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28 April 2014updated 24 Jun 2021 1:01pm

The Vagenda: why we must fight back against media that is sexist and degrading to women

Seeing plastic surgery ads nestled up next to body confidence features was the final straw. We had to do something.

By Rhiannon

There is one particular instance of magazine idiocy that always crops up when we’re asked about our media satire blog, The Vagenda. To us, it perfectly encapsulates why we wanted to bite back at the magazines that had been a major part of our lives for so long, and scrutinise just how far they’d been allowed to go.

It was a double-page spread in Cosmopolitan, with one side dedicated to a feature on body confidence. “Love yourself the way you are” was the message, explaining to its readership that building up your self-esteem and concentrating on accepting your own, natural body and face was far more important and rewarding than vainly pursuing beauty treatments or diet stresses in the hope that you will suddenly morph into the identical twin of a Glamour cover girl. It was a seemingly positive piece. But then, on the opposite page, juxtaposed with this supposedly sincere message of love and acceptance, was a full-page ad for a Harley Street plastic surgery clinic, illustrated perfectly by a woman holding up a sign that said: “I’ve just had my breasts done, but the biggest change you’ll see is on my face.”

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