If there was ever an example of just how poisoned and delusional the harmful world of women's lifestyle media is, surely this is it. Last month, Marie Claire, which has always had a knack of dressing up trash as credible infotainment, surveyed their readers and found that only a dismal 12 percent were "happy with their bodies". Of course, the irony of the women's lifestyle industry is that this is, far from an alarming figure, a comforting picture of the very anxiety that fuels sales. If women weren't happy with their bodies, sex lives and wardrobes, they... well.... wouldn't need to fork out money for cokehead hacks from Potts Point to tell them what they should be looking like. But Marie Claire cares - it wants Australian women to know that even though it's 200 plus pages of dribble are almost entirely devoted to aspirational material, whereby the ideal is offered as a solution to its readers' anxieties and doldrums - completely reaffirming every facet of the modern body-image crisis - we've really all missed the point, and it is simply trying to do its bit to help its female readers feel better about themselves. Today, it stated its case via a publicity stunt that is neither fresh nor meaningful, but rich in hypocrisy and calculation. It has begun a tiresome "debate" that will all end exactly where they want us to be - finding the image in question in our supermarkets and newsagencies, and putting our money in its pockets. Let's consider the many good reasons not to.

 

Goodness, it's nearly Christmas. It's nearly the end of 2009. What about that? Sad about that? Glad to be rid of it? It's been a fairly big year, on so many accounts. For me, I've been torn away from this website, this year - and I have disliked that, immensely - because my own world has been so... compelling... I've found myself pulled from the world beyond the little bubbles we each live in. This week, I decided I wanted to reconnect a little. What a year it's been for me - intense highs and some of the most intensely difficult situations I've been in since I don't know how long (ever, for a couple of them). Lightning-bolt shifts in the ongoing struggle of career in the middle of a recession (at first, it was terrifying - in the end, I'd done extremely well); dealing with the simultaneous demise of the two loves in my life - my Great Grandmother who raised me (why, oh why, oh why did it have to be this year?!), and my partner I had spent almost five years with (sometimes, you decide to break up with people because you kinda have to - it doesn't necessarily bring the moment where the smiles break out again); juxtaposed with my sudden departure for Europe, and my experiences with a young German I had met, my old party pals from London town, an old friend from those very good old days, a bunch of fresh faces, and those beautiful, beautiful cities (that was... well... pretty damn cool!). Great ups and great downs, really - I couldn't say if 2009 was a good or a bad year in the cellar rack of my life. It's both. But what about the rest of the world? I decided to see how it had been going, and had heard about a new series with something to say about not only that, but where we're heading into 2010.