Top 10 Ways Sports Illustrated Disrespects Women … The swimsuit issue features women models posed not as athletes of strength, skill, and endurance but as playthings; … showing women’s primary value to be their value as sex objects; … bodies as if they are merely body parts; … encouraging … to view women as sex toys … to ogle at; … numbing men to women’s humanity; … exhibiting women to men as the “other”; … sending a message to girls … that … all that matters is how they look to men. (
We live in a patriarchy. Important to point out that patriarchal values also diminish the potential of boys, who focus more energy towards being "cool" - in our society, this usually means stereotypically masculine, aggressive, dominant, and lacking emotion - instead of pursuing fulfillment, education, etc...things that will help them in the long run. Not to mention the psychological burden of always having to be tough.Our society hurts our men just as much our women. Just in different ways.
Going by this article's logic - people who consume SI swimsuit edition are common, unskilled, simple, hypocritical, shallow, self-deceiving, and stupid. Answering criticism by ignoring the legitimate arguments of your critics and insulting your fan base FTW!
Honestly though, let's call a spade a spade - the SI swimsuit edition is a porno magazine.
Thanks for this article! I enjoyed it! I find the discussion of women athletes and their looks interesting. There's something to be said for being a good looking athlete, just like male athletes, but it shouldn't override their abilities. There's a good discussion of this over at TC Huddle. I found your article looking for more opinions on this.
In the case of Sports Illustrated, the issue is that out of 52 issues in a year, there’s often only one week where women are the cover story, and they get the cover for something other than athletic performance.
So you're saying that women shouldn't be made into a cover story at all?
Surely there isn't any discrimination over who should be featured in cover stories on athletic performance. If anything, women are over-featured because of their sexual attractiveness.
It has been thus far maladaptive to notice their other contributions. Women have a limited reproductive time window its suboptimal from a eugenic standpoint to have the most talented and capable women loose a large part of that window to pursue a career or do demanding research.
Much like how we have internalized the relative worthlessness of male lives compared to female ones, this too has been beaten into us by memetic and perhaps genetic selection.
This isn't about efficiency.
Fortunately there are two possible game changers:1. Indefinite life extension (including reproductive viability)2. Artificial uterus
"The women who complain are, I’ll wager, on the less attractive side. Trying to raise their status by dragging down the attractive women in the magazines. It’s like cheerleader bashing but painted with an intellectual veneer."
"The neutered, beta males complain because they think it will make them more attractive to women in general. "
This is a very much unfairly underestimate factor. The manospherer is crazy in some resepcts but their observations on "white knighting" are very much spot on.
This is a helpful clarification. I guess my response depends on what you mean by 'low status' here.
If by 'low status,' you count a white male who had an average set of opportunities/ resources for a white male, and has ended up working the cash register at Burger King at age 40, then there is an important and relevant disanalogy: this male's low status is not the result of systematic disadvantage. There are historical and structural aspects of (e.g.) US society that systematically disadvantage women qua women.
Alternatively, if by 'low status,' you mean lower/ working class, in a society in which class markers do systematically disadvantage people, then there's not much of a difference. But now consider the analogous publication: imagine, in Dickensian Britain, a magazine aimed at captains of industry. This magazine, once a year, publishes an issue showing off lower-class factory-line workers who were exceptionally strong but also exceptionally subservient/ obedient to management. I would find that fairly vile. But maybe I'm overly sensitive. (Any ideas for the magazine title?)
Robin, let me try again. I am not proposing to change anyone's sex preferences.
The problem is that nearly nobody is paying attention to the capability of females to contribute to society in business/political/technical/athletic/leadership capacities. Rather females are seen as good for their sexiness, and for a few other purposes. The human race loses out by systematically ignoring the full range of their potential contributions.
It is wholly analogous to the problem of why racism is bad for humans. By pigeonholing people we lose.
SI contributes to and benefits from the pigeonholing of women as sexythings.
Guys like you make me want to projectile vomit and then move to a different planet.
We live in a patriarchy. Important to point out that patriarchal values also diminish the potential of boys, who focus more energy towards being "cool" - in our society, this usually means stereotypically masculine, aggressive, dominant, and lacking emotion - instead of pursuing fulfillment, education, etc...things that will help them in the long run. Not to mention the psychological burden of always having to be tough.Our society hurts our men just as much our women. Just in different ways.
Going by this article's logic - people who consume SI swimsuit edition are common, unskilled, simple, hypocritical, shallow, self-deceiving, and stupid. Answering criticism by ignoring the legitimate arguments of your critics and insulting your fan base FTW!
Honestly though, let's call a spade a spade - the SI swimsuit edition is a porno magazine.
My son is now an 'entrepreneur.' That's what you're called if you do not have a job.Business, that's easily defined - it's other's money.
Thanks for this article! I enjoyed it! I find the discussion of women athletes and their looks interesting. There's something to be said for being a good looking athlete, just like male athletes, but it shouldn't override their abilities. There's a good discussion of this over at TC Huddle. I found your article looking for more opinions on this.
This is a good article. Thanks! Here's the article if you're interested: http://www.tchuddle.com/201...
I love Julie Henderson- Check out this great interview with her as she talks about her style-- LOVE IT!! http://bit.ly/mhFPyM
In the case of Sports Illustrated, the issue is that out of 52 issues in a year, there’s often only one week where women are the cover story, and they get the cover for something other than athletic performance.
So you're saying that women shouldn't be made into a cover story at all?
Surely there isn't any discrimination over who should be featured in cover stories on athletic performance. If anything, women are over-featured because of their sexual attractiveness.
It has been thus far maladaptive to notice their other contributions. Women have a limited reproductive time window its suboptimal from a eugenic standpoint to have the most talented and capable women loose a large part of that window to pursue a career or do demanding research.
Much like how we have internalized the relative worthlessness of male lives compared to female ones, this too has been beaten into us by memetic and perhaps genetic selection.
This isn't about efficiency.
Fortunately there are two possible game changers:1. Indefinite life extension (including reproductive viability)2. Artificial uterus
This is an interesting angle, female beauty (as in sexual desirability) can be relatively accurately objectivley measured.
"The women who complain are, I’ll wager, on the less attractive side. Trying to raise their status by dragging down the attractive women in the magazines. It’s like cheerleader bashing but painted with an intellectual veneer."
Reminds me of Sailer's law of female journalism http://isteve.blogspot.com/...
"The neutered, beta males complain because they think it will make them more attractive to women in general. "
This is a very much unfairly underestimate factor. The manospherer is crazy in some resepcts but their observations on "white knighting" are very much spot on.
What (s)he said.
This is a helpful clarification. I guess my response depends on what you mean by 'low status' here.
If by 'low status,' you count a white male who had an average set of opportunities/ resources for a white male, and has ended up working the cash register at Burger King at age 40, then there is an important and relevant disanalogy: this male's low status is not the result of systematic disadvantage. There are historical and structural aspects of (e.g.) US society that systematically disadvantage women qua women.
Alternatively, if by 'low status,' you mean lower/ working class, in a society in which class markers do systematically disadvantage people, then there's not much of a difference. But now consider the analogous publication: imagine, in Dickensian Britain, a magazine aimed at captains of industry. This magazine, once a year, publishes an issue showing off lower-class factory-line workers who were exceptionally strong but also exceptionally subservient/ obedient to management. I would find that fairly vile. But maybe I'm overly sensitive. (Any ideas for the magazine title?)
Robin, let me try again. I am not proposing to change anyone's sex preferences.
The problem is that nearly nobody is paying attention to the capability of females to contribute to society in business/political/technical/athletic/leadership capacities. Rather females are seen as good for their sexiness, and for a few other purposes. The human race loses out by systematically ignoring the full range of their potential contributions.
It is wholly analogous to the problem of why racism is bad for humans. By pigeonholing people we lose.
SI contributes to and benefits from the pigeonholing of women as sexythings.
Jess, your question is much better to me than Robin's.
I saw it on some fb update, not sure whose.