I suppose this guy from Esquire at least deserves credit for being honest. But certainly nothing else.
"The women we feature in the magazine are ornamental," he said, speaking on a panel at the Advertising Week Europe conference in London on Tuesday. "I could lie to you if you want and say we are interested in their brains as well. We are not. They are objectified."
That's Esquire editor Alex Bilmes, who was speaking during a panel hosted by Cosmopolitan editor Louise Court about feminism in the media and advertising.
And then he compared their photos of women to ... oh, say .... a Ferrari or a Porsche perhaps.
"[Esquire] provide pictures of girls in the same way we provide pictures of cool cars," he said. "It is ornamental. Women's magazines do the same thing."
He then went on to say that Esquire does a better job than women's magazines at portraying a wider variety of women, especially older women, which he defined as women in their 40s.
He went on to cite the example of actress Cameron Diaz, who is in her 40s, as an "older" women used on the cover of a recent issue of Esquire. "Most women's magazines don't put them [older women] in their magazines."
So -- to use his analogy -- I guess Cameron Diaz is more like a 1955 Chevy Bel Air or a 1966 Cadillac Eldorado than a sleek new Lamborghini.