Ugh! I want to slap this girl!
Now, it could be my ignorance and I'm very happy to be corrected, but the only part of this article that struck me as being true was the following statement:
"I, for one, can't understand how is it possible that this very visible industry exists—and thrives—with no rules or serious regulations that either dictate the behavior of those who work within it, or to protect those involved. How come there are no norms?".
At least in Australia, almost every industry is very highly regulated by OH&S laws, and our employment laws are very pro employee. The unions in Australia are also very powerful. Working as a lawyer, I get very frustrated with how difficult it can be to discipline an employee or fire them - employees have SO many rights it's almost laughable. However, those protections do not extend to workers who are not legally "employees", which means models (who are not employees, but usually contractors) do not have the benefit of the protections I described above. Most contractors in most industries can negotiate their pay and other entitlements and review their contract to ensure it contains no unfair terms. However, in the modelling industry where you have 1000s of girls competing against each other, the girls have no bargaining power as there is always another girl right behind them ready to take their place. Accordingly, they are left working very long hours for little to no pay, just so they can get the exposure.
Of course, each industry comes with its own set of hardships and if you want to be successful at what you do, then you just need to suck it up. Still, I just wanted to share my thoughts as I did think she had a somewhat valid point when she said the modelling industry was one of the few unregulated industries with no little protections for those working in it.