Girls 'can't have it all': Bridget Jones author warns of the perils of mixing family and career
Lecture: Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding spoke at Oxford about the expectations of women to 'have it all'
She has been credited with helping spawn a generation of thirtysomething singletons.
Now Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding has criticised women who aspire to 'have it all'.
Miss Fielding, whose novels ridicule some women's obsession with lifestyle magazines and self-help books, has also claimed that endless self-improvement has become a 'modern disease'.
The Yorkshire-born mother of two has made more than £20million from her four Bridget Jones books, two of which have been made into films.
They focus on a 32-year-old who keeps a diary about her repeated attempts to find love and take control of her life and career.
However, 50-year-old Miss Fielding now claims that many young women today struggle with the expectation that they should have successful careers as well as raising a family, leaving them 'confused'.
The author was speaking at the Oxford Union - she studied at the university in the 1970s.
Talking about the huge popularity of the Bridget Jones series,
she said it was simply down to readers empathising with an ambitious
woman struggling to live up to an idealistic society.
Modern disease: Renee Zellweger in the film Bridget Jones, which focuses on the heroine's repeated attempts to find love and control her life and career
She said: 'There are so many advertisements now telling people they need to look a certain way and have this perfect life.
'They feel they should be getting up at six in the morning and going to the gym, then doing a full day's work and coming back late and have to feed 12 people for dinner. It's a modern disease.
'It's happened to me where I've gone for photoshoots and looked at myself on the cover of magazines where I have been completely changed and thought, "I wish I looked like that".
'That's why Bridget struck such a chord with women, because she is human and she has these flaws which most of us have.
'Even though I have spent a lot of time denying that Bridget was me, she was.'
Love life: In the film, Bridget Jones was torn between Daniel Cleaver (played by Hugh Grant, right) and Mark Darcy (played by Colin Firth)
During the talk, Miss Fielding also suggested that women who grew up in wartime Britain were ' less confused' than women today who are expected to carve out successful careers as well as raising a family.
She used the example of Bridget Jones's mother in the books, who is confident and pushy.
'Bridget's mother is really confident because she grew up in the time of the war with no air-brushing and stupid advertisements,' Miss Fielding said.
'She knows who she is, what she stands for and what her values are.
'She is not affected by the idea that one minute she should be a woman, the next she should be a career woman and the next she should be a mother. She is not confused.
'Look at how many self-help books are sold, especially in America where they are often the top- selling books. They have become a religion.'
Different generations: Miss Fielding said Bridget Jones' mother Gemma Jones (left), who grew up in the wartime, was 'less confused' than the women of today
Two of Miss Fielding's Bridget Jones novels have been turned into films since she began writing the series in 1995.
They star Renee Zellweger and the franchise has netted £50million worldwide.
In 2001, Miss Fielding left her home in Notting Hill, West London, and moved to Los Angeles, where she lives in a £1.5million home with her long-term boyfriend Kevin Curran, a writer for The Simpsons.
They have a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter.
- Shocking new footage of ISIS massacre in Tikrit
- Appalachian Bear Rescue save black bear cub
- Solar cycle: The sun's 11-year heartbeat explained
- Horrifying moment slingshot ride cable SNAPS
- Mexico's Security Commissioner on Guzman's prison escape
- El Chapo' Guzman being taken into Altiplano prison (archive)
- Letterman comes out of retirement to roast Trump
- Shocking video shows driver barrel into four women
- Drug lord 'El Chapo' Guzman escorted to prison by helicopter
- Genesis Rodriguez Gomez collapses during a lift attempt
- Beach goer captures aftermath of beach explosion
- Nerve shedding moment surfer chases after great white shark
- Mexico's billion-dollar drug lord escapes prison on an...
- 'Yes, my hands are full! Sometimes with glasses of wine':...
- Stunning Serena proves JK Rowling was spot on! Williams wows...
- Isis's female Gestapo wreaking terror on their own sex: They...
- John Gotti personally executed the real-life Joe Pesci...
- A quickie Vegas ceremony in a blue mini dress vs. a...
- Hop on board! Raft guide rescues an abandoned bear cub from...
- Their sickest video yet: ISIS release footage of their...
- 'I told you so!': Donald Trump jumps on escape of 'El Chapo'...
- Trump takes incendiary immigration views to the GOP...
- Bill Cosby's wife claims alleged victims 'consented' to...
- Miami police officer who 'moonlights as a porn star' under...