Are these (Dove) women real?

There’s some controversy going on over whether or not the women above used in the Dove ad were real. While a recent New Yorker ad strongly implies the image above was heavily adjusted, the article here: Dove: We Didn’t Airbrush Our Lumpy Ladies – Media Blog – Jeff Bercovici – Mixed Media – Portfolio.com) points to a letter from Dove that strong states they weren’t.

Having read the material, I would be inclined to thing they weren’t retouched. And it somewhat — though not entirely — misses Dove’s point of arguing that beauty belongs to more than just thin women who walk down catwalks for a living. It’s the appreciation of everyone’s beauty that is the key point, not whether or not skin tones were tweaked.

Now it could be argued that there are better ways of arguing this than putting a group of women together with just their underwear on. I think this will be a step forward if the debate shifts towards that.