Marie Claire Cover

Uhhhh…….

The February issue of Marie Claire Australia featured a nude and un-airbrushed “real woman” (Jennifer Hawkins) on it’s cover in an effort to support The Butterfly Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping Australians who have negative-body image issues and eating disorders. Well, as is the case with most nude covers , this one has caused quite a stir, especially among women.

Some of the questions and comments from readers on the cover have echoed my exact thoughts:

“How is that not airbrushed?”

“Is that Fergie?

“How will this possibly help people who don’t like their bodies?”

“Was she really the best candidate for this job?”

“What’s the big drama? I’d pose like that too, if I were her.”

“It’s actually pretty brave of her not to be airbrushed.”

“I could look like that if I had unlimited money for expensive food and a personal trainer….and money to buy more discipline.”

“This only promotes women as sex objects.”

“I wish I was a sex object.”

“I should probably put down the Baskin Robbins.”

Not all women are able to be (or should be!) Hawkin’s size, and I do wish there had been multiple body types represented on the magazine. There’s some magazine that consistently features three women in their 20s, 30s and 40s…does anyone know what it is? They have the right idea. Different beauty, all appreciated, not as much of a standard mold.

My final consensus? It’s a waste of time to agonize over the cover, just like it’s a waste of time to agonize over being J. Hawkin’s exact BMI. Sure, it’s easy to jealous-hate-on someone who is gorgeous without airbrushing (like I did for the first 20 minutes after seeing the cover), but in the end it isn’t worth the energy that you could have been putting into work, cooking, volunteering, reading, learning Italian or oh, I don’t know, do something healthy.

Related: the Self cover scandal with Kelly Clarkson. The blog by Jezebel does a good job of honestly discussing the situation and quoting from both sides. They’re clearly disagreeing with Self , but give plenty of reason why. Article One talks about the cover and Article Two talks about Self’s response. Interesting!