Is Newsweek's Sarah Palin cover sexist?

They’re calling it “shorts gate” – the cover of Newsweek magazine showing former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin in shorts and running shoes. On her Facebook page, Palin called the choice of photo – which was originally taken for Runner’s World magazine – “unfortunate” and as well as “sexist and oh-so-expected by now.” She concluded: “The media will do anything to draw attention – even if out of context.”
On “The View” Tuesday, actress Sherri Shepherd agreed the cover was “so disrespectful to Sarah Palin” and her co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck asserted: “This is not a way that we should be addressing women in politics.” Joy Behar, on the other hand, pointed out that Palin “was a beauty queen and entered a pageant.”

Not coincidentally, the controversial Newsweek cover – bearing the none too complimentary headline “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?” – comes amid a blizzard of publicity and promotion for Palin’s memoir “Going Rogue,” which has an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and topped Amazon.com’s best-seller list for weeks before even arriving in stores. From “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to “Good Morning America” to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, Palin is ubiquitous this week.

Newsweek’s Editor Jon Meacham has responded to critics. “We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do,” Meacham said. “We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard.”

Source: http://today.newsvine.com

http://blog.newsweek.com