There have been lots of high profile examples in the news of the ‘beauty myth’ and the ‘male gaze’ – demonstrating the persistence of this.

Just a few of them – all many and varied but tied together by that ubiquitous thread of the beauty myth.

Firstly, and OK, this is a bit behind the times, but I only just stumbled across J Lo’s latest video – on the floor – in which this 42 year old shakes her ass about as if she was 20 – Obviously someone like J LO, having been born with naturally good looks, and having added to that with who knows how much botox and lipo suction (someone with an ass that big doesn’t keep it in that shape at 42 without lipo), as well as a lot of media- touching – can, at 42 appear pretty much as she did when she was 21 – but it ain’t a realistic beauty- goal to aspire to – I say – J Lo – act your age, and be a decent role model rather than a shallow, vacuous tart -seriously, listen to the lyrics, you’d hope that someone at her age would have had a few spiritual insights to share with us maybe – something deeper than ‘you know we’re on it tonight on the floor… bla bla…. stay young on the floor’

Secondly, there’s all the obvious comments about Kate Middleton being ‘fit’ – my students’ judgements – as if she’s ‘ OK with us’ because she’s good looking – she’s not ok, she’s about to marry into a total anachronism – a family whose wealth is inherited and status is unjustly ascribed. I dread to think how many comments will be made about Kate’s looks over the next few days. I actually just typed in ‘kate middleton fit’ to google, it asked me if I meant ‘kate middleton hot‘ – which returns images as the first links – honestly, what did I expect?

Finally, the week had a little article describing how two teenage girls had to flee one of Silvio Berlusconi’s parties after being asked to dance naked for him – that’s the corrupt Italian PM who likes sleeping with 17 year olds.

As if that’s not bad enough, I open up my copy of the NUT – the teaching union magazine ( not NUTS – which is what google returned instead of ‘NUT magazine’ – and I’m greeted with a pretty face on the cover – even the bloody NUT is using beauty to sell it’s wares!

Defo a bad week for the beauty myth and the male gaze – I’m going to surf for pictures of ugly people, or I might just look at some old photos instead…