A FEMINIST TRIUMPH - WELL, SORT OF

A Sicilian Miss Italia:  Francesca Chillemi in 2003.

The fact that this year's Miss Italia contest is going to be open to women who are a size 44 - British size 12 or US size 10 - is being hailed here as a triumph for all women if not exactly a feminist victory.  The newspapers are full of articles extolling the more curvaceous woman and we are being reassured that men prefer us that way. 

Well, I have a few questions:  since when has a size 12 woman been particularly curvaceous and men, why didn't you tell us before -  vociferously?!  Ever since the sixties, women have been trying to look like stick insects but now it's OK to look - I hardly dare utter the word - healthy? Will someone tell the fashion industry - please?

Does this mean that Liz Hurley will have to stop making ridiculous statements like,"I'd kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe" and are the organisers of Miss Italia about to confer upon that most glamorous Italian lady of them all, Sophia Loren, the title that should rightly have been hers back in 1950?

The Miss Italia organisers pride themselves on innovation, having waived the requirement for contestants to give their measurements on the entry forms back in 1990, allowing married women and women who were mothers to enter from 1994 and awarding the title to a woman of colour in 1996.  Last year there was the scandal, or non-scandal,  of the transsexual contestant and from this year women under the age of eighteen will not be allowed to enter.

I suppose we must be grateful for small mercies but I for one look forward to a day when women are judged on their achievements and on their inner, rather than ephemeral, beauty.

Sophia Loren shows contestants how to do elegance at the 2010 Miss Italia contest.