CURIOUS THINGS is the column from Donnybrook-Bridgetown Mail journalist Nina Smith.
Outside of work Nina's obsessions are writing novels, creating costumes, belly dancing and seeking out the weird, the strange and the curious as inspiration for stories.
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I SPOTTED it right away, right there in red and white: red carpet special!
It was a nice big colourful pointer on the front page of a newspaper, with a picture of three ladies in pretty dresses smiling out at me.
Now let’s make no mistake about this. I’m a girl, and I like pretty dresses. I’ve even been known to design and make pretty dresses.
So I caved. I went to have a look at the red carpet dresses. I’m interested in fashion. Too bad for me.
I think my misogynist-meter went off about the time I spotted the rankings out of ten next to each woman, backing up detailed dress dissections, what show the actress appeared in and of course, the most important descriptors of all: whether she was pregnant, a bombshell, a seductress, or failing any of those, too old or a bit of a failure, or a bit ridiculous because her dress was something the mother of the bride would have worn.
Because the only thing that we really need to know about a woman is whether she’s pretty or pregnant or neither, right?
I’m going to make a suggestion - I’d like to see a men’s fashion page.
That’s right, I want a whole page devoted to men on the red carpet.
I want to know what they wore, and whether they’re considered sexy enough by the mass media to be worth noticing, or whether their suit and tie missed the mark and was more suited to father of the groom.
Or worse, if what they wore was more suited to that weird uncle who turned up to your mother-in-law’s 60th birthday party in paisley, got drunk and threw up all over Nanna’s shoes.
I want to know if celebrity men aim to shock in their chosen suits, or if they’re debuting a baby-bump-reminiscent beer belly after a week on the turps.
Can you hear the distant sound of feminine seething?
Yeah, that’s me.
The damaging effects of our culture’s obsession with how women look, what they wear and how skinny they are or aren't, are well documented.
Diseases such as anorexia and bulimia are so deep-seated now that you don’t have to look very hard to find a woman who has had a brush with one.
Women go and get plastic surgery and other potentially damaging treatments because they are made to feel the looks they were born with are not good enough.
Depression and mental health issues, already a huge contemporary concern, are made worse by constant bombardment of one simple message by the media: You are not good enough.
It doesn't matter what we do, how far we go; because even the icons of this beauty culture - the rich and famous women who symbolise everything women are encouraged to strive for - are not allowed to be recognised for their actual achievements, personality or humanity.
Instead they are plucked out of photos, laid out on a page, stripped of all their accomplishments and judged on what dress they’re wearing, as though that is the one and only defining factor of their lives.
What do you think? Will we ever learn to judge women on their accomplishments rather than shallow criticisms of their appearance? Post your comments below.
