Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite: I can no longer find knickers small enough to fit me

As fat women become more powerful as a lobby, slim women who eat sensibly and exercise are treated as neurotic obsessives

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issue 23 November 2013

Barely a week goes by when a female Lib Dem minister doesn’t pledge some new coalition initiative on ‘female body confidence’. The junior equalities minister Jo Swinson was at it again when she congratulated Debenhams for becoming the first high-street retailer to introduce size 16 mannequins. Ms Swinson said: ‘The images we see in the world of fashion are all pretty much the same. It’s as if there’s only one way of being beautiful. Yet nine in ten people say they would like to see a broader range of body shapes shown in advertising and the media.’

For broader range of body shapes, read fat, by the way. For nine in ten people, read nine in ten fat people. Because, of course, when Ms Swinson bangs on about ‘female body confidence’, what she means is the body confidence of fat women. I would hazard a guess she doesn’t give a flying éclair for my body confidence, or the body confidence of any other woman who happens to require size eight clothing.

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