By Jess McCabe | 25 September 2006, 22:44

Maxim has published a list of TV’s “least appealing ladies”, provoking a storm of criticism across the blogosphere.

The lad’s mag is better known for its list of the top 100 hottest (celebrity) women, which sparked off the idea for the REAL Hot 100.

And this list of supposedly unsexy women on TV is just as repellant as the original. It is subtitled “we don the hazmat suit and do the research so you don’t have to”.

Of course, the list of women you need to wear a biohazard suit before approaching are hardly hideous. Instead, this list just further narrows the range of acceptable physiques and facial features.

Melissa Lafsky over at the Huffington Post takes particular issue with Maxim’s decision to single out CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour:

Ripping into CNN’s Chief International Correspondent and Peabody Award-winning journalist Christiane Amanpour for her “stern, forbidding” looks and “boxy haircut” reeks of everything wrong with the macrocosm of women in TV journalism. From the infamous pound-shaving to being labeled “too sexy” for a co-anchor slot, female journalists already tiptoe the fine line between the bleached, primped and tucked standards of TV starlets and the public’s expectations for on-screen media personalities (GRAVITAS! THOU SHALT HAVE GRAVITAS!).