London - How much effort does it take to print and laminate cards on which are written: “It's not glandular, it's your gluttony. Our organisation hates and resents fat people”? The concept of “fat shaming” is not new, but whichever saddo decided to hand out these cards to women on the London Underground has taken it to an extraordinary, and surely exhausting, new level.
While these rogue leafleters are on the margins of society, the pressure on women to be thin and youthful is as mainstream as ever. It may not be fat shaming, but it is thin pushing.
Last week, The Sun ran an apparently thoughtful feature on how the female stars of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! had been airbrushed in their promotional photos. But on the front page, Ferne McCann of The Only Way Is Essex was pictured in a bikini next to the headline: “Why don't they look like that in the jungle?” Two decades ago, I wrote my degree dissertation on female body image in the media, and it feels like nothing will change.
Except, maybe it has. The 2016 Pirelli calendar has been taken over by photographer Annie Leibovitz, and the result is a landmark moment for the portrayal of women's bodies. Gone are the pictures of topless models. Now there is Yoko Ono, her amazing legs in fishnet tights at the age of 83, Serena Williams in her muscular magnificence, and Amy Schumer wearing nothing but high heels, knickers and an entirely normal stomach. All ages are represented: 68-year-old, wild-haired Patti Smith is the model for November. While Pirelli models have been overwhelmingly white, the 2016 calendar is multi-ethnic. The pictures are fabulous.
The fact that the tyre manufacturer commissioned Leibovitz, and embraced her set of pictures, is something to celebrate. It is a bigger moment than The Sun's shedding of Page 3, because that did not happen overnight, and the paper is still obsessed with breasts and bottoms; it is bigger than Playboy dropping its nude models. Leibovitz recognises that women do not want to shun other women's bodies (something defenders of Page 3 failed to see) but to celebrate them in all their forms.
There is still a long way to go before the pervasive grip of thin pushing is loosened. While it is now possible to imagine Leibovitz's Amy Schumer picture on the pages of Vogue, this would be a novelty, not the norm. Television is obsessed with the age of women: it is not just the wrinkles that are airbrushed from our screens, but older women altogether. But progress is happening. Leibovitz's Pirelli calendar is a glorious, glamorous two fingers to the weirdos on the Tube - and a lot more besides.
Twitter: @janemerrick23
The Independent