Note | Nudity Are Abbey Lee Kershaw, Anja Rubik, Karmen Pedaru, Saskia de Brauw and Stella Tennant really heroines on the cover of Numero’s September 2011 issue? Or are they robotic Stepford women, stylized in lackluster, emotionless, immobilized, anonymous black and white patinas by Karl Lagefeld?

The biggest compliment paid so far to Anja Rubik over at TFS has nothing to do with her heroine status but the fact that her mouth is closed for once. We read this frozen mouth open complaint about Anja yesterday, and we’ll be damned, her mouth does tend to be frozen in a lifeless exhale most of the time. Forgive us, but we’re not experts on these issues.

Bottom line, we’ll be investigating these model’s criteria for heroine status. Sorry, but it sounds like grade inflation to us at first blush.

Noting other icons mentioned on the Numero September 2011 cover, a collage composite of Jane Fonda, Marina Abramovic and Georgia O’Keefe would have been a much more interesting cover — with one or two of these girls tossed in for fashion interest. Better yet, there are several young models who are in-motion activists, determined to change the world. They are true heroines, combining Smart Sensuality brains, sensuality and heart.

Definitions of heroine:

1. A woman noted for courage and daring action.

2. A woman admired or idealized for her courage or noble qualities.

3. A mythological or legendary woman having the qualities of a hero.

2. A woman noted for special achievement in a particular field.

Checking the thesarus, synonyms for heroine include: champion, leading person, brave woman, role model, adventurer. These women are more spirited like Estelle, Karen, Rachel, Linda, Tatjana, and Christy, photographed by Peter Lindburgh for US Vogue, 1988.

At least women weren’t frozen in place in 1988. We dared to act up, take a flying leap of courage, yell ‘foul’!

At the height of the women’s movement, we saw ourselves as women of action, women chanelling our ancient, empowering heritage — the women captured in Arthur Elgort’s 1990 Pirelli calendar and not the post ‘Sex and the City’ Miss Milktoasts we women have become.

Pirelli Defines Sensuality & Fashion Bodies | Arthur Elgort vs Karl Lagerfeld AOC Body & Culture

American women were ready to rumble in those years, as were women from England to Sudan. Khartoum was the center of unimaginable opportunities for women, a cradle for women’s education and leadership.

Today, Anne of Carversville tries to help the 40,000 women flogged each year in Khartoum, rounded up by trucks of men patroling the streets for women not wearing ‘appropriate clothing’.

No one rides herd on the boys club, the truck drivers, the floggers and slashers.

Laughing Brutality in Woman’s Flogging Video Chills Sudan AOC World’s Women

My first involvement in support of the women of Sudan came in the Lubna Hussein case, where AOC was approached by men in the Arab region, seeking our help in broadcasting Lubna’s invitation to 500 global journalists to her own flogging, for wearing trousers that were too tight.

In talking about the 40,000 women flogged each year in northern Sudan, Lubna said, “that the painful thing is the silence of women who are subjected to beatings and humiliation by the police for fear of scandal, because the community is always blaming the woman victim, not the executioner”.

Yes, if you have the courage to watch the flogging video above, you will see that the policeman treats the woman like an animal. This is why we need Elgort women in today’s world, not Karl Lagerfeld’s.

Below is NBC’s Ann Curry interviewing Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir — the man who orders the floggings- in 2007.

Give Us Spear Throwers

The fashion world needs spear throwers, not Stepford, SATC girls Chanel-style.

Sorry, Numero — the cast of characters above doesn’t warrant the headline ‘Heroines’.

A French heroine would be the great Simone de Beauvoir or Gertrude Stein, an American living in Paris.

We tend to throw around the word ‘hero’ loosely in the United States. Let’s not take our loose way with words to France, Ok?

Fashion models aren’t heroines, unless they’re women like Christy Turlington, making a documentary for women’s maternal health. I doubt Christy would willingly accept the adjective heroine to describe her. She is doing her duty as a citizen of the world and caring Smart Sensuality woman. Anne

Christy Turlington’s Maternal Health ‘No Woman No Cry’ AOC World’s Women