'Take THAT, patriarchy!' Sports Illustrated doesn't know how women's 'empowerment' works

Sarah D | 4:43 PM on February 08, 2018

Last month, we told you about plus-size model and “body positive activist” Tess Holliday, who decided that the best way for women to earn respect is for them to post naked.

Evidently Sports Illustrated editor MJ Day and her team of empowered ladies have the same idea:

https://twitter.com/robbysoave/status/961643399572049920

More from Vanity Fair:

To be sure, this year’s Swimsuit Issue will still have the swimsuits and sandy beaches its readers have come to expect. The cover was shot in the Caribbean, like approximately 20 of the ones that preceded it. “These are sexy photos,” Day said. “At the end of the day, we’re always going to be sexy, no matter what is happening. We’re Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. The ideal is to create something artful, to create a beautiful image that both the subject and the team is proud of and collaborates on together.”

Because people totally buy the Swimsuit Issue for its, um, “artfulness.”

Still, Day told Vanity Fair that she sees connections between the #MeToo movement and her own work. “It’s about allowing women to exist in the world without being harassed or judged regardless of how they like to present themselves,” she said. “That’s an underlying thread that exists throughout the Swimsuit Issue. You have Harvard graduates, you have billion-dollar moguls, you have philanthropists, you have teachers, you have mothers—you have a full range of women represented in the alumnus of this magazine, and not one of them failed because they wore a bikini.”