By Heidi Stevens
Chicago Tribune
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Thank you Heidi Stevens for this amazing piece on the power of celebrities wearing PANTS! She says, “I’d like to think we’ll keep buying magazines with women on their covers when those women are in pants because we’ll be interested in what our favorite actress/comedian/singer/model thinks or says or dreams or works toward, more than whether her thighs touch.”
Chicago Tribune
Women bossed 2017.
Sure, the White House remained just out of reach. But the female candidate grabbed 3 million more votes than her male opponent in the race to get there.
Sure, women continued to endure sexual harassment and assaults in just about every type of workplace. But we shattered the culture of silence that used to routinely surround them.
Sure, we watched an admitted genitalia grabber take the oath of office, but millions of women and their allies marched in protest a day later.
A record number of women began exploring bids for elected office.
Tammy Duckworth was elected to the United States Senate, the first woman to arrive there from Illinois since Sen. Carol Moseley Braun left in 1999.
“Wonder Woman” became the highest-grossing superhero origin movie of all time.
Malala Yousafzai started classes at the University of Oxford.
We laid some major groundwork. I have high hopes for the future.
And a wee request.
Could we start giving women some pants for magazine covers?
Honestly. This cycle has bothered me for years: Actress/comedian/singer/model reaches magazine cover-worthy status; actress/comedian/singer/model appears on magazine cover with no pants.
Why?
So we can measure her thigh gap? So she appears unguarded? So we’re reminded to get a bikini wax?
To reinforce the pesky narrative that women should be, above all else, alluring creatures whose mysterious, sexual wiles lie at all times in wait?
(These are just stabs in the dark.)
This pattern appears to know no racial, age-related or professional bounds. Amy Schumer has appeared on Vanity Fair and Marie Claire with no pants. Barbra Streisand showed up on W without pants last fall. Cindy Crawford graced the cover of Muse at age 47 in just a sweatshirt. Beyonce has been on everything from Time to Elle without pants. It’s just a thing magazines do.
I’d like it to stop. I’d like 2018 to become the year of pants.
I’d like to believe we are ready, finally, for the love of God, ready, to start seeing and hearing and regarding women as more than just their bodies.
I’d like to believe that once we consider them humans deserving of pants, other progress will follow.
I’d like to believe that we will, eventually, get used to seeing more women in more clothing on more magazines.
I’d like to think we’ll keep buying magazines with women on their covers when those women are in pants because we’ll be interested in what our favorite actress/comedian/singer/model thinks or says or dreams or works toward, more than whether her thighs touch.
I’d like to think we will look back on pre-2018 magazine covers and regard them the way I regard my mom’s stories about being forced to wear skirts, not pants, to her college courses: with bewildered amusement. What did they think would happen if they let women wear pants?
What do you say, editors? January is a perfect time to start. It’s a new year. Your 2017 issues are all put to bed. It’s too cold to go out in your undies.
How about dressing your cover models in something you’d wear in public? How about covering their nether regions and trusting that we’ll pay attention to them anyway?
Come on. Give it a try. You just might change the world.
