Naked women in Sports Illustrated isn't about giving them a voice - 14th February 2018

Profiles

Bitcoin Business Entertainment Sports

Advertising Promotions Contact Us

What we're seeing is the same routine objectification of women. Photo: Ben Watts

The Sports Illustrated annual swimsuit edition, a magazine serving up an array of sexy young women in bikinis for the viewing pleasure of a male audience, hit newsstands this month. This year's edition features a nude spread entitled ''In Her Own Words'', a collection of photos of naked women with words scrawled across their bodies that apparently represent who they are.

According to the magazine's Instagram, the series of naked women in the men's girlie mag is intended to celebrate "more than just their bodies". Which raises the question, why are they posed naked? Surely if the aim is to humanise the women included rather than to sexualise them, stripping them off, laying them on the ground passively and photographing them naked isn't the best way to achieve this?

The project has been pitched by magazine editor M.J. Day as empowering, as a means of giving women a voice (just not clothes). Day told Vanity Fair the shoot is about "allowing women to exist in the world without being harassed or judged regardless of how they like to present themselves".

What we're seeing is the same routine objectification of women, the treatment of women first and foremost as bodies to be looked at, as passive objects; but Day assures us this is different. This time it's revolutionary, about women's right to self-expression or to be objectified - while the magazine conveniently profits.

By framing the conversation as one about women's choices, the spotlight is on the women posing, and not the magazine who orchestrated the shoot. Sports Illustrated can continue to operate the same way as always, profiting from exploiting women's bodies and sexuality, but now they can call it ''female empowerment''.

How is this particular photoshoot different from the everyday sexualised depictions of women in mainstream media and popular culture, while their male counterparts remain fully clothed and posed with dignity and strength? Is anything being challenged at all? It's the same old sexism, but repackaged as progressive and feminist.

The PR machine keeps spinning, with Day attempting to associate the brand, a bikini mag with naked women, with the #MeToo movement in the Vanity Fair article, ''Meet the First Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue of the #MeToo Era''.

The swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated is dominated by sexually objectifying portrayals of women, treating women as masturbatory material for men. In doing so, it contributes to and reinforces the second-class status of women, the notion that women exist for men, for their enjoyment and use, and that women's value is determined by their physical appearance and sexual appeal - essentially, their ability to attract men.

When corporates, whose primary goal is to sell a product, attempt to capitalise on a social movement or cause, we should absolutely be wary of their motives. We all know that hot, naked women in Sports Illustrated isn't about celebrating women or giving them a voice - it's about selling magazines.

Caitlin Roper is a campaigner against the sexual exploitation of women and girls.