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Guest Post: Gossip magazines and body shaming - "we got it wrong"

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MumsnetGuestPosts · 12/02/2014 16:01

"We got it wrong..."

Those were the words of Sally Eyden, editor of Now magazine, as she opened Monday’s panel discussion on body image and the media. "We got the tone of the message wrong; we wouldn't use the same language again." HURRAH!

Those words are a resounding victory for each and every person who emailed, tweeted and blogged about that cover over Christmas and New Year. There was nothing right or good about calling other women's bodies "shocking", and the whole "normal" phrase came across as pretty flipping snide too. We all knew it was wrong, and we made enough noise to make Now sit up and take notice.

Monday's meeting was bursting with brilliant, witty, smart women, including several members of Now's editorial team. What struck me was how ingrained in our media this body shaming culture must be for these people to have plastered those words across their cover without realising how awful it was. It just wasn't okay, but they know that now.

But after this admission, I felt the barriers really go up. Body covers sell - that's a fact. Another fact: the horrible body shaming cover in question sold far more issues than the "Screw The Diet" issue, which was published the following week. Sally made it absolutely clear that Now are in the business of profit, first and foremost. In a multi-million pound industry, it's all about circulation and profile, regardless of whom or what you're selling to get there. Everything - even social responsibility - comes second and that's not something an individual editor or journalist can change. That's just how the media is.

Although Sally said she wanted to find a happy medium between those two covers; to find a way to continue with the body covers without the shaming that created such a furore, she also argued that this culture of body shaming is widespread across media and that some magazines are much worse. So, everyone else does it. That makes it okay, right? Wrong. The target audience of Now might love those body shaming articles, but that message is presented to millions more who don't even buy the magazine: on shop shelves, on newsagent racks, in dentists' waiting rooms. When the media creates a message, there's no stopping its reach. It saddened me to hear women justify criticising and demeaning other women by telling us 'that's just how the media is'.

What is this masochism about? Why do those covers sell so well? Because women love to bitch about women, apparently. Why - when most of us have nursed our own body insecurities - do we love to compare themselves? It's a product of a cycle of body-consciousness, perpetuated everywhere by magazines and TV. It's a guilty pleasure for a lot of us, and while this stuff sells, it'll continue to be produced.

Of course it's not just magazines – it's everywhere, and Sally was keen to make this point. We were played a video of Emmerdale actress Gemma Oaten talking candidly about her battle with anorexia. Gemma argued that it is ridiculous to assert that anorexia is caused by magazines, and insulting to those who have battled eating disorders.

The actress was brilliant, but I found using Gemma in this context pretty distasteful. It felt like the Now team were smugly absolving themselves of all responsibility.

Eating disorders are complex, psychological issues. Lauren Benton – founder and CEO of BODY - spoke brilliantly at this point, explaining that whilst magazines and the media were not causes of eating disorders, they are without doubt triggers. We subconsciously store these images and compare ourselves, often without realising. The impact on self-worth that reducing women's value to their physical characteristics seemed really lost on the Now team, and that was really, really disheartening. This was a low point for me. It really felt that the Now team were only willing to pay lip service to addressing this.

Fortunately, things began to look up. Sally asked how they could change Now for the better. They are interested in our ideas. There was a consensus that features should move away from differentiation of women based on size, or even any mention of size at all. My fellow blogger Kate Taylor suggested featuring women and their achievements; a focus on what we can do rather than how we look.

I told Now that body shaming reduces a woman's worth to the sum of her physical parts; you only had to look at the achievements of the women in that one room to see how this diminishes us and all that we have to offer. Women should be celebrated, not judged. We should be empowered, not belittled. I also told them that this media obsession with weight and shape started somewhere and grew; change can do the very same thing. Did they listen? Time will tell.

But at least our voice has been heard. If no one had spoken up about that cover, nothing would have changed. If you hadn't all tweeted, emailed and commented on blogs, the editor of Now wouldn't have assured the women sat around that table that they wouldn't use that language again. The meeting may be over, but the conversation about body image and the media is only just beginning. Rome wasn't built in a day, but we've definitely laid the foundations.

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Oblomov · 13/02/2014 12:32

I have tried to find link to now dec 13 cover, but can not.