This is just priceless

Talking about body image... Ohmigod, I'm speechless at this yoghurt ad, via Feministing. Apparently Brazilian women need to know how they might look (pretty good actually, fuckos!) if they eat too much full-fat yoghurt. Argh.

That Beth Ditto nude cover...

I meant to post about this a while back and the Israeli women soldiers reminded me. There's been much talk about her nude cover and lots of debate as to whether she should've done it, from both feminists and other numbskulls who took it upon themselves to be disgusted by the picture all over the internet.

Personally, I think the fact that we find a picture like this so shocking says a lot about our society. As discussed at our group, people feel they have the right to comment on women and their bodies as a matter of course. I just loved this response to the whole debate by a male American feminist which I found via Feministing. Yeah!

Here's the thing: it's none of your fucking business how healthy Beth Ditto is.

Perfect girls, starving daughters

There's an interesting looking book out by one of the contributors to the feministing blog: Perfect girls, starving daughters by Courtney Martin is about body image, particularly in teenagers, and the pressures on young women to conform to a certain body type and look - with relation to mental illness and eating disorders. Looks interesting. Possible group choice in future?

If you go to Courtney Martin's website, meanwhile, you find an interesting article about the response to the Virginia Tech shootings by her which talks about how scared US students have been making public the names and photos of their fellow students suffering from mental illnesses, in order to identify potential 'threats'. Way to make the alienated feel more part of the community...

Fat women not unattractive shocker

Came across this article (link in title) in the Times. Now it's in the beauty section, so perhaps I'm being unfair, but the tone is really fucking annoying. OK, fat women can be sexy. Wow! Is this some kind of Damascene revelation?

I agree this is a bit nicer than the comments one quite frequently hears that fat women are just plain ugly or unattractive - and can't be anything else - but please can't we just stop saying any kind of looks or body shape is better than any other? You don't counter the body image problems of people who desperately want to be thinner by saying fat is better, you counter them (surely) by saying that these things shouldn't matter, that everyone can be beautiful and sexy to someone, that beauty and sexiness is really only important to the people you are close to/want to sleep with/love. Or am I being unfair? Thoughts?