Airbrushing is a crime against women, says actress
JAMEELA JAMIL, the actress, has condemned the airbrushing of photographs as a “crime against women” which should be banned.
The former BBC Radio 1 DJ and Channel 4 presenter, now starring in the US television comedy The Good Place, said altering pictures is “a disgusting tool”.
She has called on women to boycott brands that use airbrushing and “sell you the lie of perfection”. Writing for the BBC, Ms Jamil, 32, said: “It is antifeminist. It is ageist. It is fat-phobic. It looks weird. It looks wrong.
“It’s robbing you of your time, money, comfort, integrity and selfworth. Delete the apps and unfollow those who are complicit in this crime against our gender.
“Don’t give your money to any institution that sells you the lie of ‘perfection’. They are trying to break you, so you will hate yourself and go out and buy something you don’t need, in or- der to fix something that was never broken in the first place.”
Ms Jamil added: “I suffered from eating disorders and so I know how damaging ‘perfect’ images … can be.
“It’s a disgusting tool that has been weaponised, predominantly against women, and is responsible for so many more problems than we realise.
“When you filter a woman’s photo, you are legitimising the patriarchy’s absurd aesthetic standards that women should be attractive to the straight male gaze at all costs. When you filter your selfies, you are doing the same thing.” Ms Jamil was inspired to write the piece after a cover shoot for Vera, the Virgin Airlines’ magazine, which honoured her request for no airbrushing.
“This is a desperately important stance to take in honour of the tens of millions of women (at least) who struggle so much with their self-image, due to decades of impossibly demanding body standards being inflicted upon us,” she wrote on her blog.
Born in north London to a Pakistani mother and an Indian father, Ms Jamil once revealed that she had been told she was “too old, too ethnic and too fat” to have a career in the US.
The Good Place, in which she appears alongside former Cheers star Ted Danson, has had three successful seasons and won widespread critical acclaim.
Ms Jamil added: “When photo editors try to lighten my skin and change my ethnicity, it’s bad for the girls who are looking at the picture. But it’s also bad for my mental health. It makes me dislike what I am seeing in the mirror.”