What happens when you put a former Miss Universe, now model and television presenter, on the cover of Marie Claire magazine, naked and untouched? You stir up a national controversy (and quite probably sell a hell of a lot of magazines, but let's leave that point be). On the eve of the February edition of Marie Claire hitting the shelves, those images of Jennifer Hawkins are warranting a myriad of attention and are bearing the brunt of a lot of angry outbursts of criticism. Woman are cranky. As the discussion continues on news websites, blogs and twitter, there seems to be a two key points of view that are garnering the most attention from those engaging in this debate:

1. A whole lot of women across Australia are outraged at Marie Claire, editor Jackie Frank and some media commentators for insinuating that Jennifer Hawkins could be indicative of a 'real' woman, and that in turn, this cover should inspire positive body image. Their opinion is that it's her job to look slim and healthy and thus this is not only far from groundbreaking, but it's insulting. Why not use an unknown 'real' woman, they cry? In fact, a poll on the website of Australian news program, the 7pm Project indicates that 71% of women do not believe the Jennifer Hawkins photo shoot promotes positive body image (accurate at 11:31pm, 4 January 2009).

2. There are woman worked up on the other side of the argument too. They argue that Jen may be slim, and a model, but she is foremost a person, a woman. She clearly observes a healthy lifestyle to maintain her body, but why should she be exempt from the category of 'real women' just because of her occupation or popularity?

Marie Claire editor Jackie Frank spoke with Melissa Hoyer about the unfolding controversy, Frank admitted "Yes, Jen is genetically blessed" and went on to pose the question "...but no one has considered the point that Jen has made a living out of her body and that makes it even braver to put herself out on a limb imperfections and all?".

It seems people, women in particular, are more interested in drawing comparisons than applauding what is quite clearly a step in the right direction for woman and the magazine industry. The key comparisons coming out of the debate are:

Between the average size for Australian woman (it's a 16 by the way); is it ok to justify our size just because it is the national average, or should we perhaps be concentrating more on how appropriate our weight makes us feel and how healthy it is for our height and lifestyle?

Between Bianca Dye's recent nude photo-shoot which appeared in Madison magazine. Bianca criticized Jennifer and Marie Claire saying, "Jackie Frank is one of the most respected editors in the country and I am in shock that they would say Jennifer Hawkins is a natural role model. Its like we've taken 20 steps backwards.", Jennifer may not have a pot belly, but she stands to represent all the other slim women who, despite their lack of womanly curves, are just as 'real' as the rest.

And finally, women have been drawing the comparison between Jen and themselves. Some women are happy to deem Hawkins 'brave'. While others are more interested in slamming her for her size, Marieke Hardy tweeted, "I'm appalled that they're putting someone with a model's bod on the cover and calling her 'real'.".

The purpose of running this cover was to draw attention to the issue of re-touched (photoshopped) images and to open up discussion on body image and the link between our physicality and our self esteem. We can argue that the two should not be linked, but that's not going to solve the fact that for so many young women, how we look directly correlates with how good we feel about ourselves.

So is a magazine responsible for the self esteem issues that young women have relating to dissatisfaction they feel about their bodies? Not entirely so, but some accountability should be placed on the part of magazines similar to Marie Claire. These magazines are aimed at us as women, to sell us stuff and to sell us ideas. For this reason, it is absolutely a magazine editors responsibility to ensure they are not actively promoting images that are unattainable, as the ideal body. We need a balanced representation of women in all parts of the media, including the magazines we read. But let's not turn this into a magazine slating session: there has certainly been a marked improvement in the inclusiveness of the range of women represented in the pages of our favourite magazines. Do they have a way to go? There is always room to improve, no doubt.

The intensity of this argument begs the question, why are woman so hard on each other? Are we our own worst enemies? Why did Bianca Dye slam Jennifer as a role model? Why is anonymous commentary all over the internet calling Jackie Frank out and saying all she wants is to sell her magazine? As women, we need to restore the sisterhood: tell the girl with the pretty dress that you love how she wears it, don't snidely remark that she is a slut or a bitch. For more on our seemingly innate need to judge each other, see Detrimental Female Behaviours: Judge & Compare.


Over to you, what do you think of the Marie Claire cover? And what about how women judge other women, how can we stop doing this? Are you happy with you body? If not, what are you doing about it?