Not only do I totally agree with Zoe Williams’ article (Is Martha Stewart’s Sports Illustrated cover a diversity breakthrough? No, it’s just window dressing, 16 May), I’d like to take it one step further. As a woman now in my 50s, I feel that Martha Stewart’s appearance is a reflection of the media’s pressure on women to look a certain way as we age. Why do we have to look at a model in her 80s without a single wrinkle – what’s real about that? We’ll start truly celebrating women when we recognise that with age comes much wisdom and experience. Let’s see that image on the front of more magazines.
I want to feel proud of my body as I get older and released from the ridiculous standards the media placed on me in my youth. My heart sank when I saw the photo in Sports Illustrated. Now we’re even being told how to age – just as I thought they weren’t interested in us any more. I see it as a cynical marketing ploy to access the consumer pounds of affluent members of society.
My teenage years were painful and filled with struggles as a result of what I was told to look like by the magazines and billboards around me. Please leave me to enjoy my old age!
Kelly Hosking
Ipswich
