too good, too empathetic, too attractive, perhaps, to the point where we confuse their etiologies with a sources of inspiration.

But I think the point of MAD MEN is to be inspired not to make certain mistakes. And to question assumptions. But it can be powerful in that it conveys what other alternatives there are at any given historical moment. So I don't know that we need to reject MAD MEN outright. Just the mistakes which it exposes which society is built on.

So what are good sources for role models for young women? I would say something like precisely the roles in MAD MEN or any cogent history -- without their mistakes. They are 'what we know', etc.

Buckskins, the 'ironic' point is that neither Laurel nor Hardy was trying to play John Wayne, more like the opposite to 'blondie' in the fistfull of dollars movie. Yeh, punk, with Clint the Eastwood, past mayor of Carmel, California. Yeh, Buckskins.

oops sorry Buckskins, and Clint, it was the Good, Bad and the Ugly, punk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hYV-JSjpyU

Can't watch the original Spaggetti Western? You're showing youself up now, sir, if I may point out, Sir Buckskins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOXYWEB7LgA

Does anyone know if David Beckhams abs or pouch were photoshopped?

Does anyone care at all that these unrealistic body images are being touted to young and not so young men, tortured by their lack of fitness and propensity to ten bellies?

well get on your horse and drink your milk.

Wyoming? Montana?, no Kentucky?