Letter: Tarring women with the bimbo brush

Sir: Rosalind Miles does the cause of feminism no good when she accepts the News of the World's stereotyping of Bienvenida Perez-Blanco ('Why kiss 'n 'tell hurts women most', 15 March). Surely the 'bimboisation' of women by the tabloids is something to fight against: by accepting it, and blaming the woman, she is reinforcing a picture of women as nothing but adjuncts to men.

My family's recent experience of the workings of the tabloid press (I am the mother of Emily Barr, the 'research assistant' in the Hartley Booth scandal) makes me unwilling to be judgemental about any woman cast in this role. In my experience, a woman can be forced into a position that makes her seem to conform to stereotypes that are miles away from the reality of her life.

Of course, Miss Perez-Blanco may be a greed-blinkered gold-digger but I do not know, and nor, I assume, does Rosalind Miles, because Miss Perez-Blanco has nowhere, as far as I know, explained her reasons for revealing her affair with Sir Peter Harding.

The Independent could benefit from an examination of its attitudes: surely it should not accept the News of the World's version of a story, let alone call my feminist London University undergraduate daughter a 'bimbo' (Media, 16 February).

Yours sincerely,

BRIDGET GUZEK

Bristol