Ladies in knickers

Yes to all these comments.

I'm a bit of an ugly duckling in that I could look good if I put effort into losing a bit of weight, taming my hair and buying some decent clothes. So some friends tend to see me as a bit of a project. Their reasoning is usually "you'd feel so much more confident" and I'm always at the idea that confidence should be attached to looks.

The problem of course is that it's true. Media / society / patriarchy / beauty industry/ whatever you want to call it has drummed into us for so long the message that attractiveness = self-worth that we just can't let go of it.

I really wish I could.

I've been reflecting a bit more on why this gets up my nose.

I think it's because looking at photos of women always has this baggage of the fuckability test. We're flooded with images of what attractive women are supposed to look like - it's currency in our culture. Is she hot? Is she pretty? How are her breasts, her legs, her bottom? Does she have a thigh gap, bingo wings, a muffin top?

All that making a big deal out of not-conventionally attractive women posing in their undies does is change the parameters of the fuckability test. It's OK if you don't look like a model! You can still be and feel attractive! That matters! That gives you value!

I say fuck the fuckability test. Let women just be. Let's not look. Let's not compare. Let's not console each other that we all look like that underneath our clothes. It's still playing the game. Drop the rope.

I thought it was a pretty good thing when a "real woman" was used to model some underwear I was looking to buy, they even left in her stretch marks.

Beyond selling underwear I don't need to see that.

It doesn't inspire me to see any women in their pants, it just annoys me. And depresses me.

Objectifying and not empowering in my book. I wish they'd all just leave women's bodies alone.

I'm pretty indifferent to those photo shoots and Dove adverts. They don't talk to me, they're just a bit odd.

Also women on social media "proudly" displaying all their "stretch marks"/"tiger stripes" and "cellulite". Ugh they just irritate me. They always have nice bodies.

What I have found quite positive though is seeing naked/nearly naked women on shows like Embarrassing Bodies and Anna Richardson' Sex Education Show. I always come away from those experiences feeling more confident and normal and absurdly slightly shocked that not all women look like the models I see everyday in advertising etc.

I think what would actually be empowering would be if we had a culture that was more open in general about nakedness. I live in Korea and it is really normal to go to the public bath with family/friends, get naked, get in the jacuzzi and have your companion scrub you down.

You see all sorts of bodies: fat, skinny, saggy boobs, stretch marks and it really makes you realise that in the end, it's just a body and no huge deal. Most people have flaws.

But in the UK, we have to parade women around in public in their underthings, but baulk at changing in the gym unless we hide behind a towel.

Very odd attitude to women's bodies.

While I agree that it would be good to see more a wider range of women in public roles so that young women could see themselves being similarly successful without having to radically (and sometimes impossibly) change that doesn't require anyone taking their clothes off.

I suspect that the women who (thinking positively) this advert might have been intending to reach are more likely to react with disgust than feel some sort of validation. And yes it seem ludicrous to imagine a group of older ordinary men being photographed sitting around in their undies, which says it all really.

I find it so depressing. To me it just say"Look women, no matter how far you progress in your career, you're still just women, so you still have to undress for the cameras.". It's not empowering, it's just reminding us that it never ends. We have to be on display all our lives.

not rtft

It's still objectifying

It would be nice if we didn't have to have images of half--naked women everywhere, no of course there's nothing empowering about it. Where are the snaps of men being similarly empowered. It still says that we are what we look, that what we look is who we are

nah

" . I remember reading an article about women search and rescue helicopter pilots in Afghanistan. They were carrying out an incredibly skillful and courageous role, but a big chunk of the text was about their hair, their makeup, their earrings. "

Yes, why not? After all, the hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear...

I have mixed feelings about these pics. I'm sure the target audience isn't men, for them to ogle at, but for women, to give them confidence.
But ultimately to give them confidence for them to ogle them, prehaps?

" . I remember reading an article about women search and rescue helicopter pilots in Afghanistan. They were carrying out an incredibly skillful and courageous role, but a big chunk of the text was about their hair, their makeup, their earrings. "
Ffs how annoying

'Men are celebrated for what they do, women for what they look like'

Yes, this. Even when women are supposedly being celebrated for their actions there appearance will still be commented on. I remember reading an article about women search and rescue helicopter pilots in Afghanistan. They were carrying out an incredibly skillful and courageous role, but a big chunk of the text was about their hair, their makeup, their earrings. No one would ever write a similar article about men and describe them in that way.

SomeDyke
I know Huffty (not socially, through her women's centre), shes awesome and her legs have the most glorious coat of leg-fur I've ever seen. Her wife is awesome too.

"and commented that she has never seen a girl that looks like her in any of them. "
This is an excellent point.

I could also say the same about butch dykes. Many years ago, Huffty was a presenter on The Word for one series. She was a dyke with a shaved head. Which led to me getting a lot of comments and being asked if I was her - despite the fact that we were nowhere near alike except for the bald dyke bit. I also get mistaken for some random buddhist that some people have met (or so they claim).

"I'm a fan of the tumblr site with pictures of hairy legs..."
Come on, LINK please! I'm a great fan of the furry leg................

It wouldn't be compulsory, I'm not feeling an authoritarian vibe!

Men and women segregated into different baths, people hanging out nude socially

That would be grim. I really don't want to see naked people.

Women-only bathing beaches would be a better solution than some pictures of celebrity ladies in their knickers.

I like the idea of adopting a bathing culture like the type found in Japan. Men and women segregated into different baths, people hanging out nude socially.

It looks bizarre but then I think... If they don't then there'll be no exposed bodies in the media that aren't young, toned, cosmetically enhanced and airbrushed. That does have an impact on how people view themselves.

The fashion for the wobbly, stretch marked, distended shapes and excessive fat to be exposed to the world is a reaction to the perfection the media bombards us with. I kind of like it. I can look at them and think, phew, I'm not the worst...

Interestingly none of them are displaying less than perfect bikini lines or hairy legs and armpits.

I do think nudity is empowering in some contexts. Perhaps not so much to sell products tho... i dont think selling things or advertising things really empowers the female body much.

A healthy dose of reality might be helpful to some women. Seeing that others don't look perfect.

Women-only bathing beaches would be a better solution than some pictures of celebrity ladies in their knickers.

I'm a fan of the tumblr site with pictures of hairy legs, but that's not a commercial thing.

Why do women need images of women to validate themselves rather than the women they meet in real life everyday?

I think it's because the media and the pictures in them - TV, magazines, films, newspapers - should ideally reflect society. And when women and girls see no one that looks like them in the media, or see people who look like them described negatively or ridiculed, they start to wonder what that says about their place in society, or if they even have a place at all.

One of the girls I look after is black, with very dark skin and close cropped Afro hair, worn naturally and not dyed. She was looking through one of her teenage girls' magazines once (I know, I don't buy them for her) and commented that she has never seen a girl that looks like her in any of them.

She knows lots of black women, in her family and in our community, but I know that not seeing anyone who looks like her held up as an aesthetic to aspire to makes her feel unattractive and not good enough, and irrespective of the logic, that makes me cross.

O for the day when one can let one's body be seen, not because it's beautiful but because it doesn't matter whether it's beautiful or not.

Men are celebrated for what they do, women for what they look like. There is nothing empowering about an ad which effectively says "well, you look a bit crap, but hey, we'll set it up so someone looks at you."

What about what we can do, what we can achieve, what we manage in the face of adversity, the extraordinary women who achieve the incredible, the ordinary women in difficult circumstances for whom just keeping things going is an achievement? Why does it come down to "hey, you too can stand around on prime-time TV in your knickers, whoop whoop, hang out the fucking bunting"?