Women fall for the lie of perfection every day

When you’ve lived in both places you know the difference between an “English tummy” and an LA one. Not that the taut sheet of bronzed flesh scored only by a set of abdominal muscles that wouldn’t look out of place on a Marvel action figure can really be called a tummy. Tummies are soft and yielding. They represent maternal warmth and feminine gourmandise – an inability to say no – that’s sexy and charming. To us, that is.

In Hollywoodese all that translates as “lack of discipline” and “letting yourself go”: both repulsive notions. Which is why even when it came to promoting a cookery programme like Nigella’s ABC show The Taste marketing directors thought it might be better to Photoshop out the “English tummy” the 58-year-old joked about on social media yesterday.

Good on Nigella for reminding us of her comical experience with the US TV network as the airbrushing debate raged on Twitter. Still better that when the author and TV chef got wind of what the marketing directors were planning to do, back in 2013, she said: “No, you can’t airbrush it. No. Leave it in.” Brave, considering the antiairbrushing stance wasn’t as “on message” five years ago as it is now – with celebs like British actress Jameela Jamil leading the charge on Twitter and Instagram.

It certainly wasn’t seen as a particularly “empowering” or feminist stance to take back then. And maybe Nigella just understood her own brand better than the robots who wanted to turn her into “a plastic creation” as she put it: I mean surely the whole point of a Domestic Goddess is to be sumptuously real?

And yet I always feel sceptical when I see people feted for their “honesty” on social media – surely one of the most dishonest forms of human communication in existence. And the airbrushing debate is particularly problematic in that because it has become a form of virtue signalling for women to claim they prefer to be seen warts and all (but with terrific lighting and in soft focus), there are a shocking amount of fibs being thrown about. And I’m not talking about Nigella here, who I’ve met several times and looks like she’s been Photoshopped IRL, but the #seriouslynofilter brigade who have covertly all but airbrushed out their own features.

There also seems to be a weird set of rules in matters of physical female “honesty” these days. Women are happy to admit to Botox, for example, but wouldn’t even tell their best friends if they’d had their lips plumped up or eyes “done”. And I know for a fact that certain celebrities would be very vocal about the “scandal” of hip or stomach airbrushing but secretly have demanded those stretch marks and acne scars be removed asap. Is there really any difference? Well yes, in that anything to do with weight and body positivity is bound to get the Twitterati heralding you a heroine.

Now Nigella deserves to be cheered in any case, and Jamil is right to point out that airbrushing has been “weaponised” by brands trying to sell us “the lie of perfection”, but as women who dye our hair and wear make-up, prop ourselves up on heels and slim ourselves down in well-cut dresses, aren’t we all telling hundreds of those lies every single day?