Edward
Bartender
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- London, UK
Smuterella said:No but its completely unreasonable for the average person to look like that, she needs to get down off her hoity-toity perch and realise that people with real lives don't have the time or the money to spend on themselves that she has.
I'm just so sick of women criticising other women for their looks.
Isn't that the truth. I get around quite a lot online, and there especially I see the most hideous, hideous, misogyny from men. I've often been labelled something of a gender traitor for calling a few folks out on their attitude. To me, it says an enormous amount - all of it negative- about our contemporary culture that whereas the men most in the public conciousness tend to be Obama, or Gordon Brown, or whoever, the women most people are most concious of in the media / most interested in tend to be the likes of Angelina Jolie, or Victoria Beckham. It is still very much a man's world, which is why I find it so unacceptable, I suppose, when women facilitate this by playing along, attacking other women, and perpetuating misogynist institutions. Consider, for instance, the high numbers of young women who aspire to be 'Page 3 Girls', or the fact that the majority of Sun readers are female. Sickening.
Joan Collins, well..... to be honest - and maybe this is ironic coming from Lounge people, but - she always looks somehow stuck in the 80s to me. Maybe because that is the last time I can think of her having done anything particularly high profile? I'm sure she's been in other stuff since Dynasty, but.... [huh] Maybe she finds making this sort of statement helps her stay in the public conciousness? Remember, there's only one thing worse than being talked about....
As to whether she has a point.... well. Certainly, general dress standards have slipped in the last twenty years in my opinion. Women still make much more of an effort, in general, than do men. I don't believe for a minute that "British" women are any worse than any the world over - I can't claim to have noticed standards in London being any lower than those in Berlin, Copenhagen, Vienna, Belfast, Dublin, Glasgow, NYC, Boston, Beijing or Hong Kong, or anywhere else I've been lucky enough to pass through in recent years. I do think that you get a very different impression of a city whe you are there on holiday, and therefore spend more time around both other tourists and locals in their casual time, rather than work dress... but in all of those cities, each of which I have visited in a work capcity, I have seen sufficient to be able to compare with equivalent situations in the UK. We live in a global village; some things are universal.
ThesFlishThngs said:It's sadly funny how women can't seem to win, isn't it? Men can get fat and bald and old and have relatively few issues with it, while the female of the species is expected to simultaneously be ageless & beautiful, as well as "act her age."
Actually, I find this changing in recent years. While true equality in the workplace is still a way off (I am aware that there are many places in the City that would still prefer to hire a man, the attitude being that "a woman of child bearing age will only want ot have years off, and we'll have to pay maternity leave and all this - a man we'll get more work and more loyalty out of"; similarly, there still exists a pay gap), it seems to me that things are evening up a touch. Unlike thirty years ago or more, women now are much more likely to be solvent in themselves, have their own money, and be living independently into their early thirties; they are not dependent upon a man to "look after" them, and so whereas once the elements that made a man attractive might have been financial security, dependibility, social influence or whatever, things like looks are becoming increasingly important. One reason for a rise (my perception) in misogyny among men: women are starting to hold more of the cards, and the men don't like it even though it is exactly the same way they ant to treat women.
AllaboutEve said:Is there any chance that someone can come up with something a bit more judgemental, and offensive here?
Let's not forget that there are countless people working for nothing in the UK, for all the hours god sends, there are thousands of families waiting for housing in London, and that most folk are just about managing to keep their heads above water financially at the moment.
There are more important issues at stake than whether or not someone has remembered to polish their shoes before they leave the house.
Besides if there is a problem with modern day British women it is predominantly obesity, not dress code.
Yes, it can be very easy to judge a book by its cover, losing sight of the fact that many of necessity have very different priorities. It is possible to make something of an effort on any budget, of course - in part, this is to do with the obvious effort, or lack thereof, in the presentation - BUT yes, it certainly behoves those of us who would judge another on appearance alone to step back and take a second thought.