Semi-naked pop stars are a danger to women’s mental health

THANK you Keren Woodward, singer and star of the all-female 80s pop group Bananarama, for saying what I’ve been dying to express for some time. I’d been a bit reluctant in case people thought I’d turned into a puritanical old fuddy-duddy, which, I assure you, is not the case.

But this week Keren said: ‘I can’t get my head around what some singers wear these days.’ I’d argue the problem is not necessarily what they wear but what they don’t wear.

‘I have friends who have teenage daughters and these girls already have terrible body image and insecurities,’ she continued, ‘and I don’t think that kind of woman on stage helps with that.’

Keren is absolutely right. Everyone from Dua Lipa, who recently announced she’d be headlining Glastonbury, to brilliant Oscarnominee Florence Pugh seems to feel they must always appear in public half-naked.

Similarly Beyonce, one of the bestselling music artists of all time, is adored by young girls and women. They love her music just as they think megastar Taylor Swift’s songs touch their souls.

But why do such talented, successful and powerful women feel the need to appear virtually naked in jewel-encrusted leotards on stage or, in Beyonce’s case, naked except for strategically placed jewellery astride a horse?

WHEN Beyonce unveiled the artwork for her new album last week, I was cheered to see she had her clothes back on... until I noticed the back of her trousers were cut out to expose her buttocks — why?

These stars must have worked extremely hard for the bodies they delight in showing off. There are no bingo wings, no bloated tummies. They must exercise every day and have expert chefs to prepare nutritious healthy meals.

Quite unlike the teenage fan who has to eat her way through school meals, maybe has a bit of puppy fat and the only exercise she gets is copying a TikTok dance in her bedroom. No wonder so many girls have body hang-ups and, according to statistics, more young people than ever are receiving treatment for eating disorders. I have friends whose girls have simply stopped eating and lift weights to achieve the strong, handsome arms of their idols.

The sad reality is that, far from being inspirational, many of today’s female pop stars are a danger to a young person’s mental health.

Then there’s the risk girls put themselves in by copying the outfits. Like Keren, I have friends whose teenage daughters spend hours listening to the music of the women they adore, doing their best to look and dance like them. They hope Mum won’t notice if they sneak out wearing the required barely-there attire.

Nothing can be more distressing to a parent than witnessing their little girl going out dressed like a porn star, unaware of the dangers that might attract.

In the 1980s, Bananarama’s heyday, and even up to the 2000s, if re-runs of old Top Of The Pops on BBC 4 are anything to go by, it was not about flashing the flesh.

Keren says they are proud they became pin-ups without being overtly sexy: ‘We became sex symbols in donkey jackets. We didn’t have stylists or make-up artists. It wouldn’t happen now.’

But why wouldn’t it happen now?

Revealing: Dua Lipa in a leather corset and, inset, Bananarama

Since the turn of the century, we seem to have lost the sense that talent matters above all? Think Annie Lennox or Debbie Harry; huge stars valued for their beautiful voices and quirky sense of style, who always came across as intelligent and thoughtful in interviews.

For me, as a feminist, journalist, interviewer and cultural commentator, it felt that women were achieving something on the back of what we’d fought for.

WOMEN were valued for the quality of our minds, not primarily for the size of our breasts — or how willing we were to flash them. It is, of course, not just pop stars who’ve begun to appear in only the bare essentials. On every red carpet there’s a number of beautiful, well-known women wearing what seems to be as little as possible.

Sometimes the frocks are seethrough, leaving nothing to the imagination, or the cut is so skimpy a breast struggles to break free.

I have no doubt this is a result of the proliferation of porn, an arena where women perform almost exclusively for men’s delectation.

Interestingly, nothing in today’s male pop scene is as overtly sexy and the red-carpet guys haven’t managed to achieve anything more shocking than turning up at a black-tie event without a tie.

But it’s the hugely talented, halfnaked, ripped women oozing sex and suggestiveness that bother me most. Why don’t they consider the impact on their impressionable young fans? And the impact on womankind as a whole.

We worked so hard to be seen as the intellectual equals of men. Please don’t consign us to being perceived as nothing more than glorified strippers.