The Daily Misogynist, sorry – Mail, has outdone itself again in my eyes. Today they have an article about Alicia Keyes and her ‘unflattering’ outfit choice.
‘Unfortunately, the combination of tight shorts and unflattering gladiator sandals – notorious for giving the appearance of short legs as they hide the ankles – did little for Alicia’s curvy figure.’ it goes on to say that ‘The usually svelte star is still shifting some of the excess baby weight she put on before giving birth to her son Egypt last October.’
What the fuck? I think she looks amazing. I hate this pressure heaped on women to slip back into their skinny jeans minutes after the baby has been wiped down and handed over. It is so fucked up and just adds to the control of women through this preoccupation with their figures that the media has. Maybe Alicia has other things to fucking think about besides the shape of her thighs – her newborn son perhaps? Maybe she is too busy enjoying this time in her life to worry about what some wanky journalists are going to be thinking about her outfit choices. It really pisses me off because having a baby is hard enough; it’s confusing, new and on top of everything that comes with it we have magazines and newspapers tearing celebrities apart; their bumps are too big, too small, too round, too low. They have put on too much weight, not enough. They haven’t lost it quick enough, they have lost it too quickly. We literally can’t win. I must read a story like this every week; a celebrity being criticised for something related to a pregnancy. I am counting down the days until we see a snap of Victoria Beckham out with baby Harper and a tagline of ‘Posh pings back into pre pregnancy jeans in two weeks.’ You can almost guarantee that when that happens – and it will – that the media will be slating her saying how she must be starving herself back to a size zero and missing time with the baby to go and workout in the gym and it is so ludicrous. We have Alicia here being pulled apart because she has the audacity to step out looking less than skeletal and yet celebs like Abbey Clancy who regain their pre pregnancy figures quite quickly are torn apart for that as well. Why do we let this happen?
This is the part I hate the most; ‘Bashful Alicia realises her mistake and tries to hide her thighs with a brown paper bag.’ I could cry with how much this hurts me. If she is trying to hide her thighs ask yourself why? She obviously felt good that morning when she put the shorts on and yet the fucking parasitic paparazzi who must have stalked her down the streets trying to get a shot of her legs have probably scared her into never wearing them out again. It makes my blood boil and skin crawl that this is news now. That we actively seek out shots like this to make ourselves feel better. It’s too fucked up.