There’s a real whiff of hypocrisy about Emma Watson’s latest shoot for Vanity Fair, in which she poses semi-nude. Women’s magazines will tell you it’s stunning, artistic, so feminist, and the rest, but the lady doth pose too much, methinks.
This is, after all, the gal who’s spent the last three years lecturing others about breaking away from the limitations of gender; who once said ‘with airbrushing and digital manipulation, fashion can be an unobtainable image that’s dangerously unhealthy.’ Yeah, yeah.
It’s Watson’s brand of ‘have your cake and eat it’ feminism that has proven particularly bothersome; a variety that has largely been swallowed up by the public, ever since her appointment as the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in 2014. Since taking up the role, she’s treated us to an earful of GCSE-standard statements on sexism, gender stereotypes and body image.
No one’s listening, though, otherwise they would have noticed Watson’s ability to contradict these very platitudes.
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