Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue : 50 Years of Women's Objectification

[Spider Jerusalem]

216. These discussions always go the same way.

Someone points out that the pervasive sexualised objectification of women in our media-driven culture is unhealthy and reinforces a lot of ugly things; the same half-dozen people (who oddly enough are all male) turn up to say "but you're being a prude for not embracing a body-positive message of healthy sexuality! Why do you hate women?"; to cherrypick the 5% of images that consist of shirtless male models ("Look! Here's David Beckham on a Calvin Klein billboard! See? Men are objectified too!&quot to dismiss the issue via false equivalence; and to appropriate third-wave feminist "sex-positivity" to say "but what if they're fine with being objectified? that makes it okay!" (while being completely ignorant of some mainstream feminst movements against precisely this sort of sexualised objectification, mostly in the UK; see here and here for instance).