Vogue is finally doing something about the prevalence of underage and underweight models in the fashion industry. Nineteen of the magazine’s worldwide publishers have joined together to make a pact to ban models who have eating disorders and any model who is under the age of 16 from appearing in the magazine. The new standard ...
As I lay stricken in bed the other night, twisted in agony and gurning manfully at the grinding torment of my gallstones, I thought to myself for the hundredth time that hour: Why did I eat all those sausages? Well, why did I do it? I’ve had the gallstones for a while and I know ...
While we celebrate the large and even small triumphs of the women’s rights movement, sometimes we want to see the bigger picture. On a worldwide scale, is life improving for women? The World Bank says yes, but at a painfully slow rate. As it stands right now, “women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 ...
The other night, I was watching one of the many, many cooking-based shows currently broadcast, wall-to-wall and round-the-clock, on television. A group of people were cooking for another group of people – I forget why – and, as is often the case in these jeopardy-seeking productions, something went a bit wrong. A tray of ...
Picky eating could soon be added to a medically recognized list of mental illnesses and eating disorders. This kind of eating disorder isn’t as simple as not eating your broccoli. This is for people whose eating habits interfere with having a functional life. For some, “avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder” (ARFID) comes from a fear of ...
I like a good curry. There are some very good curry restaurants in London, and I miss them here on my soggy and culinarily reduced island. But, while I enjoy, as I say, a good old blowout with a curry, they, to borrow a phrase from middle England, don’t really like me very much. Yes, ...
Lately it’s starting to feel like we’re on the brink of a gender neutral revolution. Some passport applications are no longer gender-specific. At Egalia, a Swedish preschool, “him” and “her” don’t exist. One couple caused an uproar by raising a genderless child, and even boys wear pink nail polish. But it seems the trend hasn’t ...
Some say men think about sex every 52 seconds, others predict it’s closer to every seven. But just how often do women’s minds wander to sex, and is it our number one concern? Apparently not. A new study reveals more than 50 percent of women think more often about food than they do about sex. ...
Usually a good night out involves talking, laughing, and let’s not forget eating. So as to not spoil a good night, you stuff your face and then when you get home you face the guilt. Unfortunately, a great number of women are pigging out in public and starving in private. Just like anorexics and momorexics, ...
We already know Americans eat too much, but why do we have to hear about it over and over? We’re consumed with what foods make us fat, creating a toxic relationship with food. Just today I learned that diet soda leads to weight gain and consuming too many snacks leads to an expanding waistline. I ...
Dear Madame X, I have just started seeing this girl. She seems great, but she recently told me she...
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved arrived in my hands via a public library, when I was a broke teenager with...
My attention was drawn this week to an article about the reaction at a Canadian university to proposals to...
Airport security. Bloody nuisance. Also a conspiracy designed to subjugate women. Allow me to elaborate. Despite flying quite a...
The Cannes film festival has kicked off this week with controversy over the lack of films made by women...
Dear Madame X, I seem to be only attracted to men who are macho assholes. I like them at...
When A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962, the term sexualized violence wasn’t in use. The distinction between sexualized...
Skincare. Not so very long ago, a man would have been mocked mercilessly for using just the word, never...
