This piece was written by Lexie Kite and originally posted on beautyredefined.net. Thanks so much to Lexie and her sister Lindsay for allowing us to re-post this, and for doing such a great job with Beauty Redefined!

– Michelle

On Tuesday, the hotly anticipated 2011 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue will hit the mailboxes of 70 million SI subscribers, every newsstand and media outlet, at least 250 million people will view the thousands of images online, and a 30-minute video for PlayStation will be released with an “up close and personal” look at the photo shoots.

Since it’s unlikely you will hear any media outlet discuss the Swimsuit Issue’s serious blow to female equality, self-image, attack on women of color or its use of pornography packaged as “safe” for the home coffee table, we are here to give you fair warning! I have chosen not to include any photos from my 40-year analysis because they are displayed everywhere else you will be looking (whether you want to see them or not), and Beauty Redefined is dedicated to de-normalizing these harmful images rather than promoting them in any way.

Every week, 30 million faithful followers catch up on the latest sports news in their weekly edition or online version of SI, the self-proclaimed “foremost authority” and “most respected voice” in sports journalism. And once a year, every year, those 30 million subscribers soar to more than 70 million and are joined by 250 million more online viewers for the always record-breaking event known as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Published since 1964, the SI’s 200-plus pages of nude to semi-nude females is truly a cultural event, generating global mainstream media coverage, TV shows, calendars, DVDs and mass amounts of memorabilia to push Sports Illustrated’s sales through the roof every spring. Since its birth, the Swimsuit Issue has earned $1 billion for SI’s parent company, Time Warner, which owns CNN, AOL, HBO, the CW, Time Inc, DC Comics and hundreds of other media companies. Talk about a media powerholder! Continue reading →