I got into an argument on Twitter yesterday. I'm an irregular user of this micro-blogging platform, but a cursory browse after a weeks-long hiatus had brought to my attention a comment by one @__decker: 'I'm angry at #GolfDigest too,' he tweeted. 'They should've put #paulinegretzky photos on every page.'
The tweet was accompanied by a link to photographs of the said Gretzky, a model, actress and singer, and referred to complaints about her appearance on the cover of the latest edition of the American magazine Golf Digest. The comment was frustrating, for @__decker (along with countless other male commentators on Twitter) was demonstrating precisely the sort of response the magazine's editor had intended with the cover: blissful titillation dressed up as a tribute to professional female golfers.
As they tweeted their gratitude to Golf Digest, these men seemed oblivious to the fact that this wasn't an edition of GQ, Playboy or Maxim, where such an image and the message it conveys would be quite at home; rather, it is a publication aimed at celebrating the achievements of professional and amateur golfers, men and women alike.
To represent the female golfing fraternity with a sexed-up image of a woman who is, according to the magazine's editor, 'new to golf', is to heap deep insult upon those women slogging it out on the professional circuit. It discriminates against them as sportspeople because it denies them the opportunity to be the public face of their own sport, and implies that women are only good for public exposure if they are young, attractive and willing to strike a provocative pose.
And it prompts the question (which could be applied to any number of other situations): if the few women granted the honour of appearing on the cover of Golf Digest must assent to having their sexual characteristics amplified during the photo shoot, why are male golfers portrayed so respectfully, swinging their clubs, focusing thoughtfully with chin on fist, staring with furrowed brow into the distance?
But you cannot express such frustration in a 144-character Tweet. My reply to @__decker was a little mean — I implied that he was responding to a serious social issue as would a teenage boy — and he assured me in turn that he was, in fact, 28, that a 'gorgeous girl who modelled (conservatively) for a magazine is no harm', that the magazine had 'gained a larger audience because of that ad' and finally,