{"id":45690,"date":"2023-10-13T13:34:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T19:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=45690"},"modified":"2023-10-18T19:02:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T01:02:02","slug":"byu-is-hosting-a-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2023\/10\/byu-is-hosting-a-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-event\/","title":{"rendered":"BYU and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently in about a week <\/span>BYU will host a \u201cWomen\u2019s Empowerment Event<\/span><\/a>\u201d that is a local variation of similar such events that are being held around the country. Looking at the invites and speakers for the most part it looks like a pretty typical DEI-type event with a bunch of corporate sponsors and speakers such as the\u00a0<\/span>Utah Women and Leadership Project, the United Way, and BYU Women’s Services.\u00a0That\u2019s fine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The surprising detail is that Sports Illustrated Swimsuit appears to be one of the primary participants, with their models keynoting one of the two panels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I would love to see a public, BYU-sponsored panel where the Relief Society President had, say, a dialogic, back-and-forth discussion\/debate with an SI model about the nature of female empowerment in society, and the fact that somebody is an SI model does not make them unqualified to speak on such a subject.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, this does not appear to be one of those types of events, but rather a more generic \u201cra ra girl power, brought to you by Maybelline\u201d type conference. As such, the involvement of SI models alongside famously sexually conservative BYU and Church leaders is a clear case of reputation laundering, as seen on\u00a0<\/span>Sports Illustrated’s website<\/span><\/a> where they make sure to state that \u201cnumerous senior members of BYU athletics and Church of Latter Day Saints [give them a break, given the state of journalism today they probably can’t afford a copy editor] will be in attendance, as well as participating SI Swimsuit talent.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I have no desire to shame anybody. SI models have not opted into our values, so they should not be held to them or judged by them any more than I would judge my Catholic neighbor for drinking coffee or a gay atheist for having gay sex. I\u2019m sure they\u2019re incredibly diplomatic, intelligent and articulate women. Still, co-hosting a \u201cgirl power\u201d event with them clearly plays into a sociocultural perspective on female empowerment that is at variance with what the Church teaches, and to say it would send mixed messages is putting it very gently. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently in about a week BYU will host a \u201cWomen\u2019s Empowerment Event\u201d that is a local variation of similar such events that are being held around the country. Looking at the invites and speakers for the most part it looks like a pretty typical DEI-type event with a bunch of corporate sponsors and speakers such as the\u00a0Utah Women and Leadership Project, the United Way, and BYU Women’s Services.\u00a0That\u2019s fine.\u00a0 The surprising detail is that Sports Illustrated Swimsuit appears to be one of the primary participants, with their models keynoting one of the two panels.\u00a0 Now, I would love to see a public, BYU-sponsored panel where the Relief Society President had, say, a dialogic, back-and-forth discussion\/debate with an SI model about the nature of female empowerment in society, and the fact that somebody is an SI model does not make them unqualified to speak on such a subject.\u00a0 However, this does not appear to be one of those types of events, but rather a more generic \u201cra ra girl power, brought to you by Maybelline\u201d type conference. As such, the involvement of SI models alongside famously sexually conservative BYU and Church leaders is a clear case of reputation laundering, as seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45690"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45729,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45690\/revisions\/45729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}