to want Carol Voderman to keep her baps in the breadbin?

[Bogeyface]

She has a great figure, is very beautiful, has great hair (I want her hair!), is intelligent and erudite.

So why the need to squeeze her boobs so up and in that she could rest her chin on them? Just watched 8 out of 10 Cats and she was shoehorned into a top that had them practically falling out and the make up job on them was none too subtle.

Be proud of your boobs, I love mine! But dont be defined by them!

[Moistenedbint1]

At risk of sounding like a militant feminist, its individuals like Vorderman who reinforce the notion that women who are "imperfect" should resort to mutulation and invasive beauty practices like plastic surgery. As she herself has done. She's barely resembles the woman she once was...hence the reason I'm hesitant to call her beautiful.

The word "beautiful" should be reserved for women who make the most of what they have... in spite of their so called "imperfections". Not someone who capitulates to the Barbie ideal.

[middleagedwoman]

What is wrong with being a militant feminist :)

[Sparklingbrook]

I still really don't 'get' putting an enormous cleavage on display and what it's for.

[middleagedwoman]

To attract the male gaze and get male approval. Women are taught to seek that. Carol is simply complying with these "rules".

[Sparklingbrook]

Are these the same women that complain men are looking at their boobs middle?

[ringaringarosy]

so,do militant feminists not show cleavage then?

[middleagedwoman]

ring - Must admit, yes I do.

sparkling - yes probably

I don't care what Carol wears. But I do think there is a vast difference in the way women and men are expected to dress on TV. I hate seeing men wearing jumpers or similar, standing next to women wearing very little. It simply reinforces the idea that the main purpose of women is to be a sex object.

[MarmaladeBatkins]

Carol isn't erudite at all. Her show of right-wing wankery on QT demonstrated that. Peering over her glasses that I have never ever seen her wear before, in a bid to make it look like she knew what she was prattling on about.

The dress issue... Just get one that fits, love.

I preferred her when she was wearing tartan box blazers on Countdown.

[MarmaladeBatkins]

"Most men don't actually care who is wearing what."

That is a big load of bollocks, as well.

The whole world of media is a boy's club. You don't think that it's women hectoring Miley Cyrus to cavort around naked, do you?

[middleagedwoman]

Of course men care about what women wear.

[MarmaladeBatkins]

And also this "women are the biggest oppressors of other women" is also bollocks.

Don't any of you listen to that, please. It's another convenient line spun by men to get women to turn on each other.

Personally, I wish CV wouldn't dress as she does because whilst supposedly intelligent women like her do as such, nothing is going to change with the status quo, which is "you can keep your media job as long as you're showing us what's under your frock." This is why I wish she'd have the balls not to do it. It's so easy and so lame. You can forgive it of young women because they're naive. Not so much when you get to Carol's age, with your third from Cambridge.

[specialsubject]

it seems it is a third in Engineering from Cambridge. This means she worked hard to get in and then stopped bothering once she was there. Waste of three years and somebody's money.

she can do mental arithmetic. So can most of us.

I just find cleavage a non-pretty sight. She could look better, and dress smartly without being tarty. Those pictures are so, so dumb.

[LadyBigtoes]

Ahhh thank you OP, I LOVE the word "baps" :o Beats norks any day.

Agree with Batkins. She can dress how she likes, but it does seem to be sending a dodgy message. It's possible to be brainy, beautiful and fabulously dressed without suggesting that you can only stay on top of your game by thrusting a faceful of baps at everyone. And I would say the same of a male TV personality who was constantly trying to dress revealingly as a selling point - they just tend not to.

Look at people like Kirsty Wark and La Worsley - they do glam and stylish much better IMO, in a way that says "force to be reckoned with" rather than simply "Loook at my baps!"

Of course it's a fine line. It's important to support any woman's right to wear what she likes. If that is how CV really likes to look, then fair play. But I think sometimes there are other forces at work and women dress in a way that makes them seem like they are really pandering to a very cheap and nasty, Nuts-esque male view of what women have to offer, and doing us all a disservice.

[ringaringarosy]

I am so bloody confused by it all,i really am.

It sounds hypocritical to me.

You say its all men,but im guessing mist people on this thread slagging her off are women.And as for miley cyrus,why do you assume she isnt doing that because she wants to?After all,she is how old,20?can she not make decisions for herself?

[Sparklingbrook]

So a third at University isn't worth having?

[ringaringarosy]

why does cleavage equal tarty?i just dont get it,that,to me,is like something an sexist old man would say,showing off your body makes you a slapper.I thought people had moved on.

[LessMissAbs]

I can't stand women in low cut tops or, just as bad, tight tops stretched over a big pair of boobs in a top two sizes too small. But then I'm not a man, and its not designed to appeal to me. I absolutely hate that sort of attention myself, makes me feel vile, and I don't know why people court it. It does usually seem to go with a plain face though...

Carol Vorderman presumably dresses for the middle aged tv executives who keep giving her work, and for some of her male fans. Its astonishing that she has held onto fame for so long but what she is doing clearly works. Which is a sad indictment of whats on tv at the moment.

Perhaps only one "look" works for her and her figure is hard to dress. Its very "samey".

I thought a Third was pretty much considered a fail and a charitable thing on the university's part for a student who would be pretty much rendered unemployable in that field after getting one?

[Sparklingbrook]

But why do people put their cleavage on display? Do they wake up in the morning and think 'i know I will get my cleavage out today'. You could cut the backside out of your trousers one day to make a change.

[MarmaladeBatkins]

Well... having read Sinead O'Connor's letter to Miley/Charlotte Church's John Peel lecture on representation of women in music this week*, I'd rather take their word that yes, marketing men DO pressure young female performers to dress provocatively.

*Not that I didn't already know that anyway. I thought everyone did?!

[LessMissAbs]

Its to get men looking at them, Sparklingbrook. And then I guess it becomes a habit.

Have to say I think exactly the same about a man who wears tight, genitalia revealing trousers. Fortunately, its very rare. But I feel uncomfortable around men who sit with their hands resting on their genitals, for instance.

[ringaringarosy]

If anyone is sexist its you lot,you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Am leaving this thread now,its ridiculous.

[MarmaladeBatkins]

"why does cleavage equal tarty?i just dont get it,that,to me,is like something an sexist old man would say,showing off your body makes you a slapper.I thought people had moved on."

Well, no. Things don't move on, do they? Because everything still dances to the tune of sex. Or rather, to the tune of a woman's sexual appeal.

No-one has said it's "tarty" but it's certainly sexually-charged. Carol isn't thinking "I'll really win them over with my knowledge of Pythagora's in this too small top." And she knows it. Look at how she dressed on Question Time. High neck, prim glasses. She knew no-one would take her seriously dressed like this.

She goes onto shows like 8 out 10 Cats dressed like she is in the second picture because a) they are shows where 5/6ths of the panel are male. There might be a token woman but it's usually someone like Carol or Kelly Brook who will dress nicely for them and laugh at their jokes, and b) because if she started to dress like Mary Beard (who is fucking brilliant, btw) she'd never get asked back.

So it's a vicious circle for Carol. Stop dressing to please the menz, don't get asked back. Dress to please the menz, be ridiculed for pleasing the menz. It's her choice which of these inconveniences she chooses, but I don't think that women in the media are going to make any great leaps forward whilst women like Carol perpetuate this kind of silliness.

[irregularegular]

I expect all my students (Oxford) to get a 2.1. If they get a 2.2 then either we have made a mistake at admissions (it happens) or they have been exceptionally lazy. 2.2s are rare in the arts/humanities/social sciences and a third is almost unheard of.

The picture is a little different in the sciences and there were more 3rds in Carol Vorderman's day. Still pretty poor though!

[Sparklingbrook]

it's still a degree though isn't it irregular? Isn't that to be celebrated?

[MarmaladeBatkins]

Yeah, but, loads of people could achieve a third. It's nothing to be embarrassed about but she isn't the Einstein that a lot of people think she is.

She just has a good brain for recalling numbers. Which is more than I have got. I got a D for Maths GCSE