I think this entry might have seemed a little less hypocritical had the author not *first* rushed out to make sure Atoosa was thin before blasting her -- what, if your Google searching had turned up images of an overweight short woman, *then* her comments would have been acceptable? What does Atoosa's height or body type have to do with this at all? Focusing on it completely undermines your point: In a piece devoted to exposing the unrealistic standards women are held to, your first concern is this woman's BMI.

...my first thought upon reading the quote was that it was meant to be a subtle jab at the designer, and I'm surprised at the serious, negative reaction.

Also, if I'm not mistaken (and I might be), this comment didn't appear in Seventeen itself, so wasn't aimed directly at its readers or meant to be read by teenage girls. The likelyhood that a bunch of teenage girls are going to a.) find this quote, and b.) take it as serious encouragement to starve themselves is, I think, minimal. Honestly, we don't think much of our young women if we think an offhand comment like this is going to push them into an eating disorder.

Maybe she was just saying this to be provocative. She did call the designer a "dreamer" didn't she? Folliwng that with "I want to starve myself ..." sounds like a pretty back-handed insult to me.

Are girls really so delicate and suggestible that thousands and thousands of them will start starving themselves at the mere word of a fashion editor?

I seem to recall a day when girls were 'shielded' from racy and coarse stories, lest they get it into their heads to turn into loose women of the streets. Isn't this just the same damn thing?

It seems that we still view girls as delicate and in need of protection, while boys are allowed to be exposed to anything.

I note that in spite of all the terrible 'messages' women are alleged to bombarded with in this society, most women turn out fine.

Maybe the real message we should stop sending girls is the message that they're so fragile that tbey can't think for themselves.

Stop buying your daughters fashion magazines if you don't want them absorbing the fashion magazine message. Don't buy them, yourself. A magazine has no obligation to raise your daughters' self-esteem.

Buy your daughters books, instead. Buy them skateboards. Buy them oil paints, sewing machines, or real estate. But don't buy them fashion magazines and then cry when the fashion magazines say the same crap they've always said. You can't count on Atoosa to be a role model. Be a role model, yourself.

Erin,

I don't think the target audience for Salon is 14-year-old girls, unlike Seventeen. That makes more than a little difference, no?

I agree that Atoosa Rubenstein's comments contribute to a culture of self-loathing that many girls must confront and overcome. I say this as an "ugly duckling" myself who has grappled with these issues, and I certainly do not take them lightly. However, Rebecca Traister's vitriolic attack on Ms. Rubenstein smacks of hypocrisy: not even a year ago, Salon published an article by Kate Hahn (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/06/24/gut/index.html) in which Ms. Hahn admits to the exact same sentiments as Ms. Rubenstein. I don't recall Ms. Traister blasting her home publication last June when that article ran. Do Salon's editors feel that mean-spirited attacks like Ms. Traister's are fine, as long as the critical lens doesn't turn inward? Or do they simply assume that their readers won't have long enough memories to spot the contradiction? As for Ms. Traister, has she only recently developed these passionate views about potential damage to girls' self-esteem, or did she just not want to bite the hand that feeds her when her bosses ran Ms. Hahn's article nine months ago?

The reasons mens' mags focus on looks for men(which they do, make no mistake) but on other stuff as well is becaue in addition to looking good men need to do all the other things to get anywhere with women. It seems to me that women read fashion mags because they like them, not because they feel forced to do so in order to acquire what they need to be attractive.

Is anyone really surprised that Atoosa Rubenstei, editor of Seventeen, is into starving herself for pretty clothes? She works for a magazine that exists for one reason, and one reason only - to sell products to girls. In order to better sell those products, the editorial slant creates a perceived need for those products by telling women then need to fix themselves - fix their weight, wrinkles, cellulite, sun damage, hair color, hair highlights, you name it.

I have always found something insidious about these magazines talking about self-esteem, pretending to be 'for' women while secretly undermining them with the message that they need endless, endless fixing.

Girls are never going to get positive messages from the fashion rags. To suggest this is, or should be, a goal of these magazines is laughable. How many men do you think seriously see Esquire and Maxim and GQ acting as a compass by which to navigage the world, and a legitimate means for measuring their self-worth? Those magazines sell things to their audience too, but mostly it's stuff that purports to make a man's life better, more interesting, more fun. Not improving the man, but the man's life. And, with Esquire at least, there is some attention to the life of the mind - the fiction is good and the political essays are intersting. And any objectifcation going on is of the oppostie sex, and for pleasure. Women's mags, by contrast, objectify our own sex....and nearly everything in these periodicals points to improving the woman's physical self, with the implied promise that this will bring the rewards of landing a man.

I wasn't surprised to see Rubenstein's remark, and I think it's hypocritical to ask her to pretend she really doesn't think that way, when flipping through her magaizne for five seconds tells us that yes, she clearly DOES feel that way...as do all of the contributors and advertisers comprising the magazine's content. It would be downright bizarre to have this woman espousing a healthy diet and a 'we're all beautiful on the inside' message when the value of the products she is selling is predicated on the idea that no, women aren't good enough as they are, and never will be.

The answer isn't for Atoosa to become a hypocrite, mouthing the party line about loving youself for who you are no matter what size you are, all the while filling the pages of the mag with pictures of rail thin models, expensive handbags and shoes, a plethora of unnecessary clothing and accessories and a virtual avalanche of beauty products for hair, nails, skin, face and body that send the exact opposite message.

The answer is for women to stop lapping up the crap the fashion rags sell them. It's not likely to happen, though, until women stop accepting and perpetuating the notion that beauty and sex appeal are the most important qualities for a woman to possess. Stop blaming men, stop blaming the media....take responsibility and stop playing the game. Stop buying magazines that promise to tell you how 101 ways to make him wild/lose weight/firm up that cellulite/look 10 years younger. Don't buy it and don't buy into it.