The nickname, urging a comparison of this rather obese figurine to the classical image of "Venus", causes resistance in some modern analysis. "The ironic identification of these figurines as 'Venus' pleasantly satisfied certain assumptions at the time about the primitive, about women, and about taste," Christopher Witcombe has noticed . At the same time there is professional reluctance to identify her as an Earth Mother goddess of paleolithic Old Europe. Some suggest that her corpulence would represent high status in a hunter-gatherer society, and that beside her obvious fertility she could be an emblem of security and success.