Today's column... the on-going obsession with women's appearance!

 

Why does any interview with a high-profile woman focus on the superficialities: how she’s ageing, what she’s wearing, what she eats, what shape she’s in. No matter what their personal achievements, musical, sporting, political or scientific, we’re given the intimate details of their domestic set-up, whether they have children—and if not, WHY not—and who they’re married to or divorced from, ‘blissfully happy’ or ‘unlucky in love’. We don’t do this with famous men. When a male writer gives an interview, it’s about the new book, not their body or what they order for breakfast.

Of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with human interest—I’m curious about the routines of well-known writers too—but with women, it eclipses their work. And it’s not just writers: in every area of modern life, women are judged by their appearance rather than their attainments.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/10/28/emma-woolf-on-the-view-from-london-the-double-standard-for-female-writers.html