In his article, "Let the Lindsey hype begin: Vonn is Sports Illustrated cover girl", Chris Chase examines one such case of negative representation already in circulation today--Lindsey Vonn's Cover for Sports Illustrated. Vonn is expected to make a great showing in the skiing portion of the Winter Games, and Chase even speculates that she could become the Michael Phelps of the Winter Olympics. However, her pose on the cover does not come with such high regards. In fact, many have accused Vonn's crouched position of being slightly provocative and objectifying, according to Chase. While Chase disagrees, this claim is hard to disprove when there's a track record like Sports Illustrated's involved.
After all, who hasn't heard of their Swimsuit Editions?
Chase goes on in his article to say that we really shouldn't worry about whether or not the Cover is objectifying Vonn; the real issue here is what's going to happen to Vonn's career. She could be the next Michael Phelps, after all! While I commend him for trying to stop people from having so much sex on the brain, I don't think he's entirely right in doing this. Vonn's "semi-provocative" pose is no issue to just brush over.
Women have been sexually objectified in advertisements and mass media in general for almost as long as the business has been around. Especially today, it's not uncommon to see promiscuous images of women advertising anything from hair products to milk. (Got milk, anyone?) This repeated objectifying of women could lead anyone to believe that women are only good for sex, a kind of condemnation known as symbolic annihilation according to Gaye Touchman, a media critic and author of "The Symbolic Annihilation of Women by the Mass Media." This symbolic annihilation makes women less valuable in society's eyes and belittles their achievements.
Reinforcing this idea, Sports Illustrated further trivializes Vonn through its use of gender marking in the headline of the cover. Meaning, they declare her to be America's Best Woman Skier, not just America's Best Skier. This gender marking only seems to occur in women's sports, according to the text Media/Society.
But...so what?
After all, Vonn may still go on to be the Michael Phelps of the Winter Games; her cover of Sports Illustrated won't change that if someone proves or disproves it to be objectifying. She may still win that gold medal. The only problem is, how much impact will it have if she comes to be known as the pretty girl on Sports Illustrated, or even just the prettiest skier on the skiing team? And what about all the gender marking? What's it going to do to young girls across America who are being subliminally told that, when it comes to sports, they can only strive to be the best woman athlete, and not just the best? It may not seem like a big issue to some, especially in comparison to where Vonn's career could be headed, but then again the objectification of women has always been ignored or at least pushed aside to deal with later, so why start worrying about it now?
Original Article
The fact that the objectification of women has long been accepted as normal seems like a reason TO worry about it, not a reason to dismiss the issue, so your last sentence kind of bothers me.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that interests me about this whole question is, well, a question: can a young, female athlete make her way into the mainstream of the nation's attention without foregrounding her sexuality. Consider auto racing and Danica Patrick. She's constantly being represented as a fashion model, with the wind blowing her long hair and, often, in revealing clothes; few of the male stars are required to become sex symbols in order to achieve fame and attract lucrative sponsorship deals.
For me, the question is about continuing to send the message that if women want success, they're going to have to "put out," so to speak, whereas there's rarely so clear a contract for males, especially male athletes.