Somali American model Halima Aden is making history for not wearing a bikini.
The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, America’s inexplicably enduring ode to sexism, is celebrating itself for featuring Aden as its first model to wear a hijab and a burkini, a swimsuit that covers the whole body.
Halima Aden makes history as the first model to wear a hijab and burkini for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: https://t.co/8WFD4hHmiH. pic.twitter.com/OsBthnjoLY
— Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) April 29, 2019
It’s great that a major American magazine is highlighting a Muslim American and her religiously inspired fashion. “I wanted people to see that you could still be really cute and modest at the same time,” Aden told the Star Tribune when she competed in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant in 2016.
But the magazine’s latest decision in its push toward inclusivity illustrates the one thing religious conservatives and feminists have been able to agree on for years: The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue needs to die.
Ever since it began in 1964, the swimsuit edition has been about anything but empowering women or championing diversity. But it was such a cash cow that the magazine made it a stand-alone issue starting in 1997. By 2011, this single issue generated 7% of Sports Illustrated’s annual revenue. There are many of examples of the magazine’s creepiness over the years, from a 63-year-old model returning to Sports Illustrated Swimsuit and bringing her daughters with her to its tone-deaf #MeToo shoot.
In 2016, the swimsuit edition boasted plus-sized bombshell Ashley Graham on its cover and has since marketed the increasing “diversity” of its still hot, still airbrushed models. It has also featured non-models and athletes, such as tennis champion Serena Williams and Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, capitalizing on the trend of “strong is the new sexy.”
Because feminists have voiced their disdain for the magazine’s sexism in recent years — even back in 2002, the National Organization for Women said “the Swimsuit Issue promotes the harmful and dehumanizing concept that women are a product for male consumption” — Sports Illustrated Swimsuit has decided to get better at being woke. Now, it can be both sexy and inclusive, right? Right? Well, anything to sell those 1 million copies.
But the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue doesn’t care about plus-sized women, athletes, or religious models. It cares about staying relevant while also profiting off men buying a magazine to drool over hot women. These silly claims of empowerment through the swimsuit issue cannot change the fact that pages of sexualized women marketed toward men are inherently sexist, insulting, and gross. No amount of diversity can hide Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s real problem.
