Oh the irony

I agree with your resistance strategy bags My DDs are enlightened! I have taught in schools where there was a deliberate policy to support the children to understand the media and to challenge stereotypes, encourage children to be themselves etc. But bags it is too simple to expect that to be sufficient for all kids as other factors in their lives over-rule school & if parents don't support then really hard!

I am very wary of censoring or banning publications but think it is a different thing to pro-actively campaign in favour of raising awareness and reducing 'sensationalist' and 'gossip' type magazine/news content etc.

I still think learning to resist the exploitation is a better bet than trying to stop the exploiters, i.e. good education for girls so that they are not so susceptible. Worked for me. Worked for my sister, and my mum, and my aunts. Worked for DDs one and two. Minibags is a work in progress.

And I got some of the best education for this resistance from two sources: my dad and my secondary school teachers, including nuns.

Educated, enlightened men and strong, kick ass women (also educated and enlightened... liberated!) are good for girls. Get in there, grans!

Absolutely penstemmon . It looks like a conspiracy doesn't it. Not suggesting it is, but if there was an international conspiracy to undermine women and convince them they need a long list of things including "must have handbags", size 10 hips and a huge bosom, this is what it would look like
But i think they just want to sell more trashy mags....

But Jess & bags where does the deliberate exploitation and manipulation come into the mix? Magazine publishers, news editors, TV companies are all in it for money and not to benefit the 'customer'.

Do you not think that cold calculation by people (mostly but not exclusively men) in the media to promote the attitudes seen in 'celeb' mags, reality shows, royal 'interest' stories etc is purely a financial and designed to increase the market?

yes bags some are more dominant than others for instance. I always tell kids that bullies are feeling bad about themselves and think they can make themselves feel better if they can make someone else feel bad... but only works for a minute or two, and then they feel bad about themselves again.

Agreed. And well put.

I think "cultural norms" can vary quite a lot though. What I recognise as acceptable cultural norms will not be the same as what someone else finds acceptable.

I think we could probably add personality to that list too. Another fairly vague concept, but one which does make a difference to how people behave even with good nurture behind them.

I've been thinking about your question bags and here are my thoughts.
We evolved to live in tribes of a few dozen people with an extended network of contacts of no more than low hundreds. We are naturally interested in people and want to know what is going on in the lives of our friends and relations. This may be a particularly female trait. I think gossip magazines etc may fill this void in modern society where so many people live in rather anonymous cities.
Also, in the context of a small community, healthy, attractive females that are outside our social group are at the same time very interesting (good genetic partner for our sons?) and threatening (will they seduce our partners or sons away?) . Hence, maybe, the contradictory comments made about celebs plays into this.
And finally,
We all have within us the capacity to be good, kind and altruistic and we also have the capacity to be mean bullies that try to crush those lower in the pecking order, or on the fringes of the group. What is expressed in terms of actual behaviour is largely "nurture", experience and cultural norms we live in.

I think it is too early to 'know' what makes kate tick.. She hasn't made her mark yet. On the odd occasion I have seen her on TV all I have seen so far are lots of smiles and thoughtfully put together outfits.. Whether this is her doing or some advisor I don!t know but I do think she is no young teenager but mature enough to know how to dress for the occasion. Does anyone know if this press coverage has actually annoyed her? She has had enough press coverage by now to know how it works, for you, or against you.

Doesn't she buy stuff out of, you know, shops, anyway?

Or maybe Kate has told them not to weight her hems .

JessM - Hillary Clinton may have been being ironic but I think she knew the truth behind what she was saying. She learned (or perhaps always was able) to rise above it, goodness knows she was a sitting target as First Lady, but as I said, I think Kate has the measure of the press- at least on her own behalf. And I agree with Bach - I too was always under the impression that "royal" hems had weghts sewn into them. Maybe some modern dress designers don't know that?

thatbags I agree with you that the trashy 'women's mags' carry on because women buy them. Many of the women who read these magazines have low educational aspirations and attainment and are already channeled into 'celeb' culture, the 'right' appearance etc etc. They are the women who appear on the sad Jeremy Kyle Show..dysfunctional lives being made more dysfunctional by the nonsense in these mags. Many live their own lives as if they were in a TV soap opera.
I do think that there are many young women now who are suffering from a type of feminist backlash. In my 20's & 30's there was loads of stuff around educating women and young girls about choices they could make, not being limited by gender etc & that it was who you were not what you looked like that mattered. We actively taught feminism and equality in primary schools. Those days are gone!
I accept that there were always those that rejected feminism but it was more 'mainstream' and talked about than now. Has the pendulum swung the other way or too far?
The translation of feminism to mean that a girl/woman can choose to use sex /sexual behaviour to get what she wants & still be in control may be true for a few women but for others it is still objectification and loss of power.
I think the 'pinkstinks' campaign is based on a good premiss but does not address the equal stereotyping of boys and toys and tough guy attitudes sufficiently. Shame they did not find a gender neutral brand name for the campaign!

As a bloke I always understood that the royal women had the hems of their skirts and dresses weighted to prevent this from happening. However it it really newsworthy thought the NOTW had finished though perhaps now we know where theit photographers and photo editors have gone. [Hmm]

I think she was joking wasn't she gracesmum - I seem to remember she announced that she was fed up with having to spend time with a hairdresser before work ever day and henceforth she was just going to tie it back. (Can you imagine a man in that job spending time having his hair done every day - just goes to prove the point about the pressure on women)

Hillary Clinton is one awesome woman.

I am in boring quoting mood today and in the spirit of "Don't get mad, get even" I am reminded of Hillary Clinton, who is one clever lady and has clearly learned how NOT to let the press get to her, who said:

"'If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle."

I would like to think Kate (unlike her late MIL who learned too late how to manipulate the press, if at all) knows how to make the intrusive press work for her. I suspect she has their measure.

A depressing thought, ana, but probably true. I'm off out into the frosty outside to get warm doing some garden work.

But presumably most of us don't buy it anyway. If we did complain about something we'd seen online or heard about on here, I doubt they'd take much notice - we aren't their target consumers, after all.

I fear you're right about what would happen if men's uniform were relaxed a little, jane. Look at all the outrage when someone wears a jacket but no tie. Sigh. We are such a peculiar species.

I still maintain that the fault lies more, or at very least equally, with the buyers of crap journalism than with the writers of it. At some point we consumers of crap journalism have to take individual responsibility for the nastiness out there and do what we can to stop it without resorting to censorship. The least we can do is refuse to buy it and write to editors to complain.

Love it, JA.

No BAnanas you were right the first time.

Women is the plural of woman, so the apostrophe comes after women and before the s.

If however you were writing about cats' appearances, the apostrophe comes after the s because cats is the plural of cat. Strictly speaking if you were talking aboput cats' appearances, it should be cats's, but convention drops the last s.

Sorry, just having a Bernard Woolley moment

Bags If male MPs deviated from their uniform of suits and wore smart casual stuff instead, we would have to suffer even more journalists' observations on their garb, instead of what is actually going on.
Do we really want a male equivalent of Theresa May's shoes?
You are right about women being just as bitchy as men about other women's appearances - wasn't it Germaine Greer who said that Suzanne Moore had 'birds-nest hair and f*ck-me shoes'?

ooops should have typed womens' appearance!

Have just been reading through this thread, and saw that Ana previously mentioned Rebecca Addlington who had her appearance commented on in a horrible way by Frankie Boyle. Rebecca is someone who is in the public eye for being superb gold medal winning swimmer and certainly didn't warrant the nasty comments made by that oaf, she's an athlete for heaven's sake, she isn't out in the public arena for her looks. He also made vile comments about Katie Price's disabled child. I don't particularly like Katie Price but sympathised completely with her anger in that instance, casting a slur on her and the relationship she has with her son was beyond unacceptable, am I right in thinking that Channel 4 did not remove him after this?

Possibly I've digressed a bit here, I can understand why some members get pissed off by the constant comments in the popular press about women's appearance. Personally I find the unacceptable comments that so called "right on" comedians feel they can make about people who are in the public eye for a damn good reason or worse still children, reprehensible.

And another opportunity for the snipers to have a go at women: "what does she think she's wearing?!"

Loosening up men's uniform might help.