Body bullying

A journalist coined the phrase 'body-bullying' in response to a slew of articles decrying singer Jessica Simpson's recent 'weight gain', i.e. She stopped starving her skinny ass, and began to eat normally.

This type of story is quite typical of the stuff we pump out at my place. Celebs are either TERRIFYINGLY THIN, or PILING ON THE POUNDS.

Now when you know that you are not exactly the skinniest girl in the office, how the fuck are you meant to feel judging women/celebbots on how they look? Of course it makes you feel like a big fat hypocrite. Literally, not to mention, my feminist side totally disagrees with taking down women in this manner.

So when one of the sub-editors changed a headline on the Jessica Simpson story to 'Jumbo Jessica', it was like a red rag to a bull, and I had to say my piece.

First of all, he was the only person who had decided that she looked jumbo, so he had usurped the writer of the piece to add his own opinion as some sort of fact, that Jessica, now looking like a curvy size 10-12 UK (6-8 US I think but am too lazy to look), looked JUMBO.

Bearing in mind, he is no freaking oil painting himself, I couldn't let it pass. Now this guy has a reputation for bawling out writers (not me) on their prose, so when I called him on it, it suddenly went very quiet.

I felt like I was in a Sergio Leone film...I swear I saw some tumble weed cross the office floor.

I was all in black, and he was in a white shirt. But there was no doubt about who was the bad guy here. I asked him to take it out of the story because it wasn't fair, and she wasn't jumbo.

He said, 'I know, but it's funny'. Now, I'm no Jessica Simpson 'Stan' but fair is fair.

He didn't argue the toss, another editor piped up to back me, and it got changed.

I also asked him to take out the line where he had wrote in 'she was left looking like a woman who had eaten all the pies'.

For a sub-editor where I work to write this INTO copy, is just tragic. This is the crap they're supposed to taking out!

The woman has gained a few pounds, but she hardly looks like a heffer. It can't help but make you think, well if they think she is jumbo, I, with my big black woman's booty, and thighs must look GINORMOUS.

Not that I really care what someone like him thinks of me, but I am so sick of this society that cannot accept and appreciate women of all sizes. And thinks that a woman can only be attractive if she has no curves, no ass, fake boobs, and inflated injected lips.

I am definitely in the wrong job.