From Miss Jones to K Knightley

Dear Keira

Hi, how have you been? etc

Let me be upfront from the start and say that I probably won't be going to see your new 'queen of hearts' costume drama. Hope that's OK.

Anyway, to business. I was on the train home tonight, reading the London Paper over someone's shoulder (representing no. 53 on the list of Things I Find Unbearably Annoying When Other People Do Them, But When It's Me  – Well, Then That's Perfectly OK). And there you were, quoted as saying that many women hate you, and what is more, you don't care. It is admirable, of course, to cast off the opinions of others – no one should spend their days being buffeted by other people's narrow-minded scowls and tutting. This is the stuff of Year 3 assembly.

But if I may elaborate, you were suggesting that you believed that women disliked you because of your appearance – in particular, your tendency towards skinny. 

Keira, Keira, Keira. Women don't hate you because you're pretty or thin. They hate you because you're an idiot. Not all the time, naturally, but perhaps a little bit when you say things like this. We may occasionally wince when we see the bones of your spine protruding through your dreamy ivory skin, but let me assure you that this does not mean we despise the very essence of your being. 

Women don't hate beautiful, thin women. They hate beautiful, thin women who are shallow, who are inane, who are bitter, who downplay their intelligence, who change their behaviour around men, who generalise about other women, who assume the only reason other women could dislike them is because of the way they look. We also, by the way, hate fat, ugly women who do these things. We are an equal-opportunities tough crowd.

And furthermore, I would say that most women positively love beautiful thin women – there are few women who would not admit to having a crush of some degree of intensity on Angelina Jolie, Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, Cheryl Cole, or similar. All very thin, and very beautiful. 

Most women, I would venture, genuinely like Cameron Diaz. Not because of how she looks, although there is that, but more because she doesn't appear to take herself too seriously, she works hard and she clearly loves her friends. The fact that her stomach is flatter than Liu Xiang's mum's Olympics party is not sufficient in itself to initiate a witch hunt. Do you see what I mean?

I do understand that newpapers occasionally get these things wrong. So perhaps you were misquoted. If that is the case, you will understand how vexing it is when someone is ill-informedly passing judgments on your behalf. 

Chin up

Miss Jones (woman, non-hater) x