Eat Me Read Online Free PDF

left exactly the same sort of spots on your clothing as peperoni and mushrooms. ‘So unfair,’ she commented to the others. ‘Whatever happened to value for money?’ She sighed. ‘You might say it’s the perfect end to a bad hair day.’
    â€˜Why?’ asked Philippa. ‘What happened today?’
    â€˜You know the class I teach at the uni on feminist theory?’
    â€˜Not personally,’ chuckled Julia. ‘Not in the Biblical sense.’
    â€˜Oh, hardi har har, darling,’ Chantal rolled her eyes.
    â€˜Anyway,’ continued Helen, ignoring them, ‘we were discussing Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth. There’s this boy in the class, Marc. He’s one of those politically correct and attractive male students who always pop up in women’s studies courses—you can imagine the type. Anyway, we were talking about how society typically rewards women who conform to standards set by the beauty industry. He raised his hand and said, “Ms Nicholls, I think you’re a great example of how women can avoid being trapped by the beauty myth.”’
    â€˜He didn’t, darling.’ Chantal was shocked.
    â€˜He did,’ Helen replied, mournfully. Helen could be a bit sensitive about body issues. On the one hand, she was an intelligent being, a feminist and a woman of the nineties. On the other, she hated her ankles, worried about her thighs and, when no one was looking, made small but despairing fistfuls out of the soft flesh that had settled, apparently for the long-term, around her waist and hips. ‘He even said if I’d written the book instead of the naturally glamorous Naomi Wolf, it’d probably have a lot more credibility.’
    â€˜Bastard!’ cried Julia.
    â€˜No, I know he meant it as a compliment,’ Helen defended. ‘He really did. He’s not malicious or anything. But it certainly knocked me for a loop. What he’d done, of course, was invite all my deepest insecurities to come out and play. You know: I’m fat, I’m unattractive, I’m unfashionable. I’m a dag.’
    â€˜Hellie, you idiot,’ Julia objected, scrambling to sit up straight in the big chair, ‘you are not fat, ugly or unfashionable. Or a dag. You’ve got great boobs, sweet looks and your own sense of style. Anyway, I think you’re gorgeous.’
    â€˜Yeah, but you’re my friend,’ Helen moped. ‘And you can’t be gorgeous when your eyebrows are this close to your eyes’—she pinched her eyebrows further down onto her eyes for dramatic effect—‘and when you’ve got thin lips. C’mon Jules. You read fashion magazines. You know that’s true. And you, Chantal, you edit Pulse for chrissakes. When was the last time you ran a fashion spread featuring models with figures even approaching mine in size? I’ll never be a waif or a gamine,’ she moaned.
    Chantal wore the guilty expression of a little girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
    â€˜Oh, Chantie,’ Helen said. ‘I know it’s not your fault. We’ve talked about it before. The advertisers would never let you use “normal” women on the fashion pages. I know. Don’t mind me. I’m just having a stupid fat attack.’
    â€˜But Helen, surely you should be the last person to be carrying on like this,’ Philippa protested. ‘You’re a feminist, for Christ’s sake. You don’t accept commercially enforced notions of female beauty. You are appalled by anorexia. You are outraged at the fashion industry’s manipulation of women’s sense of self-esteem and confidence. Remember?’
    â€˜Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s indefensible. I’d never admit it in public. But, truth is, for the rest of the day I was obsessed by the thought that I really ought to at least update my wardrobe and buy a new lipstick.’
    â€˜Oh, darling, I’ll go with