Samantha Brick: A Response

Well, unless you've been living underneath a rock for the past year, you'll all know that Samantha Brick is the journalist that wrote that article for The Daily Mail about how women hate her because she's so beautiful. As expected, it got a huge backlash, and since then, Brick has been infamous for her narcissism, constantly being invited onto talk shows and radio shows (and even appearing on Celebrity Big Brother), for presenters to ask her the question on everybody's lips: do you really believe the things you write?

Brick continued to write articles (that include, but are not limited to launching an attack on former Spice Girl Mel B, proudly saying that she regularly checks her husband's emails and messages, as well as proclaiming that she doesn't need independence or a career because her life as a trophy wife suits her just fine), but none of them made quite as big a stir as the 'Why women hate me for being beautiful.' Until today that is.

Yup, old Bricky has done it again, this time asserting that being a true woman means being on a constant starvation diet, and that if we choose to ignore her advice, our husbands have the right to divorce us.

...Really?

I must admit, the article did make me laugh. A big part of me things that Samantha Brick is actually a Keith Lemon style spoof character because, surely, she can't be a real person. Can she? 

I don't know. However, spoof or not (and I fear she isn't), Brick is entitled to her opinions. Of course she is. I am, though, also entitled to mine, and I am of the opinion that Brick's vile rhetoric promotes sexism, anorexia and all out rubbish and so here is my response to some of what she said:


"When my husband and I invited friends to dinner, I knew they'd want to bring something along as a contribution to the evening and made a point of saying that wasn't necessary. So when one friend arrived and thrust a hefty box of chocolates into my hands, I rewarded her with ice-cold contempt rather than the grateful smile she was clearly expecting. At the end of the evening, that very expensive box of hand-made French chocolates was consigned to the bottom of the kitchen bin, the contents ruined by the coffee dregs I had deliberately poured over them." 

Now this is just ungrateful. If Samantha didn't want the chocolates, she didn't have to eat them, but the friend was clearly doing something that she thought was nice (and no doubt the "hand-made French chocolates" also cost a pretty penny), and so Samantha should have thanked the woman with a polite smile. Anything else is just unladylike and bad mannered. As for the pouring of coffee dregs over the chocolates, Samantha, was there really a need to start the article so spitefully?

"I am 42 years old and have been on a permanent diet for the past 30 years. The logic is simple and irrefutable: any self-respecting woman wants to be thin, and to be thin you need to spend your life on a diet." 

For me, a self-respecting woman is somebody with a mind of their own and a career but that's just me. Maybe it's more self-respecting to be a trophy wife, ey Sam?

"I was glad to see the back of Easter this month, as it seems to have been hijacked by the greedy masses who regard it as a free pass to gorge  on chocolate." 

Oh come on, Easter is an excuse for children to go on hunts for chocolate eggs. Would you deny your child Easter eggs?

"For three decades, self-denial has been my best friend. And one of my biggest incentives is that I know men prefer slim women."

This is just sad. By all means diet if you feel better about yourself when you're slimmer, but not for a man! Do you think your overweight husband, Pascal, cares about his weight Samantha? Of course he doesn't! There's nothing wrong with wanting to be desirable and attractive to your partner, but it crosses the line when you make "self-denial" a priority for three quarters of your life.

"My husband of five years frequently tells me that if I put on weight he will divorce me."

Call me old-fashioned but when I get married, I want it to be for love of me as a person, not just the desire of my body. So what if I become a size 14 when I'm 40? There are more important things to a relationship than looks, and I shouldn't, at age 20, be telling this to a woman more than double my age. Samantha, if your husband tells you things like that then he doesn't love you and you shouldn't be married to him. No man, in shape or otherwise, should dictate what you are and are not allowed to eat. Unless his name is Christian Grey and he lives purely in the realms of erotic fiction.

"In the workplace, male bosses will always give the top job to a woman who looks fit and in control, rather than one who looks like a bulging sack in danger of imminent cardiac arrest."

I do not dispute this, but I firmly believe that it should serve as an incentive to change our politics, not our portion sizes.

"I fainted with hunger on one occasion - a minor hitch, eclipsed by the fact that I was being asked out on lots of dates." 

More than worth it then! Remember to keep me updated on how many boys are chasing you when you're on a drip and dying from malnutrition. 

"At college I invented the Polo diet. Eating a pack of mints for breakfast and another for lunch, I could make each one last hours."

HOW IS THIS ALLOWED TO BE PRINTED? THIS SHOULD BE CONFINED TO THE MURKY UNDERWORLD OF PRO-ANA SITES! THERE COULD BE CHILDREN READING THIS SAMANTHA! Seriously though, we live in a nation of free-speech, but attitudes like this are dangerous, especially when impressionable, healthy young girls could be reading the things you're saying. You have a degree of responsibility, whether you like it or not. 

"One of my lecturers was so worried she pulled me aside to voice her concern. I put her intervention down to jealousy, as she was a size 16." 

Maybe it was genuine concern because you were clearly suffering from an eating disorder Samantha.

"I even chose holidays according to the indigenous diet. India was a favourite because I lost weight on meagre vegetarian servings."

You have, without question, an eating disorder. This isn't normal! This isn't "dieting"! Living on mints, fainting from hunger and basing your entire life around food are all classic signs of anorexia. You shouldn't be advocating this.

"I was a size 8, and became accustomed to surviving on fewer than 1,000 calories a day."

Surviving on less than 1000 kcal a day is technically 'starvation' Samantha. Ask a doctor. I'm right. 

'There is nothing that signifies failure better than fat.'

How about being unemployed? Incarcerated? Addicted to drugs? Being fat isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person.

"Pascal would not tolerate a fat wife and has told me that if I put on weight, our marriage is over. What more motivation do I need?"

I have already commented on how ludicrous this is but I feel that I should paste another one of these quotes about your chauvinist, sorry, 'husband,' just to emphasize what a pig he is.

 "Today I am a size 12 and I never eat between meals."

Hm, so here is the point where I, as a reader, become even more furious. It's one thing promoting starvation, fainting and an obsession with being thin if you are thin. But Samantha, if you'd lived on less than 1000 kcal a day for thirty years, you would be thinner than a size 12. Sure, some people have slower metabolisms, and you've previously mentioned being a size 8 at times but I still find being a size 12, or even a size 8, difficult to reconcile with the lifestyle that you expect us to believe you have led. I think it's even more disgusting to advise girls of a normal, healthy weight, to restrict themselves to the extent that you apparently to, when you are no skeleton yourself!

A size 12, by any stretch of the imagination, is not fat. Please don't think that I am saying otherwise. However, for all your waxing lyrical about how your life has been devoted to self-denial, I can't say that I think it's been worth it. I think that if you really had denied yourself as much as you claim to, you would be a lot thinner.

And please don't accuse me of being jealous Sammy. I'm thinner than you, and (I believe) more attractive. I just don't feel the need to spend my life writing narcissistic blogs about my looks because my confidence comes from within and I think it downright unladylike to say the things about women in the way that you do. I am aware that I am sounding off at you, so could be accused of being hypocritical, but what can I say, you've got my goat.

"I lose at least half-a-stone each time (I diet), though the side-effects mean that I don't have the mental or physical fortitude to work." 

If you don't have the energy to go to work then whatever you're doing isn't healthy. Sacrificing your mental and physical health for the sake of half a stone just isn't worth it, and I think that many people would agree with me.

Honestly Sam, I don't know how you can possibly believe all the things that you say. I pray to God that you're just doing it for another five minutes of fame and that you don't seriously suffer from these outrageous delusions. You'll never see this (I'm not controversial enough to be as famous as you are) but writing this open letter to you has been quite cathartic so thank you for that. I feel a lot calmer now than when I read your article.

Oh, something else? Women don't hate you because you're beautiful Samantha. They hate you because you're a deluded, disgusting, unpleasant human being. As for right now, I'm going to treat myself to some chocolate, and I'll still be thinner than you.

(Nb: you can read the original article here).