Lindsey Vonn in SI

Yesterday I decided to start reading more newspapers. Actually, strike that. I decided to start reading newspapers again—a busy college life will do that to you.

Sitting in a boring Natural Disasters class, I came across a small excerpt in the sports section of USA Today that downright confused me.

A post on the blog Women Talk Sports criticized Sports Illustrated for having a “sexual” Lindsey Vonn on the cover.

I racked my brain, trying to figure out what the post was talking about. I grabbed the magazine off my desk (since that was what I was reading before I took the sports section from the guy behind me) and still couldn’t figure it out. It was simply a still photo of Vonn skiing down a hill.

The author of the post, Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi, 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.”

Really? Vonn is a professional skier. Therefore, she should be skiing down a hill for the cover of a sports magazine. There is nothing overtly sexual about it. The pose can be taken sexually,however, because frankly anything can be made sexual and pretty much everything is.

LaVoi posted a follow up response due to all of the backlash she was getting. One particular argument against her was that men have been photographed in similar non-action shots on the cover. She said that although true, females are shown in this light more, which is a bad attribute since female athletes are only covered by the media 6-8% of the time.

While her points are valid, LaVoi is forgetting the context of this situation. The Olympics have yet to take place. The cover is meant to preview the event; it is not a recap of it. The NFL preview doesn’t show Ben Roethlisberger in action. It shows a headshot of him. Had this been an Olympic recap, then Vonn should definitely have been in an action shot on the cover. But this was simply a feature on a great athlete, not a story about her success the week before.