If you're a woman, it's imperative that you should not only never blow your own trumpet, but not like yourself, at all.
If Gillette's latest survey is anything to go by, we're managing this quite nicely. The results revealed that not only do most women hate their legs, we dislike them to the point that 66% are so mortified by them that they won't display them in public, no matter how sweltering the weather gets. Which equates to two thirds of the female population being so ashamed of half of their body feel they have to hide it constantly.
Gillette's answer to the problem? An inane 11 minute 'exercise' video to be done in stilettos. A quick watch (I couldn't get through the whole nine minutes) reveals that it mainly involves getting up and down off your chair and cha-cha-ing around the office. Hardly getting to the root of the problem, is it? Get them to totter around on their heels for a few minutes a day and they'll forget that they're riddled with self hatred and disgusted with their body. Not likely.
Although I'm not in the 66% that would never reveal my legs (I wore a pair of board shorts three weeks ago, don't you know) I'm definitely not up there with leg-loving Mariah Carey. For once, (the first time?) Mariah is setting us an example. She's so proud of her money making pins (they've netted her a contract with Gillette), she's insuring them for US$1 billion. Now there's someone who's not ashamed of her legs. Either that, or she's actually insured them against the threat of cellulite. I really hope it's the former.
The survey only mentions females, but is body hatred really a gender thing? Aren't men just as self conscious? They might be, but I don't know any. They certainly aren't embarrassed to get their bodies out in the summer, and god knows, most of them are a darn sight uglier than our thighs.
In the end, it all just comes down to the same sorry fact that women are supposed to be perfect. Physically, that is. Intellectually we could be on par with a koala and that would probably be deemed ok. So perfect that even the women purporting to not be 'real' has to be airbrushed to perfection.
Strangely enough, Big Brother is my saviour in all this body hating malarkey. As much as it bothers us, our body really doesn't determine what other people think of us. Once they get to know us, at least. Take BB's Charley as a text book example. Body-wise she's got it all. Does it make people like her? Not a bit. So show off your legs and be grateful you're not the most hated person in Britain.
Charlotte Howells is the editor of Kiss and Makeup and Nollie. In order to practice what she preaches, yesterday she went swimming in a bikini.
