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Did anyone see the article on msn about female athletes and the idea that some people have that it's degrading to women for female athletes to do sexy or glam photo-shoots in magazines etc.
If anything it is showing that to be fit and healthy is sexy rather than some nuts (magazine) girl who has had 4 boob jobs and lipo.
Quite a lot of other good points too...
What is your take on it?
If the media is to be believed this year’s crop of female athletes are spending more time taking their kits off than putting them on. So far we’ve had cyclist Victoria Pendleton posing naked in GQ, A bikini-clad Olympic skeet-shooter Lauryn Mark in Zoo, Anna Kournikova posed and pouting in Tatler Russia and 17 others, including an entire volleyball team, in ESPN Magazine’s The Body Issue.
Rather than revelling in their glorious nakedness, people have been complaining that female athletes shouldn’t get their kits off for magazines, and that doing so is un-feminist and degrading. Raising the question: is it morally right for a female athlete to pose with her kit off?
If they’re styled to look like Playboy bunnies, all the better
I’m all for it. A sportsperson is the best kind of naked celeb: their gym-honed bodies are powerful, functional machines and if they’ve styled their hair and make-up to look like Amazonian Playboy bunnies, all the better.
Sometimes sport can be unsexy – functional clothing, sweat and pulled back hair. These shoots are a chance for female athletes to say ‘hey – I can do glam, I can do sexy. Here’s a side of me that you might not have seen before…’
The attention these women get not only helps raise the profile of their sports and helps them attract lucrative sponsorship deals (the reasons cited by Lauryn Mark for her lads’ mag shoot), it makes them better role models. By posing in a mainstream magazine these women are showing young athletes that they don’t have to choose between being sexy and athletic: they can be both.
Male athletes have posed in very little than a pair of pants for years
Some people have said that these racy shoots show that women aren’t taken seriously as athletes and that it just goes to show that women’s sport isn’t as valued as men’s. To this I say David Beckham, Freddie Ljungberg, Gavin Henson, David Haye, Tom Daly… I could go on. Male athletes have posed in very little but a pair of pants for years – but normally on a giant billboard.
The ESPN Magazine shoot attracted criticism because 50% of the female athletes posed in ‘passive’ poses, while the majority of male athletes were shot dynamically. Rather than sexism, isn’t it more likely that these women wanted to be shot this way? They spend the majority of their lives conveying a powerful image. Who’s to say that they didn’t want these shots to show a softer, more (traditionally) feminine side of their personalities?
Another argument put forward is that these sexy shoots discriminate against female athletes who don’t look like supermodels. Well, no – they discriminate against all athletes who don’t look like models. Hence why we’ll never see Wayne Rooney oiled up advertising Joop!
As long as it doesn’t affect her performance, a female athlete should be able to pose however she wants.
http://style.uk.msn.com/socialvoices/blogpost.aspx?post=7e10482c-0b30-43b0-a121-13ecaeb875ed&_nwpt=1
If anything it is showing that to be fit and healthy is sexy rather than some nuts (magazine) girl who has had 4 boob jobs and lipo.
Quite a lot of other good points too...
What is your take on it?
If the media is to be believed this year’s crop of female athletes are spending more time taking their kits off than putting them on. So far we’ve had cyclist Victoria Pendleton posing naked in GQ, A bikini-clad Olympic skeet-shooter Lauryn Mark in Zoo, Anna Kournikova posed and pouting in Tatler Russia and 17 others, including an entire volleyball team, in ESPN Magazine’s The Body Issue.
Rather than revelling in their glorious nakedness, people have been complaining that female athletes shouldn’t get their kits off for magazines, and that doing so is un-feminist and degrading. Raising the question: is it morally right for a female athlete to pose with her kit off?
If they’re styled to look like Playboy bunnies, all the better
I’m all for it. A sportsperson is the best kind of naked celeb: their gym-honed bodies are powerful, functional machines and if they’ve styled their hair and make-up to look like Amazonian Playboy bunnies, all the better.
Sometimes sport can be unsexy – functional clothing, sweat and pulled back hair. These shoots are a chance for female athletes to say ‘hey – I can do glam, I can do sexy. Here’s a side of me that you might not have seen before…’
The attention these women get not only helps raise the profile of their sports and helps them attract lucrative sponsorship deals (the reasons cited by Lauryn Mark for her lads’ mag shoot), it makes them better role models. By posing in a mainstream magazine these women are showing young athletes that they don’t have to choose between being sexy and athletic: they can be both.
Male athletes have posed in very little than a pair of pants for years
Some people have said that these racy shoots show that women aren’t taken seriously as athletes and that it just goes to show that women’s sport isn’t as valued as men’s. To this I say David Beckham, Freddie Ljungberg, Gavin Henson, David Haye, Tom Daly… I could go on. Male athletes have posed in very little but a pair of pants for years – but normally on a giant billboard.
The ESPN Magazine shoot attracted criticism because 50% of the female athletes posed in ‘passive’ poses, while the majority of male athletes were shot dynamically. Rather than sexism, isn’t it more likely that these women wanted to be shot this way? They spend the majority of their lives conveying a powerful image. Who’s to say that they didn’t want these shots to show a softer, more (traditionally) feminine side of their personalities?
Another argument put forward is that these sexy shoots discriminate against female athletes who don’t look like supermodels. Well, no – they discriminate against all athletes who don’t look like models. Hence why we’ll never see Wayne Rooney oiled up advertising Joop!
As long as it doesn’t affect her performance, a female athlete should be able to pose however she wants.
http://style.uk.msn.com/socialvoices/blogpost.aspx?post=7e10482c-0b30-43b0-a121-13ecaeb875ed&_nwpt=1
