Daily Dose of Common Sense

Ladies, get a grip.

In their September issue, Glamour magazine printed a picture of a plus-size model. The 20-year old model–who looks refreshingly natural and beautiful–is a size 12-14 and this is her second appearance in Glamour.

Upon seeing the photo, readers went crazy. Finally! they said. Someone like us! Blogs and media everywhere were agog, and some were calling it “the picture you can’t stop talking about.” Here was what the editor-in-chief of Glamour had to say about the response:

I’d loved this photo at first sight myself–we’d commissioned it for a story on feeling comfortable in your skin, and wanted a model who looked like she was. But even so, the letters blew me away: “the most amazing photograph I’ve ever seen in any women’s magazine,” wrote one reader in Pavo, Georgia. From another in Somerset, Massachusetts: “This beautiful woman has a real stomach and did I even see a few stretch marks? This is how my belly looks after giving birth to my two amazing kids! This photo made me want to shout from the rooftops.”

She goes on about the other letters and emails received which say how thrilled women were to see this photo.

While it’s nice of Glamour to throw “real” women a bone, let’s get a sense of perspective here. This photo wasn’t on the cover. It was on page 194. Yeah, that’s 1-9-4. And, it wasn’t even a full-page photo. It was three inches by three inches. So, the image was fairly small and buried somewhere in the magazine. Why, exactly, are we all so ecstatic?

We should be outraged. Don’t give us a puny picture buried somewhere in the magazine. Put average-sized women on the covers. Use “normal” women to model clothes and makeup and hairstyles. The average size for American women is now 12-14, so why can’t the fashion and advertising industries get the hint? Like Liz Lemon on 30 Rock said, “It’s like those Dove commercials never even happened.”

Women should boycott fashion magazines until they get the big picture. Think it’s harmless? The fashion and advertising industries can adversely affect young girls in through negative body image and eating disorders.

So, show the publishing and fashion industries what you really think by NOT buying magazines that promote a gaunt, thin body image. Maybe, when they can’t sell magazines or dresses, they’ll come around. Maybe.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 9:40 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.