In a world where a woman can still be raped up to 40 times a day as a consequence of a seemingly invisible war, it’s inconceivable that we in Western society churn out a diet of media that encourages women, and men albeit to a lesser degree, to preen, prod and promote ourselves for the purposes of attracting the opposite sex.  I am not condemning women’s magazines for providing us with an endless dialogue about cosmetics, fashion and celebrity because content is revenue driven, but wouldn’t it be good if the big media brands took some responsibility and helped us to change this culture?

 

As the mother of a 17 year old daughter and a 21 year old son, I have witnessed first hand the difference between male and female expectation, even though I’ve tried to give both my children a healthy, non-sexualised perspective of the world, as has my husband.  Not every child is privileged to have this balance and I would like to see the media taking steps to devolve attention away from the impossibly glamorous world inhabited by a seemingly alien race of thin, nipped, tucked, and airbrushed individuals.  You know – the world where everybody has a trout pout, inflated breasts and a permanent expression of surprise?  We may not believe it is real but if we promote it long and hard enough, the next generation just might. 

 

What has happened to getting an education, being interested in science and politics, or just good old-fashioned entrepreneurship?  Even they have to be garnished with the same sort of tinsel town magic to get page space.  Where is this virtual world where everybody is a celebrity and nobody ever grows old?  Even Susan Boyle has been plucked, slimmed and coiffed within an inch of her life just so that Simon Cowell can get even richer.  At least he’s an entrepreneur even if his commodity is fame and celebrity!

 

It’s time to start changing the culture.  It’s not enough to just be a pretty face.  I am not suggesting that we all start growing out our body hair and stop using deodorant but there is more to life than a regular leg wax and the latest Dove commercial even if it does feature ‘real women’… yeah, right.

 

The world is not the unblemished CGI’d version we see on our screens, both small and wide.  It has lots of warts and pimples and rather than cover them up we should be finding a way to bring the really ugly ones to a head.

 

Mass rape in the Democratic of Congo is not a myth – it’s ugly and real and happening every day.  Yet it doesn’t get the media coverage that the death of every British or American soldier in Iraq rightly generates.  Why is this?  Is it such a huge invisible problem that the world doesn’t know how to deal with it?

 

Why do women and children get duped and trafficked into prostitution?  Another unseen horror of our world today.  I know full well that stories about this sort of thing doesn’t sell glossy magazines but with the on-line accessibility of the worldwide web, maybe big titles could extend their hard pages into virtual activity to help to build bridges and counteract some of the on-line atrocities of our age with positive action.

 

Cultural change is aided and abetted by those things that reflect our various cultures – like media, music, art, film, theatre and sport.  My call to action is to get those big media brands and their owners together to see how we can start to rid the world of it’s ugliest ‘habits’ for death, destruction, rape and torture. 

 

No amount of make-up or six inch heels is going to protect a woman from a predator, but having an education and an opinion about something other than lipstick will at least give her self respect and at best open up a world where freedom and opportunity exist.