Joy Lo Dico's Notebook: Time to expose modelling industry’s dirty secrets

So far the cases of sexual harassment that have risen to the top of the news agenda have been where women are paid to perform: film stars, actresses and now models.

In it there’s an implicit suggestion that if these women parade their bodies and faces for fame under the lens or on stage, what do they expect? They are asking for the attention of men so they’ve received it.

Models are now posting anonymously on Instagram under #myjobshouldnotincludeabuse. The accounts, which are being relayed by Cameron Russell and Edie Campbell, both models themselves, should be read.

They include messages from young women, and a few men, often fresh in town, being treated like sexual playthings.

There is a 14-year- old who is asked if she a virgin, a teenager taken to dinner by a photographer and the all-male crew who has to fend off requests from them to touch her breasts, and stories of photographers bringing girls to their own apartments and trousers being unzipped.

In fashion, the majority of photography is done by men. The big fashion houses are largely under the control of men.

Even the female fashion editors at magazines answer to men. And yet the women who walk up and down the catwalk, or pose in front of the camera, are modelling goods not for men but for women, the purchasers of those clothes, the consumers of the magazines.

You could say the same for film. Half the audiences are women.

Actresses are not auditioning for a spot in a lap-dancing club to be performing solely to a room of middle-aged men (where at least stringent, no-touching rules apply).

They’ve entered an industry in which they reflect half of society, the image of which is then beamed onto cinema screens and our laptops, where women are half the consumers.

Both actress and models have every right to audition to be in these “performance” industries, and to be taken seriously: they are a legitimate part of that economy.

At some point it might be time for the men in these positions of power behind the lens, signing the contracts, or those footing the bills to consider this: if they are anywhere in the chain of command, asking women to swap the promise of men’s titillation for her career, how are they not complicit in the abuse?

Designer-accessory hounds really take the (dog) biscuit

Last year a random book arrived on my desk. It was by Raymond and Lorna Coppinger and its title was the question: “What is a Dog?”

The answer, I found, is those mutts you might have seen in countries where there are still stray dogs roaming. Mid-size, sandy or black, indeterminate creatures who live on the edges of villages, looking for food and befriending humans.

Cocker spaniels, chihuahuas and Hungarian vizslas all derive from this generic mutt, which has no name other than “dog”.

The carefully bred pooch is the Prada or Rolex of the canine world. Indeed, so overbred have they become that the Department for the Environment is finally asking the question: should French bulldogs who have breathing difficulties be allowed; should Cavalier King Charles Spaniels with compressed skulls be paraded about town as a badge of honour?

A review is being opened up on breeding standards.

The Kennel Club is nodding along, despite being the ones who set many standards in the first place to encourage ever purer bloodlines.

Wouldn’t it make a change to have a Crufts for mutts instead, just to remind us that a dog is not a designer accessory but just a dog, an animal with four legs and a wagging tail?

Train discounts are really un-fare

There was one TV ad that made me yearn for train journeys as a child: those for British Rail Intercity, of a boy and old man playing chess on a table and a woman reading a Penguin book as the scenery slipped by and some easy blues played.

That was in 1988.

As of next year, those who were born after this date will be able to apply for a new under-30s railcard.

Over-60s can already get discount railcards, as can those with children on the Friends and Family version.

In fact, only if you are single and haven’t got a child in tow, you can forget about any reduction.

You won’t be relaxing on the train as promised; you will be hammering away on a laptop working for your full fare. Or should I say un-fare.

Brexit love has new boundaries

There is something deeply dispiriting about the idea of the soulless room in Brussels where negotiators are hammering out the details of what happens to the love lives of EU citizens in the UK after we leave, part of the Brexit talks on citizens’ rights.

So far it looks likely that there will be no problem for current EU residents and their spouses, but not for their children who haven’t met their future partners.

As for that deep and special relationship: so far it seems much wished for in trading arrangements but not so much for people’s personal lives.