Sarah Ryan: Feminists are making tits of themselves over Sweeney

The men in my life quite liked the ad, for some reason

Unless you live on another planet, you might have noticed the controversy that erupted this week over Sydney Sweeney featuring in an ad for Novig Sports, which aired in the US. The ad features Sweeney – implied to be naked – saying the word “sports” repeatedly whilst using various sporting accoutrements to maintain her modesty:

The men in my life seemed to quite like it, for some reason.

And on the other hand, predictably, the feminists lost their minds.

The modern world now seems to produce a factory line of lecturing scolds, and those people were up in arms with Sweeney for “sexualising women’s sports”. Retired Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus (good surname for this story, in fairness) grabbed the headlines for saying she thought this type of “bulls**t” marketing was a thing of the past”.

Meanwhile, upset women across the internet declared themselves ablaze at Sydney Sweeney’s latest betrayal of all of the women in the world, and at how, by getting paid millions of dollars for an ad, and an equity share in the company (smart), she is single-handedly ruining women’s sports.

The feminist sleeper cells have awoken. And sleeper cells is a good name, because these chicks have been asleep for a long time.

Where were they, these slumbering activists, whilst mentally ill men dressed up as women invaded women’s sports? Men competing against women who had trained for years to reach the top of their FEMALE physical limits. Men who stole medals and places on teams, while anyone who complained was labelled “transphobic”. Where was all the concern about women’s sports then? Weren’t those cheats ruining women’s sports?

Lia Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship in March 2022, winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle in swimming. Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand, a weightlifter, became the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics, in the women’s 87kg+ category at the Tokyo Games (held in 2021). Before transitioning, he competed in men’s competitions, and after transitioning won women’s gold at the 2019 Pacific Games and silver at the 2017 World Championships.

How many of the people suddenly so concerned about Sydney Sweeney demeaning women’s sports spoke up then? Very few indeed. And the ones who did were ostracised as “terfs”

But there’s another thing driving their outrage here, I suspect. Sports is – pardon the pun – something of a fig leaf covering their immodesty.

After a period of madness where we pretended everyone was hugely attractive, we appear to be re-entering, as a society, a hot girl era.

For the first time in a few years, a woman with, let’s be honest, phenomenal boobs, can do a sexy ad without the fear of cancellation. The feminists can scream about Sydney, but what they can’t do is cancel her. Or make her say sorry. Or make men look away. Or heck, make some women look away.

Because this ad is not the death of women’s sport. This ad is for men who like looking at women, which is clever because, let’s face it, that’s most men. It’s a very alluring woman using her brand, her name and her looks to sell something, and being paid massive amounts of money to do so. And I bet it works, too.

Do I, as a woman, wish we lived in a less sexualised society? A lot of the time, yes.

But more than that I wish that we lived in a more honest and less hypocritical one.

As well as the obvious hypocrisy of those who remained silent when men intruded into womens sports. There is another hypocrisy demonstrated here. The omnipresent hypocrisy on the concept of ‘choice’. As I said here a few weeks ago, when the same Sydney Sweeney did a provocative underwear ad that got the womenfolk all hot and bothered.

All we hear these days about is about choice, and how women’s choices are paramount. Until, it seems, they aren’t. Accepting that women have choices means accepting it when they use their agency to make a choice you don’t approve of. This is the test feminism keeps failing.

The argument goes that women are demeaned by these types of ads, that the patriarchy oppresses us, sexualises us and then tells us what we can and can’t do with our own bodies. Feminism, on the other hand, promises that we can be whatever we want, sleep with whoever we want, be naked whenever we want, and make whatever choice makes us happy.

But then this hot chick with huge boobs comes along and starts making a show of us. She’s not supposed to make THAT choice. She should use this incredible, hard-won freedom responsibly, she must consider all of the implications of her personal choices for women worldwide, and the messaging and consequences, for all other women and for women’s sports, of sexualising herself.

Ideally, she’d ask some higher-up feminists for permission before featuring in a sexualised ad. Obviously that would be silly. So look, let her do what she wants. But if what she wants, and what we women approve of don’t perfectly align? Burn the witch.

Just last month, the internet was fighting over a mother accused of strangling her three children with exercise bands, and plenty of women came out swinging to defend her.

But a hot woman in a sports ad? Unforgivable. Maybe Sydney should strangle some kids. They’d love her then.

SR