What is the first thing that comes to mind when I say the name Sydney Sweeney?
Overly sexual? Anti-feminist? Maybe even someone who is “setting women back 100 years”? If so, you are definitely not alone. Sydney Sweeney has become one of those celebrities where everyone seems to have an opinion about her.
Recently, those opinions got even louder after her campaign with Novig, a sports trading app, where she posed semi-nude with different sports equipment.
And people were PISSED.
I can understand where some of that anger is coming from. The creator above questions what Sydney showing her body has to do with football and honestly, that’s a fair question. Female athletes have fought for years to be recognized for their talent instead of their bodies, so seeing a nearly naked woman used to promote a sports company can feel like we’re moving in the wrong direction. Some female athletes even spoke out against the campaign for that exact reason.
But my problem isn’t with questioning the ad. My problem is how quickly that criticism turns into questioning why Sydney is showing her body at all.
At what point did feminism become telling another woman how sexual she is allowed to be?
There’s a difference between criticizing the sexualization of women and criticizing a woman for being sexual. Sydney Sweeney isn’t an athlete being told she needs to take her clothes off to get attention for her sport. She’s an actress who chose to participate in a provocative campaign. You don’t have to like that choice, but does that automatically make it anti-feminist?
I don’t think so.
If feminism is supposed to support women having agency over their own bodies, I think it gets a little weird when we start deciding which choices are acceptable. Be confident in your body but not too confident. Embrace your sexuality but don’t show too much of it. Wear whatever you want… until we decide you’ve gone too far.
See the problem?
We should be able to hold two thoughts at once. Female athletes can be frustrated by a campaign they feel reduces women in sports to their bodies and Sydney can still choose what she does with hers. Those things don’t have to cancel each other out.
Being comfortable with your sexuality doesn’t make you any less worthy of being taken seriously. Another woman choosing to present herself differently doesn’t make either woman more or less deserving of respect.
That doesn’t mean the Novig campaign is above criticism. We can question why a sports company chose sexuality as part of its marketing. We can listen to female athletes who feel like the campaign reinforces something they’ve spent their careers fighting against. But we can do all of that without turning Sydney Sweeney herself into the enemy.
Maybe the bigger issue isn’t whether Sydney showed too much skin. Maybe it’s why, in a conversation supposedly about empowering women, we still feel so comfortable deciding how another woman should use her own body.