Kate Beckinsale has slammed what she calls the "ridiculous" expectations put on women over body shape.
The 44-year-old actress discussed body image when asked by US chat show host Chelsea Handler about the advice she had given her 18-year-old daughter.
She told Handler: "Now you're supposed to have . . . a ridiculous ass and ridiculous boobs and a tiny waist and everything else.
"And meanwhile a lot of political s*** is happening . . . maybe we can't have abortions anymore, that sort of thing."
The Underworld star told her daughter to read Susan Faludi's book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women.
"She talks about how when, politically, women make big strides it seems to always happen that the fashion becomes for a completely unattainable body type," Beckinsale explained.
"It's a sort of unconscious way of controlling women to distract them into a kind of self-loathing. You get the vote, but it means . . . you can't have any boobs."
She added that "the more we get sucked in and concentrate on our own a**, the more stuff can happen to us."
Beckinsale also discussed on the show, which is currently streaming on Netflix, what it's like to co-parent with her ex Michael Sheen, who's now an item with comedian Sarah Silverman.
She said: "If you both really put your kid's well-being first, and share a sense of humour, you're sort of halfway there."
