We have reached yet another milestone as a community, one that was critical to our development. A desi of Indian origin has seized the coveted Miss Great Britain title!
With so few beauty pageant titles left unclaimed by the rising tide of brown in swimwear and heels, it was very important that we capture each of the remaining tiaras:
British-born Preeti Desai has become the first person of Indian origin to win the Miss Great Britain title replacing original winner Danielle Lloyd after she was stripped off the award for reportedly dating Judge Teddy Sheringham and agreeing to pose for Playboy magazine. [Link]
As with many winners, she has a heart-warming story behind her victory, one of filial piety:
Preeti gave all credit to her mum, who is recovering, from a serious illness. “When she was crowned Miss Great Britain she rang to tell me and said, ‘The crown is for you.’ I burst into tears. I felt as if I won that crown. I felt as if I am Miss Great Britain. She only wants to see me happy – both my girls do. They want to see me smiling thanks to them I was able to overcome that dreadful illness,” Hema said. [Link]
Like all good desi children, Preeti is multi-talented and ambitious. She worked for years in hair and beauty, before making a career switch to the family fireworks business and she may now be trying to get into property investment. In what I think are her own words:
She then started, and is currently working for the family business G2 Fireworks full time and was made Jr partner, which she built up after years of working for G2 Fireworks from being a child… Recently she decided to move to London and work as a model until she raised enough money to eventually get into the property business. [Link]
If you’re a fan, you can read her myspace page and personal website.
It’s the attack of THE GAYS!
at least the assault is FABULOUS!!!
Re: hip to waist ratio Desai’s figures:
Chest: 32Cin (81cm) Waist: 24in (60cm) Hips: 33in (83cm)
This is what the web page says 😉
She could have won due to not only being thin, but also light skinned. http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1308/context/archive
Ennis plz we are trying to have a serious discussion here, there is no reason to bring data into it.
She could have won due to not only being thin, but also light skinned. http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1308/context/archive
she’s very dark. this is the miss britain contest, not miss gujarat.
other contestants here. some blonde. she’s dark.
I’ve heard that BMI is not as good a measure of fitness as hip to waist ratio. Many of the NFL’s elite running backs are classified as obese using BMI but are quite normal using hip to waist. This whole thread changed direction went I left the comment (#61), “She looks quite ok to me.” That basically meant she fell within my personal visual “fit” range having nothing to do with what women’s magazines tell me. Ennis’ calculations for me reinforces the belief that she is indeed “ok” in appearance and possibly in health as well.
JoAT, great insider comments.
so razib, you think the expectation to be light-skinned & desi doesn’t translate over to the western world? my view is that non-south asians view light-skinned south asians more favorably.
Abhi – I’ve had that same BMI, a 16.9. It was unpleasant.
I had just grown a foot and had only gained 10 lbs, I was 6’3″ and only 135lbs and ravenously hungry all the time. I know Yo Mom is a good counterexample of a healthy woman who was similarly skinny, but it’s hard for me to imagine. I wasn’t unhealthy, but I was clearly scrawny and it was far from optimal. Just gaining 10 lbs more made me feel far better.
As for the hip:waist ratio, one way to get it is if you remove a rib, thus giving you a smaller waist. I have no idea if this is the case here.
If that sounds a bit hard to believe, take a look at every cover from the last 6 years.
Man, tell me about it…it’s refreshing to know there’s someone else with the same problems as me…sometimes you just can’t help but constant remind your sister that she’s hot! So what? You gotta problem with that? You even don’t know me! You can’t judge! I see the the way you’re judgin’. You’re just standing there judgin’ away. Whatever, talk to the hand.
Ooh, a freudian slip Amanda, or should I say KARL ROVE?!
Finally! What took to you so long? I asked for that data report on my desk an hour ago!
Apropos, I also found this nifty BAC calculator on the site you posted from. Apparently, a 150 lb male drinking drinking 27 Manhattans in one hour is “unreasonable” and they won’t give me a BAC estimate. P’shaw, they’ve obviously never been to a real Poonjabi wedding. @=)
After over a decade in it I am convinced women dress for eachother. If you worked in my building you would understand what I mean. Women check eachother out, ALL THE TIME. There aren’t very many straight men to hook up with here so one doesn’t need to have gameface on but straight women try to look good for eachother. It’s all about keeping up with the Joneses. You cannot get off an elevator without being subject to the conversation of someone’s fabulous bag or those gorgeous boots or that fantastic haircut. No I wish it wasn’t as superficial but it IS.
And this is true for every single company I’ve worked at. The same women are far more mutifaceted in a mixed environment, are smart, educated, intelligent, aware, and diverse in their interests when when the company of men but within the company of women it’s all about the makeup hair clothes and shoes! Yeah that’s what feminism has done for us. You think men can tell or care if the boots are real croc or faux croc or if the poncho is from Bergdorf versus JCPenney? Please…women do this for each other. The men don’t care.
235 Tits on a stick…there I said it but only because I kinda like what you threatened to do.
I’m surprised Sin hasn’t added to this discussion. In the gay world, it is quite similar to what women face. Twinkie, skinny assed boys are preferred to regular guys with a little chub and atrophied college muscle. Ofcourse, the perfectly defined and toned bodies that straight men go for is an ideal of the gay world.
Back to skinny legs and all. Meow….cat fight.
Sahej: thanks for the explanation. I didn’t think you were trying to do anything other than be decent….
JoAT: Are you a Sartorialist commenter too 🙂 I love that site, but the fashion thing can be lemming like, I agree. There are often pics of very slender ‘in fashion’ women and I’ll be underwhelmed, but then the commenters will all compliment her and I’ll have to reconsider. Mostly, though, I think the site rocks because it shows you that taste, style, and just plain old having fun with clothes can trump biology. He sometimes posts pics of women who are not the societal ideal but they rock it anyway. Fashion as self-esteem builder! I wonder what made women turn though? Is it simply because it’s harder to be thin in this society than not? Does it simply indicate the amount of leisure time and money we have?
Jai Singh: I hate that kind of jargon speak too. It may be American (University) lingo, but lots of Americans find it kind of silly, nonetheless.
I feel that. When I graduated high school I was 6’1″ and 135 lbs and I definitely did not have an eating disorder, though you could see each and every one of my ribs. I’ve put on about 35 lbs since, haven’t grown, and would still probably be considered a bit underweight, but I feel much healthier.
How many people saw you with your shirt off and said “I’d hit that” ? See, life is so unfair to boys, skinny girls have it far easier 😉
No actually I’ll be unfashionable and say I’ve never even heard of it. I don’t really go to any fashion sites to tell you the truth. SM all the way for me. I find zero reason to discuss virtually what I have to live daily in real life.
People who are saying that you know women or are a woman who is naturally thin – you know what? good for them.you. I know this type of jealous treatment from other women because I have experienced it myself. But being a person who immedietly gains weight soon as I stop working out, I also know what it feels like to be at the higher end of the recommended BMI range.
However, I think it is fair to say that on an average women have to really struggle to be thin (*note I am not saying skinny) and this is especially true as people turn 30 or 40. And it seems somewhat irrelevant to me that any particular supermodel may be one of those naturally skinny people – on an average the supermodels are skinny and it is no secret that many of them eat almost nothing to be that way.
Over the last few months alone, two very famous models have died out of starvation. News reports said that they had been eating only lettuce and diet soda for the last several months. Please – naturally being 110 pounds at 5.8 is highly unlikely – it is possible, but very very unlikely.
Poonjabi, lol@KARL ROVE. The thought of Karl Rove secretly going on message boards, posing as a woman is real funny
so razib, you think the expectation to be light-skinned & desi doesn’t translate over to the western world? my view is that non-south asians view light-skinned south asians more favorably.
light-skinned south asians are dark-skinned in the west. you can ask my half-lebanese friend of the olive skin and black hair who was taunted as “nigger girl” as a child how golden fair and lovely translated in the west. my only point was that the reason ms. desai won the contest wasn’t cuz she’s fair, the woman is kala next to even the “swarthy” white contestants, let alone the flaxen-haired beauties. on the other hand, ms. desai is thin even in a western context. since an analogy was made between her thinness and her lightness i had to point out that in a british context that isn’t restricted to south asian circles (the other contestants are generally white) she isn’t light-skinned, she’s dark-skinned. her skin reflectance index would no doubt in a pan-british context be in the darkest 5%.
JOAT, I agree with you, women dress for women, we are the meanest to each other. I am sure every girl out there has a gem delivered to her from her very own mother, usually your greatest fan and worst critic. Mine, at 14 my mum said if my boobs grew any bigger they will be bigger than my head, I cried for two days, now I know she was just jealous! 🙂
Oh yeah our mothers. It isn’t a secret that so many psychological problems are blamed on relationships with mothers. 🙂 Mine told me my ovaries were drying up and that I should find a man soon, right after she told me I shouldn’t rush into a marriage with a man who doesn’t really meet my criteria because I’m such a catch!
Yes, but the degree of darkness makes a difference. I constantly heard comments about how a desi friend of mine had lighter skin than me (and I’m not really that dark, nor is she really that fair, it was like mocha vs capuccino). White men are more likely to find lighter skinned “ethnic” women attractive. I mean, look at Halle Berry–she is basically like a white person with a tan compared to most other black actresses.
On the other hand, I have encountered multiple people (all doctors who should really have a better understanding of how melanin works) who were mystified by the concept that I could get a tan, until I showed them my pale flip flop stripes, so clearly they hadn’t noticed I’d returned from vacation 10 shades darker, so maybe there is some truth to what you’re saying. I would still argue though that Miss Great Britain’s relatively lighter skin color was an advantage.
Technically, those two can be consistent. Consider US policy towards Iraq. Something should change soon, but at the same time you really don’t want to do the wrong thing.
Besides which, Indian parents seem to think that if you look hard enough (screen 100 candidates maybe?) you can find one who meets your criteria. Since that can be done in a number of months, you can both move quickly and not settle.
I would still argue though that Miss Great Britain’s relatively lighter skin color was an advantage.
no. if you think that color matters than her not as dark skin was less of a disadvantage. see my previous comment. there’s a difference between saying that someone is thin (ms. desai is thinner than most of the contestants from what i can see), and that someone is thin enough. she is not light in the context of ms. great britain, just light enough.
I know you guys are all talking about media perception of women in the West, but I want to mention the perception in real life in India as opposed to USA.
My older sister has always been over weight (almost obese). I remember that she never could buy clothes in India, not even salwar kameez. There were no clothes to her size. She had to get them tailored, every single time. Once I moved to the USA, I was thrilled to see that they actually sell clothes in plus sizes. Also, plus sized women here are not shy about wearing good clothes. My sister always had to hide her body behind shapeless clothes or people would say something like “She’s so fat, that dress is a total waste on her”. It was as if she didn’t have a right to look good because she was over weight.
I think it’s a good thing about USA, no matter what the fashion industry projects as ideal. At least, I can ship good clothes to my sister now.
p.s. the main reason i object to characterizing ms. desai as light is that some people are pointing out issues relating to her thinness. but this isn’t a “brown thang.” she’s thin, straight up. within the brown community perhaps she is light, i don’t take much note of these issues (and photos on the web and with makeup can deceive), but in the context of society in great britain she’s dark. any british woman might hate on her for being thin. few british women would hate on her for being light, because 95% of british women are lighter skinned than her. so this is not the proper thread to hate on her for being light, that is only appropriate when we are talking about kala faced folk like south asians, not the land of pink cheeks.
…british women would offended, insulted even, at the imputation that ms. desai is light. go ask them what they think of your opinion 🙂
Iraq Study Group, I request that everything you post from this point on should be written in the style of the actual Iraq Study Group.
Brilliant! My dating life is now following the same track as the Iraq war.
You forgot to add that they also know what “your criteria” is and it apparently includes several unibrowed, missing toothed, eyeglasses that make one eye look bigger, Milli Vanilli loving men because they are either a doctor or engineer.
according to the vote breakdown, she only got a 30 score from the audience but an 88 from the judges (whilst most of the judges rated her quite highly,including a high of 12 from a shobna gulati, two gave her very low scores of 3). her total of 118 was the fifth highest overall, so i am a bit confused as to how she succeeded the dethroned winner? (not to take anything away from miss desai’s pulchritude and achievement).
I agree with CinnamonRani…sometimes I feel compelled to stuff my face in public because I get the feeling from comments people make that they probably think I am anorexic. My BMI is less than 18 and I have never failed to menstruate in my life. I recognize there is a horrible societal bias towards thinness that results in a lot of unhealthy body image issues, but I am sick of people thinking it’s okay to constantly comment on my body. It’s basically a daily occurrence, and while they might not be insults they certainly aren’t compliments either . I just think we should be at a point where it’s not necessary to comment on anyone’s body unless you are a truly concerned friend, family member, teacher, or medical professional and the person truly has a problem.
We are discussing the “light color” thing now ??? Hallelujah!!! I will check back at comment #400
We are discussing the “light color” thing now ??? Hallelujah!!! I will check back at comment #400
educate yourself!
The discussion is ripe for Jai Singh to make an entry again….Where are you bro?
sleeping? or do sikhs not sleep?
JoAt:
I’m a little late to this discussion but the point you made above interests me because I always thought otherwise. But when I think of DOVE products, I think of the UK. There, DOVE is a brand powerhouse with over 50 eponymous products across multiple categories. It’s UK women’s favorite brand with over a third of them making repeat purchases.
The Real Women campaign spiked UK sales hugely (it was something like 700%–that’s a big number if their 100% percent number comprised a third of all HABA products purchased annually) with a resulting two-fold boost: first, Dove became the go to brand for epitomizing the challenge to what the media/consumers are coerced into finding beautiful; second, it set a brand precedent for other brands to follow with respect to empowering women to be themselves as they fantasized about being even more fabulous.
By the way, for the past 40 years, in the UK (EU) and US, Dove has always used unretouched models. Itcomes as no surprise that they created the Self Esteem Fund “as an agent of change to educate girls and inspire women on a wider definition of beauty.” This last bit is pretty frackin’ awesome, in my opinion.
michelemiller.blogs.com/marketing_to_women/2006/03/ive_written_her.html and http://www.ppamarketing.net/cgi-bin/go.pl/case/article.html?uid=58
JoAT knows her stuff so when she says this campaign didn’t fly in the states, all I can say is ** NO FREAKIN SURPRISE ***Is it just me or can anyone else agree that it’s just easier to be a woman/man gay/straight consumer in the UK with respect to actually seeing a semblance of your real self in the advertising and brand strategies of the products one wishes to buy?
I know many, many, erm… non-ashes/giselles and non-hrithiks/brads who are from the UK who feel that they are fabulous, sexy, attractive and can’t quite wrap their heads around our Amreekan/American pre-occupation with ideals. As female US consumer, I’ve had to forcibly train myself to buy for who I am. Not for who I wish I was/might never be/have no chance in hell of becoming. I’ve had to train myself to see me. Because can’t we just admit that so much time is lost buying for who one isn’t.
Lest I seem an idiot for romanticizing Belethis (The English) I’ll just say this: I’d rather have a healthy love for myself and the ones I’m with, even if I have to have crap teeth (couldn’t resist!).
I will hand it to the UK re: body image. It is fabulous living in a country where a woman doesn’t have to feel like she needs to be stick skinny — but then again is the irony in the US, a country that has a very large % of overweight/obese individuals. For crying out loud, COMPETITIVE EATING is an extreme sport here!
That is correct. Number 3 takes one for the team so the rest of us can party all night. Thanks, Rav!
I knew you’d say that! This just another one of your ROVIAN tactics to trick us into revealing the secret location of the bunker! Somebody get Patrick Fitzgerald on the line!
JoAT: I hear you. I don’t like hospital dramas for the very same reason.
*I must be lucky, because I never had my parents comment on my looks other than to say, “you’re fine. Be happy.” Hmmm, what do you suppose they meant by that?Paranoia, that’s what my Vogue reading has done for me….paranoia. Well, at least I don’t read Cosmo.
That was what was unfortunate about this campaign here. UK is a different animal when it comes to beauty products compared to the US. Women here are far more image conscious than in UK and and much more high maintenance. Women here also have an extremely unhealthy view of what skinny is versus their European counterparts. Diferent demographics. I think women saw the campaign instantly loved it but it did nothing to make women go to the wall to buy it. They still went to Pantene and Garnier. It didn’t even bump it up one notch higher in the grand scheme of things.
I think their product imaging, actual packaging was not executed well. When you have big fish like Pantene and Garnier even if it made a slight blip at the Dove level it wasn’t noticed anywhere. The overall campaign just made the average woman go “oh this is cool” but it did not make her go buy the product. I was one of those consumers. I thought it was a fantastic idea, yeah about time, that’s great but I still went and bought the products I believe in.
I will repeat this here becuase I posted a long rant about this on someone’s blog earlier this week. ALL beauty companies, even the small piddly ones do a lot for women’s issues every year. They donate millions of $$$ every year to educate, bring about awareness and charity work with women’s organizations. Not everyone comes up with a big PR stunt about it as Dove did. At the end of the day it’s about your bottomline. That is what the Dove campaign was about. No one is in that market for charity. The campaign tried to reach a niche of women that people believe existed but may largely be a myth. The real woman, the one who isn’t skinny looks in the mirror and likes to believe she isn’t.
I think Fruit of the Loom has its own version of the Dove campaign in the US.
sigh…. I’m way too busy to be commenting on this thread but Abhi’s begging me to…
One instructive study I came across a while back (and I wish I had time to dig up the URL’s – Razib?) … folks went through & cataloged the stats of women that appeared in men’s mags (playboy, penthouse, etc.) vs. women’s mags (cosmo, vogue, elle, etc.). Now while neither were exactly the american mean, as you might suspect, the women in men’s mags were BOTH shorter + heavier than the ones in women’s mags. Given that both sets of mags face rather extreme commercial selection, this is a pretty significant datapoint…
The implication –> men and women are both awful w.r.t. expectations about female bodies. BUT – women are worse. Men have an incremental pref for J Lo vs. Kate Moss. What might be Buxom in playboy is Fat on the runway.
Nice of you to grace us VV. And that just confirms my theory that it’s the women who do it to eachother. And it stems from Hollywood’s leading ladies.
I think this is the single greatest hoax perpetrated against women (even more so than the thick/thin debate we’ve been having). Why on Earth do women feel that men would find them more attractive if they were taller? So many women kill themselves wearing heels to gain a few inches when in reality they are in fact turning more men off than on.
Think of it this way. Say you have a man that is 5″8″ and a woman that is 5’6″. She wears 4 inch heels to look taller and now she appears to the man to be 5’10”. The man immediately crosses her off his “fitness” list because men rarely go for women taller than them. Even if she were 5’4″ and bumped up to 5’8″ in heels, the 5’8″ man would be less likely to be attracted to her than if she were 5’7″. Again, I think women are just competing with other women in their quest to be taller. Shorter women will ALWAYS pull more game than taller women. That’s just a statistical certainty. That is because shorter women fall into the fitness range of a greater portion of men than taller women do. Ladies, save your feet an please ditch the heels for cross-trainers. 🙂
On the other hand being short is a HUGE disadvantage for a man. Just reverse everything I wrote above and you’ll understand why. That’s why men do crazy stuff like this. It really makes me wonder how we got to the point where women and not men are walking around in heels (not that I want to wear heels).
Funny statement… “A desi of India origin”
I’m about 5’7 (female) and i would say that most women my height make a decision to NOT wear heels. i dated a guy who was shorter then me and it was flats all the time! (we dated for awhile and finally i gave up and decided that everyone knew he was shorter then me anyway and i should let my fashion suffer.) i honestly, don’t know many women my height who wear heels because we do actually know that shorter men don’t go for a taller woman. but, at the same time, as been noted several times here before, women dress for other women and sometimes i’d risk turning off a guy if it means a women will ask me where i got my fabulous shoes. 🙂
whoops that should be i shouldn’t let my fashion suffer.
Another myth I’ll be happy to dispell. Heels make a woman sashay like flats never can. They add a certain grace in a woman’s walk, make her legs look lean and long and sexy and elongage her body in the right direction. Watch a woman walk in heels from the back versus someone in flats. You absolutely cannot immitate that walk in heels with flats and men simply don’t look at you the same way.
Flats are fine for weekends, casual wear but when you get gussied up, nothing makes a good statement as good posture and a good walk the way a good heel lets you. We aren’t really in denial about being short. Please we know we are short, there is no denying that.
Hey Salman Khan does it…shouldn’t stop you 🙂
Sorry, I disagree with you here. I really don’t care how a woman sashays compared to how I size up to her. I’d be surprised if most men don’t agree with me. It ain’t the swing we care about (when a woman is vertical at least ;).
Abhi, I will never wear heels but from what I’ve heard, JOAT has a point. Heels seem to give an attractive shape to the leg (as far as many people are concerned). Was it the early ’90’s when Carl Lewis appeared in a print/billboard ad in red heels? They made his legs look quite conventionally sexy and feminine. I remember that the ad was considered too “disturbing” to run in the US and ran only in Europe.
Don’t ask me what the ad was trying to sell 😉
Ah, here’s some corroboration for you. Unfortunately couldn’t find an image. I remember how demanding you were re Khan’s chest 😉