a letter to Alexandra Shulman

You talk in your opening letter about wishing to inspire confidence in women, and yet your magazine leaves me feeling depressed and inadequate. This is why.

You say you want younger women like me and my friends to take on the world, but the images you've published suggest otherwise. Many of the women you've photographed look malnourished and fragile:

How are we supposed to storm the boardrooms when you're telling us we should look this weak? Can't you see the irony in publishing these photos alongside Lara Stone's report on the children in Kenya who spend their days 'begging for food'?

According to your journalists my friends and I are going to look ridiculous from the waist up in almost all the new season trends (although if we're 'whippet-thin' we might be ok). Crop tops are out of the question unless we make Pilates our "new best friend". And we might as well forget about wearing anything as outrageous as sleeves; the supertight ones are apparently 'best employed by slender limbs' and anything blousy is likely to be transparent and might possibly reveal our shamefully untoned arms!

Thankfully Jo Ellison is on hand to reassure us that the new-season drop-crotch trouser 'helps create an illusion of hiplessness (never a bad thing), and so much volume means one’s legs look like sticks beneath the folds.' Hang on! Since when has having hips been a 'bad thing'? Last time I checked women needed them in order to have babies. And I love my hips! Nor do I want sticks for legs Jo, because if I did I wouldn't be able to walk to lectures and learn stuff so that I can get on in the world, or run so fast that my lungs burn, or dance until dawn night after night.

I'm wondering Alexandra, did you and your journalists meet any women last month who didn't look either pixie-petite or "mythologically" willowy and 'vulnerable' with heavy metal cuffs "weighing" down their 'slender wrists'? Because according to your interviews these are the two models that women's bodies must conform to. I find it disturbing that the only images of femininity that are acceptable to you are those that figure women as mystical, unreal, and not quite human. We don't need to be 'impish' or 'svelte' and "Bambi-like" to be sexy y'know.

Altogether I'm left rather confused after reading your magazine. You claim to want us to take on the world, yet, even in a description of a new denim studio, you report how "buying a pair of jeans is like finding Mr Right," that such a "matchmaking shop" sounds like a 'marriage made in heaven.' Reading this I feel you're assuming your readers' ambition in life is to find a nice young man and settle down.

One final thing, Alexandra. I think it's great that you've got a piece on Yvette Cooper, I really do. But I kinda wanted Ann Treneman to be a bit more angry that women make up only 22% of Parliament. I feel that, seeing as we make up less that a quarter of politicians, we are still very much 'exotic rarities' (although I really don't like this objectifying epithet). Also, I had a quick check online and according to the most recent 'Women in Parliament' briefing paper, the UK actually ranks 65^th in the world, not 57^th for the proportion of women in the lower House. And even if this article had been the most groundbreaking piece of investigative feminist journalism ever  written, it would still be completely undermined by the images you've published and the demoralising language choices your journalists have made throughout this magazine.

Look, odd as this may sound, Vogue is actually my favourite glossy (I certainly wouldn't spend £4.10 if it wasn't). But I feel that, despite the amazing fashion you showcase, you're letting me and my generation down. At one point you tell us readers to "feel the power of the gladiators" by wearing their sandals. You say that 'we all know that gladiators were fearsome fighters who battled largely to entertain audiences in the Roman empire' and that by buying these shoes we too can harness some of that power. Great Alexandra, except most gladiators were slaves. And reading your magazine  there's a danger that too many young women are going to become slaves too. Slaves to an ideal vision of femininity that can prove to be fatal.

Best wishes,

oxfordbeautyblogger xx