Bad Boobage

The world is hyperventilating AGAIN over precisely which items of clothing we women are allowed to wear.

Or rather, which items of clothing we are allowed to discard.

And more specifically, whether our clothes adequately match our opinions.

And further more whether we’re allowed to have opinions and also boobs.

YAWN!

“Oh for GOD’S sake!” I hear women shrill in that unpleasantly feminine tone which I know you can’t help but is the reason why you struggle in the boardroom, “Emma Watson is a FEMINIST! Flashing her boobs in a high-fashion magazine is HER CHOICE as a woman!” While all the fellas go “wait – what? There’s a pic circulating of Emma Watson’s TITS? And I’m allowed to gawp at it coz it’s in Vanity Fair?! Get me to the Google!”

It seems if you have a problem with Watson’s boob-flashing it’s because you are either:

1. a person always trying to trip-up women who call themselves feminists
2. a pleb who cannot understand the difference between a mega-rich, mega-slim, mega-pretty Hollywood actress being paid mega-wads for TASTEFULLY getting her boobs out in a magazine, and all the other slutty women who get their boobs out in shitty mags and newspapers who are NOT FEMINISTS and are def being exploited
3. a jealous old feminist with bad boobs

There Watson was, at the fashion shoot, feeling “incredibly artistic” and “creatively involved” in the photographing of her boobs by a fella, for a magazine edited by a fella and owned by a fella.

How the hell was she supposed to know that there were other ways to promote her latest film (which was written by fellas, produced by fellas and directed by fella for the massive Disney Corporation which is run by a fella) ways which allowed her to keep her clothes ON like her male co-star who has yet to be photographed flashing a bit of bollock?

How was she supposed to know that her bit of boobage would add to that enormous canon of pics of other clever, talented young women who are only allowed to be clever and talented if they also have the correct physical appearance in all ways, including hair, face, arse and most definitely BOOBS?

How was she supposed to know that this photograph would reinforce to girls like my daughter, that no matter how clever you are, no matter how feminist you are, no matter how many inspiring speeches you make which turn loads of young women and men on to feminism, you will still be expected to have beautifully photographable boobs if you want to be really successful, like her.

YAWN? No. Not yawn. WAKE UP.

Watson says feminism is about “giving women choice.” It’s about “freedom, liberation, equality.”

Elementary, my dear Watson.

But a beautiful Hollywood actress being photographed semi-naked expressly in order to promote her latest movie can never be an act of equality unless we have a twin-industry of high-fashion mags owned by women and edited by women which feature hot young male Hollywood actors having their genitals* photographed by women in order to promote movies that have been written, directed and produced entirely by women for a massive company run by women so that we women may judge and approve their male appearance and attach commercial, moral and political value to them accordingly.

*I compare men’s bits to women’s boobs for two reasons: 1. Coz men don’t have boobs; and 2. Coz we women have as little control over the size and shape of our boobs as fellas do of their goolies. Ok?

For full gender equality to exist, we must extend this practice beyond Hollywood and fashion magazines and into our every day lives. This will involve at least one hundred years of the following:

• Women being mostly in charge of most stuff including government, business, law and medicine in order to establish clear structures which exclude the presence of men
• Men to only be allowed to work in certain jobs and for much less pay
• To establish a widely agreed scale of male beauty which must be extremely narrow and ensure the majority of men are considered not good enough and must all be rendered obsolete after forty
• The groping and raping of men must occur on a regular basis and we must not allow them to complain and will disbelieve them if they do
• We must enact routine violence on our husbands, as is our right
• Our entertainment industries must be flooded with images of fellas either in the nude, or being violently raped/murdered in order to reinforce men being seen as objects
• We must uphold, at all costs, the notion that men are here purely to serve our sexual and domestic needs, though they may be permitted to have an interior life and/or career as long as they continue to put our sexual/domestic needs first
• We must ensure our ideologies are delivered at the highest echelons of power i.e the POTUS

What I’m saying is, context is everything. A boob can never be just a boob while the boob is routinely used to sell, to sexualise and to suppress. And Watson know this. She’s had a few choice words herself about Beyoncé’s brand of feminism being a confusingly “male voyeuristic experience.”

BUT – and listen carefully anti-feminists – Watson’s boob-flash does NOT prove she isn’t a feminist. What it DOES prove is that our ancient male structures make it as complicated and challenging as ever to be a strong, successful woman.

Watson must not give up. Her campaign ‘He for She’ is doing excellent things. And yes, you CAN be a feminist and be sexy at the same time. I should know because I am a massive feminazi and also have an incredibly realistic, achievable and normal body like Watson’s, (as you can see in the pic of my recent fashion shoot to promote this blog).

But what’s more radical is to be sexy and thin and REFUSE to use those male measures to achieve success.

At least until a time when we’re also allowed to be ‘unsexy’ and not have our feminism shut away in a drawer marked ‘typical.’ 

As Hermione Granger once said, “We will fight! We’ll have to! But let’s not lose sight of what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re the only ones who can end it!”

Although she married Weasley Ron in the end, didn’t she? Gah – patriarchy!