Can We Talk About the Ad Without Putting the Woman on Trial?

This has nothing to do with judging Sydney Sweeney. She doesn’t need my permission to take her clothes off, make a commercial or collect a check. I would, however, like to talk about the people writing the check and what they think gets our attention.

In her campaign for Novig, a sports prediction platform, Sweeney appears with strategically placed sports equipment covering her otherwise naked body. Apparently, a football has more uses than I realized. Female athletes responded with videos of themselves running, swimming and competing, making the point that this is what women in sports actually look like.

I understand the reaction. But before I climb onto the nearest soapbox, which at my age requires checking its structural integrity, I have a few questions.

Joe Namath was a sex symbol. He leaned into it, famously appearing in a pantyhose commercial. David Beckham sold underwear with considerable assistance from the body inside it. Men have certainly used sex appeal to sell things. This advertising technique did not arrive with Sydney Sweeney and a basketball.

But Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods built their central advertising identities around what they could do. Yes, Jordan sold Hanes. Selling underwear does not automatically make someone a sex symbol. Sometimes the promise is simply that your waistband won’t ruin your afternoon.

And women have that power too. Caitlin Clark’s appeal is watching Caitlin Clark play basketball. Serena Williams didn’t need to hold a tennis racket strategically across her chest to give people a reason to watch her. So the argument that women can only get attention by being sexual falls apart pretty quickly.

The numbers help. The 2024 women’s NCAA basketball championship averaged nearly 19 million viewers, beating the men’s final. Women’s athletic excellence can clearly fill a screen and bring an audience with it.

There is research suggesting that sexualization comes with different consequences for men and women. A 2015 study found that athletes shown in sexualized photographs were generally considered more attractive but less competent, with a greater competence penalty for women. But that was eleven years ago. In cultural years, we’re practically talking about an archaeological dig. It tells us what those researchers found then, not necessarily how people respond now. Before using it to explain today’s reaction, I’d want to see whether newer research finds the same thing. If anything, it makes the case for a follow-up.

So I’m left with a question rather than a verdict. Can a woman be excellent at something, enjoy being sexy and retain full ownership of both? Can another woman skip the sexy part entirely without an advertiser wondering how to make her more marketable?

Sweeney is an actress selling a betting platform. She isn’t claiming a place on the Olympic team. I don’t think her holding a football takes anything away from Caitlin Clark shooting one of those impossible baskets. I also don’t think a woman choosing to make an ad means the ad is beyond criticism. Her choice and the advertiser’s judgment are both available for discussion.

And the person whose post started me thinking about this makes a fair point. Sharing the values of other women doesn’t require sharing every conclusion they reach. But disagreement doesn’t prove independent thinking any more than agreement proves that an algorithm has done your thinking for you.

I want women to have the room to be champions, sex symbols, both or neither. Wear the pantyhose, Joe. The question I keep coming back to is whether women get that same freedom, without every choice becoming a referendum on the rest of us.

-Christine Merser