OMG, I think I’m going to go insane. Is it because the game of ‘which one is not like the eithers’ reminds me of Sesame Street, or because I am sick to DEATH of people seeing discrimination where there is none! Particularly via the media where the catch cry is “If it Bleeds, It Leads”.

As a writer, blogger and woman, I scan the internet for trends, stories, satire; a raft of things that interest me. And, as we all know, provocative headlines attract attention. So I, like many others, clicked on a story discussing a well-known fashion magazine that had put out one issue with four different covers; nothing much new about that either.

What incensed me was the journalist writing a critique suggesting one of the four covers had been cropped to ‘hide’ the real weight of the actress in the photo. Four successful television actresses, all gorgeous, talented and popular. Three in colourful full shots. One in black and white, cropped to head and shoulders. Oh, and the only woman of ‘colour’ (she’s Indian) and, according to the journalist, she’s ‘fuller-figured’ – meaning an Australia size 12 (US size 8) and ‘black’. In whose judgmental universe is a size 12 woman FULLER-FIGURED! So NATURALLY there must be some insidious & vile conspiracy to hide her figure (cropped photo) and hide her race (black & white photo). I’m sorry, but if you are so desperate for a story you have to scrape together a conspiracy theory like that then maybe you need to stick with writing about cooking.

The critique was written by an Australian journalist who should know better than to describe an Australian size 12 as ‘fuller-figured’. Woman are getting taller but ‘celebrities’ and models are getting thinner. Don’t even get me started on Karl Lagerfeld who doesn’t want to design for or have his designs seen on ‘fat women’ – meaning any woman who doesn’t model for a living. And let’s not forget, if most store mannequins were real people they would likely have serious eating disorders and no menstrual cycle!

I’m actually not sure what I’m more livid about; a size 12 woman being called ‘fuller-figured’, a photograph cropped to head & shoulders ONLY because the subject is allegedly fuller-figured, a black and white photo ONLY to hide race, or the Australian journalist for being sucked into a paranoid trap.

And I might add, the magazine in question does NOT validate the journalists suggestion of racist weightism.

You decide. 

Read it now & tell Mums Lounge what you think.