Legs crossed, hip to the side… Our photo poses show that no matter what a woman is up to she’s judged on her looks

Ciara Kelly

Angelina Jolie made headlines at the 2012 Academy Awards with her jutting leg pose, while then partner Brad Pitt adopted a more relaxed stance

January 22 2022 04:00 PM

As you know, I’m a keen observer of social dynamics and of particular interest to me is the interaction between men and women. The debate still rages on whether women have reached equality in the West – they’re clearly miles away from equality in most of the world – but how will we know for sure when it’s actually arrived? Will it be a blanket 50/50 in the boardroom? Will inequality just fizzle out like a nasty pandemic?

Well, I’ve helpfully developed the acid test — so we can check where we stand, as it were. And it is all about our standing. I think we’ll know that women have achieved social parity when we no longer stand weirdly in photos.

You know what I’m talking about. Picture a group shot of people attending an event. Men just stand, their legs doing their normal skeletal job of running from their hip to the floor in a straight line – holding them upright in an unobtrusive, efficient manner. Now scan your eye across to the women.

They’re often practically contorted. Legs crossed in an exaggerated fashion. The front leg elongated across them oddly, at an angle of 45 degrees. A hip shunted out so far to the side, they’re sometimes in danger of actually falling over. (I’ve lost my balance in the occasional photoshoot.) Or if that isn’t your preferred pose, a bent knee with a pointed toe tapped daintily in front of the other foot. A hand on a hip. I think it’s something to do with creating a silhouette, but where did we learn this?

All-women groups can be even worse at this. Standing in a line, holding amateur ballet-dancer poses, like a bunch of 1950s’ air hostesses, as though we’re hoping to be picked as Miss Human Resources 2022.

It’s no wonder we want pockets in our clothes. We spend so long setting up our elaborate legs, we have nothing left in our arm game.

Standing peculiarly says to me, more than almost anything else, that no matter what a woman is up to, from rocket science to rock ’n’ roll, she’s judged on her looks, and not only that, she’s internalised that so much that she’s incapable, irrespective of the setting, of standing naturally. Men don’t check themselves to see if they’re standing attractively. Many women cannot stand without doing it.

A good back-up test — in case that isn’t enough to check for the fall of the patriarchy — is our seeming inability to not be fascinated by a couple where the woman is taller than the man. Women are absolutely guilty of heightism when it comes to men. Demanding only six feet and above on dating apps is quite normal, if obnoxious, in the way it would be if men wrote that only thin women should swipe right.

Tom Holland and Zendaya or Tom Cruise and anyone inevitably generate massive column inches – if you’ll excuse the pun – about them being shorter than their girlfriends. It’s insulting both ways. A bloke who isn’t six foot should not be seen as lesser in some way because of this, nor should he seem emasculated because his girlfriend is taller.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive to the opposite or, indeed, the same sex, but as long as women can’t stop thinking about their appearance – even for the brief seconds it takes to snap a photo – we still have a way to go.

A second opinion

Is it just me or is January already nine weeks long? I dunno about you but I am genuinely exhausted. If I wasn’t doing #100daysofwalking, I doubt I’d get off the couch. TATT, or ‘tired all the time’, is what we used to call it as medics. Maybe it’s the post-Christmas slump, maybe it’s the short, dark, cold days or maybe it’s Covid-19 hanging over us but it feels like we’re swimming upstream through treacle at the minute.

But there’s no time like the present to look at your lifestyle and see if you’re drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, taking a bit of exercise and eating a decent diet. If you’re lacking in those areas, then a tweak might be sensible.

Sometimes, of course, it’s none of those things. TATT isn’t always circumstantial. Many people have an underlying medical condition that can make you feel wrecked. An underactive thyroid, low vitamin B12, anaemia and a whole raft of other things, including low mood or depression, can zap your energy. January is a good time for an MOT, so if you are feeling exhausted at the minute, getting a set of fasting bloods done is a good idea.