Does being on Sport's Illustrated help or hurt women's fight for equality?

Beautiful women aren’t interested in equality because they can have/get whatever they want. It’s the women who aren’t so pretty that want equality.

A short, non-exhaustive list of women who, according to @kritiper, must not be so pretty:

Natalie Portman
Jessica Chastain
Emma Watson
Jennifer Lawrence
Charlize Theron
Eva Longoria
Beyoncé
Angelina Jolie
Anna Kendrick
Mila Kunis
Jennifer Lopez
Chrissy Teigen
Anne Hathaway
Meghan Markle
Gemma Chan
Kerry Washington
Scarlett Johansson
Jameela Jamil

And since men can also be interested in gender equality, here are some guys whose attractiveness might also be questionable under that standard:

Brad Pitt
George Clooney
Will Smith
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Prince Harry
Chris Hemsworth
Ryan Gosling
Antonio Banderas
Daniel Craig
Matt Damon
Jason Momoa
Ezra Miller
Patrick Stewart
Ashton Kutcher
Harry Styles
Daniel Radcliff

@flo Equality goes hand in hand with freedom. You can’t be free unless you are equal, and you can’t be equal unless you are free. If these women voluntarily posed for Sports Illustrated, then that is their choice. And women being able to pursue their choices is essential to both their equality and their freedom. Objectification becomes a problem when a person is reduced to being nothing more than an object. So long as people are being recognized as people, it’s okay to also recognize them as being attractive.

@Irukandji You nailed it!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And there are always exceptions, as everyone knows…

It can be empowering for them personally, but some of us would still see it as objectifying their bodies. Just two schools of thought.

What guy in his right mind who likes women doesn’t objectify their bodies?
But don’t get me wrong. I’m all about equal rights and such for women but it’s objectable to use Sports Illustrated models as examples when bringing up the subject..

@kritiper Kind of hard to take you seriously on feminism or equality after your first post, which I’ll tell you is offensive.

Is anyone who says “What does soccer or any other sport have to do with exposing skin? Nothing. Of course it’s objectification anti choice?

As a formerly drop dead gorgeous , Farah Fawcett look alike I can tell I sure as hell tell you I was interested in equality @kritiper, and that was a.really ignorant comment.

^^If she does say so herself!

@Dutchess_lll haha, I love it. :)

@KNOWITALL and others who don’t agree with me: I speak in all honesty, and the truth does hurt, doesn’t it???

It’s not true and it was an insulting stereotype.

IMO… these women are not objectifying themselves. They are displaying their toned physique in bathing suits. The photos shown are not even particularly sexually suggestive in posture or expression. You can honestly see almost as much skin in Walmart on any given day in the summer. The photos (again, IMO) are not objectifying. Their bodies are not on display as items of decoration or disembodied parts to be used for the sexual pleasure of others. These women can choose to display their bodies in whatever way they wish, as can any human.

If others choose to sexually objectify them, that is their choice.

Ads like this which display toned, strong, empowered women help the women’s empowerment movement because they help to portray a vast diversity of women who have the power to make choices about their own bodies and careers.

That’s their choice and good for them.
The problem comes in when men expect ALL women to make themselves available to be ogled, whether they want to or not.