Sports Illustrated Archive

The role of women in sports has long been a contentious subject.  Similarly has the idea that the Huffington Post actually bothers putting up anything worth reading.  Either way, I like to think about the role gender plays in professional athletics along with the occasional perusal of the aforementioned glorified collection of internet sticky-notes.  One article caught my attention in particular regarding Lindsey Vonn’s SI cover recently.

The heart of the debate was that cover image of the perky blonde Olympian and whether or not it represented more than a simple downhill skiing position.  Not to imply that I am channeling Norman Mailer here, but I really don’t think that Ms. Vonn is the victim of some Sports Illustrated orchestrated plot to publicly force a talented woman into submissive pseudo-sexual poses on the cover of a magazine.  Let’s be serious here, she’s a skier in a skiing pose.

The interesting problem that arose for me was the argument that women need to sexualize themselves to reach the upper levels of success.  I don’t necessarily disagree with this summation, but I do disagree that this is a gender-specific phenomenon.  Male athletes are also brought into filling particular socio-sexual roles in the public eye that seem a bit of a requirement to reach fame if not success.  For every bad Danica Patrick commercial with a bad car wash joke there are 10-15 images floating around of half naked men that more often than not are used to support unmentioned stereotypes along the lines of race and class far more than gender.

So, how is it that this only causes uproar with the seeming sexualization of a female athlete?  After all, she was bent over, but she wasn’t topless and kissing her own mirror image.