"Most women actually resent being told what to do, or how to act, whether by men, or these radical feminists."

Shadow Minister you have not concluded this from the article. Stick to what's at hand. Are we going to have to have the same debate anytime one of these articles comes out?

And Cornflower- what a sheep.
*yawn*

Shadow Minister

You said

"The main point coming through is that it is un feminist to be sexy"

Did you even read the article?

No, Shadow Minister, that is a point you have made up as a result of your preconceived notions about feminism.

The main point of this article is NOT that there is anything wrong with being sexy, but rather that Kate Ellis' photoshoot does nothing to challenge current beauty ideals and thus does nothing to improve women's body image, as Ellis claims.

Read the article again.

Dwight,

I read the article, but I am not sure that you did, or even tried to understand what I was saying. Kate Ellis is not a model, she does not starve herself or exercise to death. She is a normal person who with the right clothes etc looks great without airbrushing or Photoshop.

She is not creating unrealistic expectations and does challenge the beauty ideals by showing that a normal person can look great.

Has it finally sunk in or do I have to use really small words.

Lydia may not be a feminazi, but by no stretch of the imagination could her clothes be called adventurous, (maybe to the new england settlers)

If you still cannot get your head around this, what would you suggest the beauty ideals should be?

"Activism requires working with people you don't share same worldviews with - and christ, i can't stand many of the people i work with. But you know what? you do it because it's the only way change will ever occur. Imagine if you only ever agreed to deal with people who shared your same political and religious views."

It is disturbing that this type of maturity is becoming so rare. Take Cornflower's statement for example; "Most women actually resent being told what to do, or how to act, whether by men, or these radical feminists." It appears that our desire to protect the feelings of women has created a generation of women who expect to go through life only hearing what they want to hear. Men who deliver unwanted messages are accused of being controlling (Severin provides an excellent example). Women's gender role has always involved being quite diplomatic. The growth of the self-esteem movement and the twisting of feminism to focus entirely on choice means that women are expected to be unbelievably careful about other women's feelings. Quite innocuous statements either "hurt someone's self esteem" or "undermines someone's right to make choices".

Ultimately, they will need to HTFU. Often, the people who deliver unwanted messages are true friends

benk and SM
The issue of self esteem is worthy of a subject itself. I agree that the modern push for 'self esteem' and the indoctrination that goes with it (eg. "you can be anything you want to be" mantra) often make things worse.

In fact I posit that we have become less resilient since the advent of "self esteem" policies.

Still the fact remains that the crux of the photoshoot has not been addressed as DWIGHT and others have repeated. Remembering that Kate Ellis herself (who I like by the way and have no grievance) has stated this shoot was done to foster self esteem and was about body image.

How does this photoshoot supposedly assit with promoting young women's self esteem?

I am not sure what sort of photoshoot would have been able to achieve that goal other than a bevy of people lining up unafraid to be photographed as they really are in all shapes and sizes.

Perhaps the real issue is we should stop trying to mock up any sort of photoshoot that targets body image per se.

Consumers are the biggest power group here and if we want to (some clearly won't) we can stop buying magazines that don't present women and men in unnatural airbrushed photos and who promote the au naturelle.

benk,

Very droll, but you really don't need to twist my rejection of the ideological fanaticism of fundy radical feminists (who would turn a fashion shoot into a male plot) into a straw man argument to spark up your contest with severin.

General comment
As per usual the fundamentalism of radical feminists and the religious right has drawn both sides together in self-righteous wowserism aimed at controlling women. Both sides know what is best for women and if that risks knee-capping a young successful woman MP and minister then so be it, the end obviously justifies the means.

However Kate Ellis has emerged unaffected and with even stronger popular support. This has been a PC storm in a tea cup and the fundys have been outed for their weird beliefs and self-serving agendas.