Download 'Too Hot', an exclusive Specials track from iTunes

The Diana inquest drags on and drags up all sorts of questions. Among them: what on earth has happened to women’s bodies since the Queen of Hearts died in that tunnel?
Here is the Princess, athletic, womanly, the absolute picture of female pulchritude and sexuality, the remnants of two pregnancies still lightly garlanded about her waist. Yesterday five of her lovers were named in the paper. And honestly, is there a man alive who would have kicked her out of bed? Neurotic and screwed up as she was, “thick” and calculating as she was, women wanted to be her, remember that?
Ten years on and who have we got as our female pin-ups? Whose world-famous limbs do women have in mind when they come home despondent from Gap, having failed yet again to squeeze into a pair of skinny jeans? Well, lately, it seems as if the entire female population has accidentally slipped into some sort of gigantic communal form of gender dysmorphia, because the women we have decided that we admire most in the world don’t seem to be women at all. From the back, at least, you could mistake most of them for teenage boys.
Victoria Beckham, Angelina Jolie. It says something about your weight when your most prominent features are your nipples. The bottom is two ping-pong balls, the lips, neck and breasts are paeons to the pornography industry and advances in plastic surgery.
When I look at these women I think of car commercials: leaner, zingier, and now with better suspension. Never curvy, God help us. These martyrs to weight-loss hate curves. Jolie complained recently that her part in the film Beowulftook the edge off her angular frame – she risked looking too sexual in front of her children. Are they women at all, I sometimes ask myself, peering more closely at my copy of Grazia. Will there come a day when it will be revealed to the world that this is a huge practical joke? Will the world’s most supposedly enviable women turn out to be escapees from a Pat Pong transsexual club?
Diana was anorexic? I’ll show you anorexic. Come back to life in 2007, Diana and you’ll get quite a shock. If she materialised today she’d be in the plus-size bracket, humbly peddling rice cakes. Something about her in that swimsuit is too vital for our modern tastes. We like our women lifeless these days. Sensuality makes us recoil.
I think it was Tom Wolfe who originally used the term “boys with breasts”. This was in 1998, in his novel A Man in Full, in which the main character, a property dealer, leaves his wife for one of these self-assembled creatures. In the 1990s the “boy with breasts” was still a comic device. But, in 2007, would any of our humourless size6 pin-ups understand the joke?
Win a luxury weekend to Newcastle and its neighbour Gateshead, find out more here
Risk, resilience and embracing new technology
Industry sectors news at a glance. Interactive heatmap, video and podcast
Discover the power of collective thinking. Submit a solution and be in with a chance to win a Media Hub Home Entertainment System
The inside track on current trends in the charity, not for profit and social enterprise sectors
Everything the Business Traveller needs to know to make a better trip
Make the most of the summer and enter our fabulous photographic competition, you could win a £5000 holiday
Corsica is an island of beauty and contrast, an ideal holiday destination
Enjoy further reading from Travel to Fashion, Business to Sport, discover more
Shortcuts to help you find sections and articles
The clever way to lease a new car is with Car leasing made simple™
2009
per month on 36-month
Personal Contract Hire (PCH)
2008
42850
Car Insurance
£24,250 - £30,346
MI5
London
£60,000
The Environment Agency
Bristol
Up to £90K
Boots
Midlands
OTE £85k
Credit Protection Association
Nationwide Opportunities
Completely London
Luxury Condo's in Manhattan with NYC views
The best new homes in Wimbledon?
Nationwide
Fabulous Cruise And Cruise & Stay Offers Including Virgin Atlantic Flights Prices Start From Only £699pp!
Last Minute Cruise And Cruise & Stay Offers. Med From £499pp, Caribbean From £699pp!
5 star quality at a 3 star price.
8 fabulous Canadian cities ...you won’t find cheaper
Contact our advertising team for advertising and sponsorship in Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times, or place your advertisement.
Times Online Services: Dating | Jobs | Property Search | Used Cars | Holidays | Births, Marriages, Deaths | Subscriptions | E-paper
News International associated websites: Globrix Property Search | Property Finder | Milkround
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.
This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard Terms and Conditions. Please read our Privacy Policy.To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from Times Online, The Times or The Sunday Times, click here.This website is published by a member of the News International Group. News International Limited, 1 Virginia St, London E98 1XY, is the holding company for the News International group and is registered in England No 81701. VAT number GB 243 8054 69.
I think that transsexual people can be just as worthwhile and attractive as anyone else. It's only our transphobic society that tries to make out that transgendered equals worthless!
http://www.morethan2genders.com/page2.htm
Katie, Cardiff, Wales, UK
Ken:
its not worthless at all! u obiously took the time out to read it!
Anita, London,
Many transsexual women and men look completely indistinguishable from any other woman or man.
Besides, just what, exactly, is wrong with looking transgendered? The idea that transgendered equals worthless and unattractive is a pathetic myth created by a transphobic society.
Personally, I couldn't care less whether or not some boring chauvinist bigot (of whatever gender) thinks that I come from a Patpong transsexual club!
http://www.morethan2genders.com/page2.htm
Katie, Cardiff, Wales, UK
Everytime I see this balistic type of like-articles always written by women I know for sure that the author has a weight problem
Maybe thin, tomboy women look younger and are more fun to be with and where did the author get a stupid idea that every slender women ectually starves herself to death? Maybe they are simply lucky enough to be able to eat (and stay slim) all those yummy things that the author of this article would kill for....
And..if looking like a boy with the breasts was so disgusting as the author implies, why would so many men be attracted to 'the boys' on the photos???
Velinka Minic, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
'Role models'? This list includes women well-known for drug dependency, eating disorders, dysfunctional relationships, desperate attention-seeking and pouting towards the camera. The fact that they have extreme thin-ness in common and appear regularly in magazines and newspapers does not qualify them as 'Role models'.
Sam, London, UK
Women wanted to look like the Princess because besides her beeing beautiful and so feminine, she was a good person and did a lot for the British image in general, all over the world.Its so unfair, ten years after her sad death, certain people continues to judge her as thick , neurotic and such...not stoping to think of the awful events that made her the sad person she was and finally , to lose her life in desperate pursuit of happines.Her looks and style are still very much admired and up to date, for they are timelesBut of course, this only applies for sensible women, not for the thick and neurotics ot this world ,
nora harrison, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Interesting and amusing point of view!
Could it be that 'regular' women are more on the fuller side and hence aspire to be slimmer and athletic? Hence the obsession with flatness? Probably the need to be different?
Or perhaps it is just lack of creativity on the part of fashion brands/designers etc to model their women.
Why in God's name would anyone want to look like Amy (I'd like her talent though)? But Posh? Ugghh
Deepa , London, UK
Very interesting article. This is really well picked: "now women donât seem to be women at all. From the back, at least, you could mistake most of them for teenage boys". Apparently, the triumph of misogynism? (Are women the main supporters of misogynism?).
Francesca Bruni, Milano, IT
First, I have to say that your language is most disrespectful of the late Princess Dainna.
Second, it seems that the women you describe are out to impress other celebrity women, not men. What a shame for them, and us (males).
Having said that, most women are now fat, bordering on obese - these are the stats.
Mike, Sydney,
Must be a slow news day or something. Geez what a worthless article....
ken, Blandford, UK
Diana was not a pin-up in 1997. The likes of Kate Moss and an ultra-thin Madonna were.
And if the reporter went to Patpong ladyboy clubs, she'd know that the katoeys are not elfin androgynes, far from it, but rather galumphing, tall, big footed, foghorn types.
Simon Park, Bangkok,
So, when did the 'entire female population' decide that they admired anorexic-looking figures, as claimed by this article? I think I must have missed the memo.
Ella, London, UK