watch me draw a Nietzsche/Sports Illustrated parallel. dazzled much?

Was not planning on tackling a "real subject" on a Friday. 


Actually, was planning on a sort of free-form list of the random things I've learned this week while wasting time at work. I've learned, for instance, that Lindsay Lohan threw a drink in Sam Ronson's face last night while on a bender. Sweet. 


And I learned that there's an ATM in the King County Superior Courthouse that doesn't charge any fees. 


And I learned (for about the 20th time, but hey....) that there's NOTHING at H&M that I'd bother spending money on......and every time I re-learn that, I feel like a traitor to other budget-conscious girls of my general "gimme" generation that saved themselves for the U-Village H&M the way they'd save themselves for any of the guys from Prison Break, given the chance. Either way, I don't like their stuff. "But Heather, they totally have cute little black v-necks and pretty scarves and turquoise velvet heels, there...what's your problem." Yeah, I know. And there are girls out there that want to have more of Brad Pitt's babies. I'm just not one of em. 


And I learned that it's possible to find a decent parking spot downtown-ish when there's a matter of grave existential importance for which is necessary to park on Friday afternoon. You can't say my God isn't a God of parking spaces. among other things. 


and I learned that the Black Smoke and John Locke are renting the same body (AND that the black smoke is afraid of gunpowder). 


And I learned that the horrifically awesome weather woman on the horrifically awesome Q13 Fox morning show was out this morning because she tore it up at the Billy Joel/Elton John show the other night. 


Yep. that's the sort of list I was planning to make. 


But then I found this woman's blog post inspiring all sorts of gramatically poor vitriol in the comments section and started thinking....Yeah, about the reverse correlation between the blood pressure spike that accompanies reading something that pisses you off and the perceived necessity for proper punctuation, but also about cultural things. advertising things. publicity things. sort of feminist-esque things. Things, things. Aaaand thus was born a single girl's Friday night at home on the couch with the computer and the Nietzsche and the Sports Illustrated. 


Here's how it went down:


News sites were lit up today with rumblings about Olympic skier Lindsay Vonn's "controversial" cover shoot for the February issue of SI. So I checked out the cover. Couldn't figure out what the fuss was about. The plaid getup was hideous, nothing new there. She's looking a little posed, but then, this is the cover of a magazine, no one doubts some posing is usually required for a photo shoot. She's smiling for the camera - I'd do the same - she's happy to be on the slopes, she's got a great grin, why not put the grin on the cover. So, she's ass-out with a giant pole in her hands.....er.....


oh. hmmm. 


yeah, I just don't think that's what has people screaming sexism. If that were the case, they'd be screaming "Sports porn!" and I haven't heard that particular accusation yet....


Actually, Nicole LaVoi, the one that wrote the short article that garnered so much angry (grammatically lackluster) press it actually crashed the Women Talk Sports site for awhile today said "When females are featured on the cover of SI, they are more likely than not to be in sexualized poses and not in action–and the most recent Vonn cover is no exception." The crux of her complaint is that the cover was sexist primarily "because female athletes only receive 6-8% of all sport media coverage regardless of the medium," and that "when we DO see them it is MORE LIKELY in poses that highlight traditional gender norms, femininity and framed in a way that can be interpreted as sexualized."


Okayyyyyyyyy. 


Gimme a sec here to grab my copy of "Beyond Good and Evil" and brandish it about like a weapon. A female-sports-blogger-flogging weapon. I know, Nietzsche is just misunderstood enough in the mainstream that he seems an unlikely tool in my debunking quest, but let's dig into the "Virtues" section of the book where he talks about the crisis of defeminization. Here's a quote:

Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal independence of a clerk: "woman as clerkess" is inscribed on the portal of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she thus appropriates new right, aspires to be "master" and inscribes "progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realizes itself with terrible obviousness: Woman RETROGRADES. Since the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has declined in proportion as she has increased her rights and claims; and the "emancipation of woman" insofar as it is desired and demanded by women themselves....thus proves to be a remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly instincts. 

He was on to something: when women strive to be other than women, they're laying down their greatest weapon: femininity. When female athletes want to be considered in spite of their beauty, aren't they discounting their power? Discounting that they can be appreciated for their athletic prowess as well as their femininity? 


And really, we can be as politically correct as we like (wait, no...not 'we,' I hesitate to count myself among the politically correct - it's a language barrier, a corruption of honesty and an unwillingness to defend that hides behind a veil of equality and sensibility and dilutes our real opinion), but Sports Illustrated is a magazine marketed to men. Mostly about men, primarily sold to men, ostensibly featuring lots of men. Sooooo, if we put a girl on the cover, doesn't it stand to reason she ought to be presented in a way that's appealing to the magazine's target demographic: men? And what's more appealing to a man than a beautiful woman? And sports. So combine sports and a sexy girl in spandex who knows what to do with big poles, and you've got a slam dunk cover. Right? 


To get technical, the definition of sexism is something along the lines of: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women. 


I don't see any prejudice in the SI cover....


Why bother making the argument that women should be portrayed identically to men on the covers of magazines? 


We're not identical to men. 


Are we capable of amazing feats of physicality? Yep. Can we ski down the same hill or run the same marathon? Sure we can. But why homogenize ourselves when there's the entire realm of WOMANHOOD that sets us distinctly apart in an amazing, beautiful way? Why NOT advertise that? Why not advertise that we can rail down the slopes one day, put on a sexy dress and make you drool (to be polite) the next? It's not a betrayal to feminism to glory in what it means to be beautiful. It's a POWERFUL thing to be a woman. 


While I don't necessarily mean to posit this as such a...combative dichotomy (beauty as a weapon, that equality is some sort of battle, that we're fighting and struggling to achieve), the whole sexism accusation turns it into a competition anyway. That we're competing in the same arena and ought to be judged (and photographed and featured on covers) using an identical set of criteria as men is silly. It ignores our best tools. And yes, beauty is a tool. And I don't mean to restrict this so exclusively to "pretty face" beauty. I mean inherently feminine beauty. The inalienable gorgeousness that comes with simply being woman. Call the cover sexist, but that says that Lindsay Vonn should be appraised the same way we appraise men. Why would we want to do that? Why rob ourselves of the right to be sexy at the same time? 


Along those lines, I was looking around on Women Talk Sports a little more to get an idea for whether or not this was a site that just liked to find examples of what they decided were discrimination and rail against some sort of perceived patriarchal oppression. I found this bit - one woman's disgust over the amount of makeup on the faces of the softball players in the Women's College World Series. Her arguments against makeup on the baseball diamond are all over the board (she sort of slams female gymnasts in the same breath, so her logic is a little, um "blood-pressure driven"), but she closes with a plea for women athletes to stop "getting dolled up to compete." Because apparently it's perfectly fine for us to look nice when we're "in the club" but definitely not okay to play up our cheekbones and eyelashes while we're stealing third. Why not? Why can't we slam that line drive while wearing lip gloss? The Women's College World Series was an ESPN-televised event - why NOT look as amazing as possible while pitching that perfect strike? I suspect we wouldn't tell a female newscaster to wipe off the eyeshadow while she's presenting the news....why on earth tell the outfielder to wipe it off? Doesn't that reinforce the weird idea that we're supposed to compete in precisely the same way as men? We're not men. 


Bottom line: to ignore what makes us female and to forfeit the right to celebrate our femininity in the athletic forum would be a huge mistake: you can call me antiquated, but there's Power in the Pinup. Particularly a pinup with amazing quads that can score a gold medal on the snow. That's about as powerful a combination as nature ever created. Celebrate it. 


I happen to love being a girl.