A not-so-subtle reminder that we should be ashamed of our bodies, but that we can fix it with their product.

 

I’m an average-sized, curvy woman and I love my body the way it is. Fat is not a bad word, however, I have to admit, my self-esteem took a temporary hit with this one.

He certainly didn’t learn that language from our family so I was left wondering where he came up with it. I realized that while we were watching TV, weight loss commercials were catching his attention and putting these terrible ideas about mommy’s body in his mind.

While my husband and I were busy making sure our son didn’t see TV shows or commercials glorifying violence and guns, there was something else just as sinister seeping into his very impressionable brain. We are concerned that these negative media messages will distort his view of women.

If our son constantly sees ads with women talking about wanting to lose weight, then he’ll learn to constantly focus on and criticize their bodies.

It’s hard enough for me to see these commercials and try to ignore them, but my son has yet to learn about the effects these negative media messages have on all of us.

He doesn’t know that advertisers are playing with our self-esteem in order to get us to buy their products. He doesn’t know that they’ll say anything to get us to hand over our money.

According to advertisers for weight loss products, no body is good enough the way it is.

 

He doesn’t realize there’s a difference between real women and those who have been edited to appear to be “perfect”. He doesn’t know about the lengths that women are pressured to go to in order to fit the “ideal” beauty standards.

If I do nothing, the negative media messages will teach him to value women’s appearances instead of their intelligence, their size instead of their humor, how well they fit society’s beauty standards instead of the goodness in their hearts.

If I do nothing, he might objectify women and think nothing of the violence that is committed against them. If I do nothing, he might tell other women that they’re fat.

I wasn’t planning on having a conversation with him about these things until he was older. His fourth birthday is approaching and I’ve already seen how media messages and social pressures have changed his view of the world. If I don’t get ahead of them, then it will be a lot harder to change any negative perceptions of women he may have developed down the road.

My husband and I want our sons to value women and their bodies as they are naturally, and to treat them with respect and not objectify them. The next time a weight loss commercial comes on, we’ll have that much needed conversation or turn the channel.

Gretchen Edwards-Bodmer is a curvy grrrl from Virginia with a Master’s degree in Humanities and Women’s Studies. You can find her musings about raising two boys in this crazy world at www.grrrlwithboys.blogspot.com and follow her on Twitter @GrrrlWithBoys

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Would you publish your diary from when you were a pre-teen on the Internet for the entire world to read?

From Facebook: “Working to undo the dangerous slut shaming in our schools, communities, media, and culture by sharing knowledge and experiences.”

This is exactly what 27-year-old Emily Lindin (pen name) is doing in the name of countering slut shaming, with a Tumblr blog she has named The UnSlut Project.

Emily says, “I was branded a ‘slut’ by my classmates and for the next few years of my life, I was bullied incessantly at school, after school, and online (this was 1997 in the days of AIM, and of course online bullying has only gotten worse).”

The term “slut shaming” has been popping up in media, especially on the Internet, for a little while now, but is recently making its way into mainstream conversations about young women, girls, and sexuality.

The term is used to describe the ways in which our culture criticizes and vilifies young women and girls for being sexual, having “too many” sexual partners, or perhaps not having sex in the “appropriate” way (ya know, for making babies—but only after your very heterosexual, traditional wedding).

Emily was “the 6th grade slut.” The UnSlut Project features unedited entries from her 6th grade diary (1997-1998 so far), including an entire cast of friends, enemies, and of course, boys, boyfriends, boy “friends”, and crushes… who are boys.

Emily’s diary travels through her on and off (and on, and off, and on, and off) relationship with Zach, it talks about various crushes, sexuality, jealousy, friendship, bullying, self-esteem issues, even thoughts of suicide, and all of the other ups and downs that come with adolescence. Her recollections of her daily life show us how quickly and dramatically rumors are spread and escalated in schools:

“Aaron said he had heard that Zach ‘ate me out.’ I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I said it wasn’t true, just to be on the safe side.”

End Slut Shaming.

Besides countering slut shaming, the publishing of Emily’s diary also rejects current assumptions about slut shaming and bullying—people often blame social media and technology for the bullying that is happening today.

While there is no doubt that bullying happens online and through text messaging, Emily’s diary shows us that it isn’t because of social media and texting; it’s because of the culture in which we live.

Whether we’re talking about Emily’s world in 1998 or another young girl’s world today in 2013, we are taught to follow very rigid, traditional gender expectations. These lead to dangerous double standards (such as “he’s a stud, she’s a slut”) that can result in cruel slut shaming and bullying that have even driven some young people to suicide.

No one, especially young people navigating their way through this crazy world, deserves to be bullied. No one deserves to be isolated and shunned for being a sexual being (or not).

I’ve definitely got my fingers crossed that this glimpse into a young girl’s mind, as well as the experiences shared by others on the blog, will help bring to light the problems in our culture surrounding girls and sexuality. I have even more hope that perhaps we can all work together to find solutions.

If you want to share your story with The UnSlut Project, you may do so here.

So there’s this new Dove “Real Beauty Sketches” ad campaign, and I’m finally ready to say my piece about it.

I watched the three-minute version and felt emotions swelling in my chest. I liked this cathartic feeling, so I immediately watched the six-minute version, which moved me to tears (they welled up in my eyes but didn’t fall. I now think my tears knew better than I did…).

Woman with her sketches from the Dove Real Beauty ad campaign.

My thoughts hadn’t yet sorted themselves out, but my emotional reaction was pretty straightforward; I’m pretty sure I reacted EXACTLY the way these videos were intended to make women feel: emotionally understood, connected to women of the world, and grateful to Dove for taking the time to do something so, so nice, just because they (make a shit-ton of money and therefore) could.

But something nagged at my conscience. The video made me feel soooo flipping warm and fuzzy that I didn’t trust it. I wanted to watch it over and over again, to revel in that bittersweet symphony, but instead avoided it like Jenny Craig.

Perhaps my contrarian skepticism stepped in, or maybe I just never got over the whole “real women” concept (read my last post on “real beauty” here). I’ve given far too many About-Face media-literacy workshops to allow myself to simply react to media without (over)analyzing both my reaction and the media itself.

My suspicions were validated when other body-image bloggers pointed out some major issues with the video. You MUST read these thoughtful and passionate critiques here, here, and here.

These essays rightfully describe the ad campaign as being a heck of a lot better than what we’re used to seeing in the media, but still falling short of our vision for inclusive body-positivity, in which being physically “beautiful” or “ugly” (or “real,” for that matter) doesn’t determine women’s paths in life, or feelings of self-worth.

This is all serious stuff, but I’ve got another bone to pick. Are the claims and assumptions characterizing this ad campaign scientifically supported? I’m a researcher; show me your data, and I’ll show you mine!

Below, I outline four science-y assumptions/claims that have been made in this campaign, along with my research-y assessments.

1) “Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves to be beautiful.”

Dove offers this statistic — a product of “company research” — in the paragraph explaining the video on YouTube. OK, fair enough. I’m actually tempted to believe this number, purely based on semantics. You see, most body-image researchers don’t ask research subjects whether or not they consider themselves to be “beautiful.” Why? Because “beautiful” is highly subjective (particularly if you’re asking women “around the world” who may have different cultural understandings of beauty).

I contacted my favorite body-image expert and co-author, Dr. David Frederick (who was the friend who came up with Mirror, Mirror… Off the Wall as my blog title!). I asked him to share some of his latest research from a 2013 paper titled Understanding Body Dissatisfaction: Social Comparison, Objectification, and Sociocultural Factors. I asked him for insight on this 4% number. He offered the following:

“In a sample of over 24,000 men and women, we asked, ‘How satisfied are you with your overall physical appearance?’ using a 1-7 scale. (1 = very dissatisfied, 4 = neutral, 7 = very satisfied)”

Here are the results:

• 28% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance.
• 15% of women are neutral about their appearance.
• 58% of women are satisfied with their appearance.

If you’re wondering how 4% became 58%, it’s, again, a matter of semantics. David explained, “There are studies that find most women want to change their weight, but this doesn’t mean they necessarily are feeling ‘dissatisfaction.‘” If we follow the same logic for that 4% number, we can imagine that even if 96% of women don’t consider themselves to be beautiful, many still (gasp!) manage to be satisfied with their appearance.

Dove: not wrong, but not quite right either. I’ll let you decide!

2) Other people view us as more attractive than we view ourselves: “We are more beautiful than we think.”

This statement encapsulates the entire “point” of the video, if it is possible to do so in one sentence. The sketch artist’s “social experiment” seemingly “proved” this statement to be true. But can the finding be generalized? Let’s look at the numbers. I couldn’t find one single study that answered this question, but have found several that, when combined, help give us the full picture.

In Dave’s 24,000 person study, women ranked their own attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10. In another large sample study, participants were asked to rank the attractiveness of others, pictured in photos, using an almost identical measure of attractiveness (1 to 5 instead of 1 to 10). Here are the results, side-by-side:

• 65% of women consider themselves to be “above average”
• 32.5% of women were rated by others as “above average”

• 25% of women consider themselves to be “average”
• 52.1% of women were rated by others as “average”

• 10% of women consider themselves to be “below average”
• 15.4% of women were rated by others as “below average”

Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Even if we give some wiggle room between these two studies, the pattern above suggests that our positive illusions lead us to view ourselves as more attractive than others view us.

Does this mean we’re all delusional? No, we’re actually illusional. Psychologists use the term “positive illusion” to describe our tendency to view ourselves and the people closest to us as more spectacular than objective reality (if there is such a thing). Yes, this means that most of us believe ourselves to be above average in attractiveness (and intelligence, and kindness, and honesty), even though this is mathematically impossible.

Yet this also means that our romantic partners view us with similarly “positive” illusions (warm fuzzies again!). Oh, and another great concept, the “mere-exposure effect” predicts that the more time we spend with a person (i.e. “mere exposure”), the more we like that person. Thus, strangers are likely to view our looks more favorably simply by spending a few minutes chatting with us… kind of like the women in the Dove ad who were asked to “get friendly with” the women whose portraits they were about to describe!

Dove blew it on this one. Big time. Which brings me to the next core assumption:

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

3) Dove’s “social experiment” is experimentally sound.

No. Not in my opinion, at least. Why? I have a few reasons, but the major one is this: From what I could see from the videos, this social experiment was set up in such a way that the “findings” were almost certainly biased in favor of what they set out to prove. Here are three issues I noted (and there may be more):

a) The “real women” being drawn seemed primed to provide negative statements about their bodies. For example, one woman was asked, “If you could change anything about your looks, what would you change?” She responded by saying, “Wow, I’ve never thought about this before…” before deciding she’d like fuller lips.

Later, the same woman is asked to describe her chin and remarked, “I guess I haven’t really compared it to anyone else’s chin….” before deciding that her chin stuck out too much. How might the results have been different if she had been asked to name her favorite features?

b) The presence of cameras and interviewers likely caused heightened feelings of self-awareness. This, in turn, would have increased the likelihood that the women participants acted in gender-conforming ways.

In other words, the women being drawn were more likely to be properly self-deprecating ladies, and the women recalling the others’ features would act like properly sweet and kind ladies. We were basically watching an over-dramatized version of plain old everyday fat talk discourse. Boooooring (and predictable).

c) Finally, and most damning, the “real women” chosen to be drawn were reportedly selected based on fairly exacting criteria. Here are some choice phrases from the Craigslist ad used to recruit them: “FLAWLESS SKIN, NO TATTOOS OR SCARS!” “FIT Not too Curvy Not too Athletic,” “Beautiful HAIR & SKIN is a MUST!!!” “Well groomed and clean,”BEAUTIFUL ARMS AND LEGS AND FACE”.

If this report is true, then the social experiment wasn’t poorly planned, but strategically rigged. Want to make sure the women sketched won’t be described as ugly? Pick “flawless” “real women” with “beautiful hair and skin.” BRILLIANT!

(FYI – Dove has released a “blame the intern” cop-out by claiming that the Craigslist ad “wasn’t approved.” In other words, the ad came from within Dove’s walls, even though somebody is about to get fired for it!)

4) Women are their own worst beauty critics.

OMG NO! THIS IS A BOGUS CRAPPY ANGERING LIE! Turn on the TV! Open a magazine! Watch a movie! Walk through a mall!

We face a multi-billion dollar beauty industry that DEPENDS on women’s insecurities. We don’t come up with this insanity ourselves. There is nothing inherent to womanity that destines us for insecurities. Instead, we’re force-fed it through the onslaught of media we encounter every single day of our lives.

Hey Dove, do you still sell that cellulite cream that doesn’t work? No? How about the “firming” body lotion, or that deodorant that reportedly reduces my “underarm dark spots”? Yeah. That’s what I thought.

I’m still trying to figure out what all of these varying data points and interpretations mean for me. On the one hand, I think it’s good news that so many women are satisfied with their bodies. And I also love knowing that positive illusions are probably boosting my husband’s view of my attractiveness.

Do I like the idea that I probably view myself more vainly than “reality”? I’m not sure! I know it’s good to HAVE positive illusions about yourself, but is it good to know about them? (Is this blog post going to make you wonderful readers feel more insecure about your bodies?!? Scary!)

Does it matter if Dove’s ad campaign is a biased social (non)experiment? I think it does matter (Frankly, I feel suckered and resentful. That damn mood music!), but I’d rather see it replicated more scientifically, rather than dismissed.

As much as I complain about Dove’s “real women” campaigns, I think they do more good than harm. Yes, they reify ideologies that make women focus on their looks and buy more stuff, but nobody else is coming anywhere close to encouraging women to love their bodies, and certainly not with as much energy or commitment. But I need to stop rambling…

What do YOU think of all this?
What’s more compelling to your psyche: scientific research or emotional experiences?
Tell my why you love/hate/tolerate Dove!

Kjerstin Gruys is a PhD candidate in the UCLA Department of Sociology. Six months before her October 2011 wedding, she decided to live without mirrors… for a year. Her blog began as a way to document her no-mirrors project, and has since evolved into a place where she muses, rants, and reports on her colliding worlds of sociology, social psychology, contemporary feminism, body image, and beauty culture. Her book Mirror Mirror… OFF the Wall: How I Learned to Love My Body by Not Looking at It for a Year will be released in early May 2013.

Just last weekend, I was in the grocery store with my partner when we stumbled upon some energy drinks marketed specifically toward women, called Her, which were so uniquely (sarcasm) colored bright pink. Because apparently, all other energy drinks weren’t “feminine” enough, we needed one just for women. Just like we need our own beer. And other alcoholic beverages that cater to the fact that all we want in life is to be skinny (again, sarcasm).

Do you think this was a coincidence?

The most recent annoyance I’ve seen in gendered advertising was pointed out by blogger Libby Anne.

The first photo she shared was of study guides for AP exams; the English and History exam books feature girls, while the Calculus and Physics exam books feature boys. Coincidence? I think not. Let’s keep perpetuating the “girls aren’t good at math” myth and see how that goes.

The next photo the article features is of Barnes and Noble sets of classic books, one for boys and one for girls.

This immediately reminded me of the recent story about the London department store, Harrods, pulling their How to Be Gorgeous book for girls and How to Be Clever book for boys from their shelves.

The Barnes and Noble set for boys features books focusing on action and adventure, while the set for girls contains books with steady themes of friendship.

Last time I checked, friendship was good for all people, regardless of gender. And who doesn’t enjoy action and adventure? Especially children!

Children of all genders would benefit from reading the stories in each of these sets. Why not condense them down to one set, with books of varying themes, and have a “Classics for Children” book set, rather than separating them into categories for boys and girls?

The boy set includes books like Journey to the Center of the Earth while the girl set includes books such as The Secret Garden.

Lastly, Libby Anne points out some gender-marketed cookies and crayons, because we’ve got to start putting them into those gender boxes while they’re young, folks!

The cookies for girls are hearts while the cookies for boys are footballs. Geez, what happened to just animal cookies?! For children (and adults) of all genders?

The crayon set has a similarly stereotypical theme, with one blue set in the shape of a truck and a pink set in the shape of a princess crown. Of course. Because a regular Crayola cardboard box of crayons was much too gender-neutral.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that princess crowns and blue trucks are great; I just think that those things should be presented as gender-neutral as well, and not marketed specifically toward one gender or the other.

And children shouldn’t be scolded for wanting the product that might not be typically marketed to their gender.

The author of the article said it best: “Because boys are supposed to be out there being active and building and making things while girls are supposed to be practicing being pretty princesses and showing off their clothing, right?”

This theme of boys as active and girls as passive in advertising and marketing is old. If companies really want to stand out from the crowd, they should knock it off, stop drenching things in pink and calling them girl toys, while drenching things in blue and calling them boy toys, and join us in 2013.

Is that too much to ask?

Super cool Superwoman kid’s underwear!

Yesterday, I posted about A Mighty Girl’s news that kids’ underwear with female superheroes on it sold out. I also posted about a dad shopping with his 5-year-old daughter who complained about the lack of cool female characters on clothing.

He bought his daughter boys’ underwear. A commenter expressed the same frustration: her daughter is fan of Spider-Man and she started a petition to get girls’ underwear designs integrated with boys’ underwear.

I signed this, and I hope you do too, but I want to recognize the deeper issue here and make sure this info isn’t misconstrued: See, girls like boy characters, so let’s just keep making them and let girls go missing.

All kids want cool characters. They want to see exciting narratives where heroes take risks, make choices, and act.

Why is there no Spider-Girl movie and five movies about Spider-Man? Where is Spider-Woman? Why are there seven Batman movies while Batgirl, like Supergirl, is practically invisible?

And why, for God’s sake, are we still waiting for a major release of a Wonder Woman movie in theaters? Not to mention multiple sequels?

Where’s the Spider-Woman movie?!

I read this on Pigtail Pals Facebook page, Melissa Wardy’s talk with her daughter, the Original Pigtail Pal:

“Mom? Every time I watch that Spider Man movie I can see there are no girls in it. I get really mad! I just don’t get why there can’t be more girls in it.” —7-year-old Original Pigtail Pal Amelia, girl, and Spider-Man fan

“I think it is really important that you noticed that. There should be and easily could be more girls in it. How could we change that?” —Me

“Oh. Oh ho ho. We’ll just show them what girl super heroes look like.” —OPP

“Maybe that could help them have more balance with girls.” —Me

“Yeah, they need more bad-ass girls.” —OPP

“Uh no, I said ‘balance’.” —Me

“I know. I said ‘bad-ass’.”—OPP

Hollywood and Target, are you listening?

Margot Magowan is a writer and commentator. Her articles on politics and culture have been in Salon, Glamour, the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous other newspapers and online sites.

One of the teacher’s students who is struggling with coming out views Wanda Sykes as a role model.

A high school English teacher in Chicago, Ashley Lauren Samsa, shared on Bitch magazine’s website a list of positive female role models in pop culture, as drafted up by her students.

She wrote, “The list is a good insight into what interests teen girls these days, as well as hopefully a helpful resource. We talk a lot about degrading and regrettable portrayals of women in media, here are eight actresses and comedians my high schoolers are excited about supporting.”

The list includes Mindy Kaling, Tina Fey, Tavi Gevinson, and Wanda Sykes, to name a few, each with a brief description of why that particular woman was chosen.

As one commenter pointed out, it’s great to see that there are three women of color included on this list of eight. The comment said, “Kudos young feminist women for not ignoring the contributions of WOC to the feminist movement!!”

I’d like to also say kudos to this teacher for even having this discussion with her students. It’s important to get young people talking about positive role models in pop culture, and what makes these individuals stand out in a swarm of bad reality television shows and “news” stories that degrade women. 

Tavi Gevinson is praised for all the wonderful content on her website, Rookie.

Of course it’s so important to critique all the sexist bull$h*t we see in the media, and in the world, but it’s just as important for us to acknowledge and celebrate the good.

I think we should keep this list of positive female role models in pop culture going.

I’d like to add Scarlett Johansson and Anne Hathaway for calling out interviewers when they’re getting asked ridiculously sexist questions, and Rosario Dawson for being involved in so many great organizations and campaigns.

What about you, About-Face readers? Share your suggestions in the comments below!

Laci Green, in her own words, is “a peer sex educator here to help you THINK hella thoughts, feel BETTER about yourself, and learn superhuman SEX SKILLZ.”

If you don’t know about Laci Green, I am here to inform you. She is a sex-educating, YouTubing, social justice advocating, body-positive, and ass-kicking human being. Or, in her own words: “I’m Laci, 22[-year-old] peer sex educator & YouTuber from San Fran. I make videos to help people learn about sexuality & bodies so they can enjoy them! I like to make people laugh and think, preferably at the same time.”

I first stumbled upon Laci Green’s YouTube videos early this year, and I was instantly hooked. She has a weekly YouTube show called Sex+, in which she tackles topics related to sexuality, body image, relationships, and gender.

Sex+ is great because it covers a whole range of issues that are important for young people (and not-so-young people) to understand. And with the unfortunate pervasiveness of ineffective programs such as abstinence-only sex education in this country, we need people like Laci Green who are working hard to combat harmful misinformation about sexuality and other related topics. She has made Sex+ episodes breaking down the complexities of gender (without failing to discuss people who are transgender, genderqueer, agender, etc.) interracial relationships, asexuality, videos critiquing books and films in today’s pop culture, and more.

From the perspective of an About-Facer, I swoon over Laci Green’s work because she doesn’t neglect to cover a span of feminist- and body image-related topics that we like to talk about over here as well, such as fat-shaming, “Freaky Labia,” the BMI scale, men and femininity, and “thinspiration,” just to name a few. One of her most recent videos targets “girl hate,” which she defines as: “tearing fellow women down for petty and unwarranted reasons.” Check it out below:

http://youtu.be/1t0UvvYs3AE

I could go on and on about my admiration for Laci’s work, but I’d rather shut up and let y’all head on over to her YouTube channel to see for yourselves what my praise is all about. She is also on Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter.

Stacey Jean Speer earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Women and Gender Studies at San Francisco State University in May 2012. While she waits to discover her calling in life, she enjoys utilizing the tools she gained as a student of Women and Gender Studies to critique media and the world around her from a feminist perspective.

Tracy Spiridakos stars in NBC’s newest weekly series, Revolution.

The show did an iffy job regarding issues of gender. Initially, Charlie is depicted as a strong, adventure-seeking female protagonist. Since age four, it has been her duty to protect her younger brother, a refreshing role-reversal for those of us so accustomed to the big brother/little sister paradigm. However, immediately after meeting up with her Uncle Miles for help, she takes a back seat to his brash agenda and developed fighting skills. Also, the official leaders of the post-blackout society — Captain Neville, General Monroe, and Nate Walker — are, as far as we’ve seen, all men.

But, throughout the course of the first and second episodes, we are introduced to two pretty bad-ass female characters: Nora and Grace. Nora, a patriot fighting for the restoration of America as it once was, can build guns from scratch and wield a firearm like a well-seasoned soldier. Grace, on the other hand, has somehow managed to build a functioning pseudo-computer in the wake of the blackout — and likely holds the key to the future of the country.

In terms of racial diversity, Revolution did a far better job than many weekly series on major television networks. The eleven-member main cast features a male and female African-American, a Latino male, and a female of Puerto Rican/Peruvian descent. It could have been more inclusive — where are the Asian cast members, for example? — but Revolution is certainly an improvement on the fully white, cookie-cutter casts many weekly series seem to favor.

What about you? What did you think of Revolution? (If you haven’t had a chance to catch it on TV, you can stream it for free on nbc.com!) The next episode airs on October 4.

Hailey Magee is a Women’s and Gender Studies and Politics double major at Brandeis University. Her foremost interests include media literacy and empowerment of young girls. Hailey hopes to one day pursue a career in the political arena and become an advocate for gender equality.

Karlie Kloss before and after her ribs were airbrushed out.

What happens when Photoshopping is done to hide a model’s extreme thinness?

Jezebel took the words right out of our mouths with their article last week regarding Numéro magazine’s release of a Photoshopped image of model Karlie Kloss. This particular model hasn’t been Photoshopped to appear thinner (as we so often see in the world of magazines) but instead to hide the startling prominence of her rib cage.

Jenna Saueres writes, “Most consumers seem to accept the idea that models are skinny. But they don’t like to be confronted with images that show the consequences of being that skinny in a realistic way.”

Read the full article on Jezebel here.

—Stacey Jean Speer

Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, was photographed sunbathing topless by the press — and it instantly became front-page news.

Kate Middleton’s breasts got suddenly famous, and the uproar ensued. As you know by now, on September 14, the French magazine Closer printed photographs of Kate Middleton sunbathing topless on a vacation with Prince William — without Kate’s knowledge or approval. Consumers of gossip mags know that this is hardly unusual. We fawn over pictures of celebrities on vacation, excited by the reality that stars have private lives outside of their public prominence. But once their private lives — and private parts — become public domain, we’ve got a serious problem.

The media storm following the publishing of the photographs was intense. Closer has received a lot of criticism, but according to hollywoodreporter.com, the editor of Closer defended her decision to publish the photographs: “Laurence Pieau described the photos as a ‘beautiful series’ that showed a couple in love, and were in no way degrading.” Pieau stated, “There’s been an over-reaction to these photos… It’s a young woman who is topless, the same as you can see on any beach in France or around the world.”

Over-reaction? Easy for you to say, Ms. Pieau: your breasts aren’t pasted on the pages of a widely distributed magazine for all of France to see. (Since the 14th, the photos have become more widespread, being published in Ireland and Italy as well.) This is sexual objectification at its best. Kate Middleton’s wishes were totally disregarded, all for the sake of “beautiful art.”

Closer editor Laurence Pieau defended her decision to publish the photographs.

Oh, and for, you know, money. According to Thomas Roussineau, the magazine broke France’s privacy laws by publishing the intimate photos. However, as hollywoodreporter.com explains, “It was likely the magazine had weighed up the potential cost of a fine against the revenue the photos would bring.” Ugh. Exploiting a woman of prestige for the sake of extra revenue is royally screwed up. No pun intended.

That said, I can’t help but wonder — why the fuss? We all have bodies and some of us have breasts, and Kate Middleton is no exception. Why is it that every time a female celebrity dares to go topless, the media erupts in a fit of woo-hooing, nail-biting, nearly-salivating celebration? Kate Middleton’s choice to sunbathe topless was not a sexual invitation or a promiscuous endeavor. It was a personal choice, a private choice, and ought to be treated as such.

Hailey Magee is a Women’s and Gender Studies and Politics double major at Brandeis University. Her foremost interests include media literacy and empowerment of young girls. Hailey hopes to one day pursue a career in the political arena and become an advocate for gender equality.