The argument that seems to pop up the most in Watson's article is insecurity on the part of female fans. As PR "guru" Max Gifford tells Watson, "You get a pretty girl, and the women will say, ‘Look at the size of her bum.’ It’s getting worse, because it’s increasingly difficult to be a woman these days — there are so many more opportunities for self-improvement, and the more pressure women feel, the nastier it gets.”

Watson also lays part of the blame on celebrity culture and women's magazines, as she writes, "The media has to take some of the blame, with gossip magazines encouraging us to focus on women’s looks, bodies and clothes, rather than on the attributes we should be celebrating, such as kindness and wit," and notes that woman are a LOT tougher on celebrities who seem to have everything come easily to them.

It's easy to hate on someone who appears to live a charmed life; our hate is merely a form of what we believe is innocent jealousy. You can go online and call Keira Knightley a stuck-up bitch even though you've never met her before, because the odds are, you never will, and she'll never know what you said. But does that make it okay? Does putting out negative energy toward any successful woman do any of us any good? When there are so many things to hate in this world, to get angry about, to fight against, do we really need to spend 30 minutes a day writing about that "nasty homewrecker" Sienna Miller?

I know we've all had our slips; it's easy to forget that the women in the magazines and on the tv screens and in the Snap Judgment pictures are, well, women too. (Just like us!) And it's very easy to say, "She comes across as a bitch, and therefore I can call 'em like I see em." But Watson makes a fair point about the hypocrisy that comes along with celebrity disdain and worship: "One thing is certain, whatever the motives, we do ourselves a disservice by attacking one another. We tell ourselves we have our reasons, yet the truth is that you can never guarantee who is going to win women over and who is going to wind them up. Sarah Palin, anti-abortionist and bear-killer — how has she ended up on the rave list? Where exactly did Gwyneth Paltrow slip up? Angelina Jolie is surely no friend to women, yet we’d rather save our sniping for the harmless toy-dog-owner Geri Halliwell."

In the end, Watson says, "Maybe, in the end, there is no mystery: we just need to be nicer to each other."[Times Online]

That's a whole load of bull hockey for a number of reasons. First, let's look at the wording of the original HuffPo post, shall we? "Vogue editor Anna Wintour is the international arbiter of fashion, recognized in an instant by her haircut and large sunglasses. But what does she really look like? Thanks to the strength of today's digital cameras and the below AP photo from Thursday's Tommy Hilfiger show, cropped several ways to show every pixel, now you can know." But why do we desperately need to know what Anna Wintour looks like close up? Some could argue that she perpetuates an industry obsessed with looks, but it seems counterproductive to obsess over Wintour's looks as a way of revenge. In fact, it's just continuing the cycle.

And here's what Huffington says about aging in On Becoming Fearless, via Haber, "We need to be in touch with the natural cycle of life and let our preoccupation with appearances fade as we become more engaged in causes larger than ourselves." So, the way to be less preoccupied with our appearances is to zoom in on someone else's. Um. Ok!

Here's some more wisdom from Ms. Huffington of the anti-beauty agenda. "The first step to becoming fearless about our physical appearance is knowing that our fears of inadequacy are manufactured and mass-marketed. The fear-generating message of perfection we measure ourselves against comes not from Moses on the mountain-top but from the multibillion-dollar cosmetics and fashion industries whose profits are directly tied to our levels of insecurity." That's pretty rich coming from a woman whose 1986 wedding to Michael Huffington cost $110,000, according to a December 2005 profile of Arianna in Vanity Fair. Her dress alone cost $15,000, and that's 1986 money! But I guess all that was when she was a Republican, and now that she's a woman of the people, she's very strongly against embracing the "multibillion-dollar cosmetic and fashion industries." That's probably why last week the HuffPo had a user's guide to walking in five-inch heels.

Huffington Post Editor Explains Anna Wintour Post [NY Observer]
Anna Wintour Up Close [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Loose Lips

Anyway, so the "evidence" cited by Dr. Pam that all single women of a certain age (mine) are unhappy is that they come into her office and tell her they are. They're denying biology! They're denying thousands of years of civilization and 30+ years of socialization that couplehood is the only way to go! And, less obviously to the Not Good Doctor, they're sitting in the chair of a judgmental and uninsightful therapist whose goal is to help them get coupled with someone so they can be happy.

What's really going on behind that confident demeanour [of a single woman that declares herself to be happy]and fulfilled exterior is crushing loneliness and desperation.
Single women become adept at playing the isn't-life-grand game.
They have to do it around men so they don't appear desperate.

One thing that Pam misses is that by relying on her patients — who are seeing a therapist because they are unhappy, great self-selection in your unbiased sample, Pam — she's talking to women who are actually unhappy about it, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are. And, um, to a woman, they all admit that they spend a great deal of time and energy pretending not to be unhappy because to admit to their actual feelings would be too humiliating. So rather then, I don't know, talking to these women about how to openly express their actual feelings to people they care about, or counseling them that constantly feeling like "a fraud" and "putting on a facade" isn't emotionally healthy, she helps them get boyfriends. That's obviously the solution to your life's problems, and God knows, entering into a relationship when you have so much trouble acknowledging your feelings and expressing them to the people that care about you is totes a good idea.

As far as I'm concerned, there's a reason the phrase "settling down" contains the word "settling," and that reason has a hell of a lot to do with the divorce rate. There's this social drum beat to marry, marry, marry that I think many women (and men) mistake for their supposed biological clock, and so they run off and pick the most likely candidate and off to the Grown Up Races they go. You know what really sucks? What makes a woman really, really, really unhappy? A fucked up relationship. I've found that you can actually be lonelier in an unhappy relationship with someone than being single.

And I'm single, and I'm not unhappy about it. I'm single because last year I ended a 4-year relationship in which I was so deeply unhappy and so deeply unfulfilled that I'd actually sunk into a deep depression that required therapy. Did getting out of that relationship suck? Yes. I spent as much time crying in my wine after it was over as I did before it ended. Am I "happy" now? I am no longer desperately unhappy and, for someone who suffers from depression, that's a pretty decent start. I am happy to not be miserably coupled. Do I regret being single? Not at all. I'm not defensive about my status, or my age, I'm not inwardly seething at weddings except when there's no more booze to be had (or none to be found) and, in fact, I'm planning on strapping on some extremely cute shoes in September to serve as a bridesmaid in my younger sister's wedding and to flirt with the photographer my mom's told me is extremely attractive and single. And I won't have a date, and I'll be happy about it, because someone needs to flirt with cute wedding photographers and I hear boyfriends frown on that.

Forget This Tosh About 'Freemales' - Single Women Who Say They Are Happy Are Lying [Daily Mail]

Though the attack shocked Sheriff Grady of Polk County — "That is animalistic behavior. It's pack mentality," he says — it's probably not that shocking to anyone who has witnessed a roving pack of schoolgirls firsthand. Growing up in New York I learned that girlfights were almost always scarier than any rumble the guys could muster up. Scratched eyes, pulled hair, ripped earlobes from snatched earrings — girls can be vicious. And the victors in these battles gain respect and support, as scientists have now "discovered."

According to the Telegraph, more than 600 students were asked to rate their school's cliques on popularity. Casey Borch, a professor of sociology at Alabama University, who worked on the study, says, "A lot of popular kids may not be well liked, but they are relationally aggressive and their peers think that they are popular." He also noted that girls as young as nine learn that being nasty can boost their "social visibility" and that girls are more likely to use aggressive behavior than boys.

And it's not just aggression: In a savvy marketing move, the Florida cheerleaders intended to post the video online, where it would not only serve as a testament to their dominance, but as a warning to others. Sheriff Judd says, "When we had them in custody at the station, they were laughing about it, saying, 'Well, I guess this spring break we won't go to the beach.' One of the suspects asked the detective, 'Am I going to get to go to cheerleading practice tomorrow?' They showed absolutely no remorse at all." Maybe because they were so secure, so sure that nastiness and treachery would earn them respect and recognition — and it has.

Cheerleaders Pummel Girl For 30 Minutes In 'Animalistic' Ambush Attack, Police Say [Local 6]
Cheerleaders Tape Themselves Giving Former Friend 30-Minute Violent Beat-Down [Breitbart]
Teens Arrested Over Filmed Beating [CBS News]
'Mean Girls Are The Most Popular Students' [Telegraph]