Empowering Athletes

Sports Illustrated Just Scratches The Surface Of Female College Athlete Representation

By Alyssa Hodenfield|Updated on June 27, 2023 (originally published on May 30, 2023)

Louisiana State University's Angel Reese rose to fame during the 2023 NCAA women's basketball tournament after her team beat out Iowa for the championship. The game was viewed by 9.9 million people, becoming the most-viewed women's college basketball game.

Reese has snagged some huge NIL deals with brands like Coach and Calvin Klein, and her roughly $1.3 million valuation makes the 21-year-old one of the top NIL earners.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Reese would be featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

“Angel is combating the double standard in sports, especially for women,” Sports Illustrated Editor in Chief said to Sports Illustrated. “Her intensity, drive and passion around being unapologetically herself and speaking up for what she believes in is helping move the needle forward for women in sports.”

Reese and fellow LSU athlete gymnast Olivia Dunne are the first college athletes to be featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

“The way the [SI Swimsuit] brand has evolved and has become such a positive spotlight for women to tell their stories and to spread awesome messages of being strong, sexy and beautiful, I knew that was something I wanted to be part of,” Olivia Dunne told Sports Illustrated.

Reese echoed a similar sentiment, telling Sports Illustrated, “I work out a lot. I embrace my body and who I am and every mark on my body, I probably feel the sexiest in a bathing suit.”

The importance of representation

Featuring college athletes in a publication like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue can be an important step towards accurate representation of female college athletes in media and provide younger female athletes with a real picture of what a college basketball player or gymnast's body looks like.

Traci Carson is a former college athlete and researcher whose research focuses on female athletes, physiological effects of low energy availability and eating disorders as a risk factor.

“That is so important to see female athlete bodies portrayed that are true to that sport that's being portrayed. Not just like a model,” Carson said.

While some ads and social media content do accurately portray athletes in their respective sports, others feature models posing as athletes, which can provide female athletes with an unrealistic picture of what a female athlete's body truly looks like.

“I think a lot of young women grow up thinking like this super lean ‘ideal female athlete body' and physique is what they are supposed to achieve to be a good athlete when really, we see that the most successful female athletes come in all different shapes and sizes,” Carson said.

A college athlete's body allows them to be successful in their sport, to perform at the highest level. And while their athleticism might be what brings their success, female athletes are often objectified for their physiques as well.

“Part of me wonders if those athletes really are better off focusing on their performance because body image is so secondary to being a female athlete,” Carson said. “I think it's hard to get there without touching on the body image piece, right? Why should we focus on athlete body image when we don't talk about male athlete's body image?”

Increased visibility

Though still something to work towards, female athletes have seen more role models in recent years.

Serena Williams is one athlete who's been outspoken about body image and how it's affected her career, even launching a size-inclusive clothing line.

“When I was growing up, what was celebrated was different,” Williams told Good Morning America in 2020. “I didn't see people on TV that looked like me, who were thick. There wasn't positive body image.”

Professional runner Alysia Montaño, who ran an 800-meter race while 5 months pregnant, aimed to show female athletes that they don't have to be held back because they're a woman.

And former professional runners Kara Goucher and Lauren Fleshman each published books this year outlining their experiences as female athletes, both sharing how body image expectations affected their athletic careers.

While there are more role models for female athletes to look to, there is still a long ways to go when it comes to objectively celebrating these athletes accomplishments, to get to a point where the body is celebrated for its capabilities rather than objectified.

“I really hope that the byproduct of [Sports Illustrated featuring college athletes] is that here's a really strong female athlete, literally and figuratively strong, and they're showcasing that talent that she has and her physique because her physique is just a byproduct of her, how hard she works and her performance and her abilities,” Traci Carson said.

Featuring college athletes in Sports Illustrated is a start, but society has to keep pushing for more female athlete representation so young female athletes grow up seeing bodies that look like theirs and that allow them to be successful in their respective sports.

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Image Credit: Sports Illustrated Online