That picture is showing a lot of leg and not much intelligence, drive, or diversity.

come on, she is reading a book! That shows intelligence. er... So, ok, i agree with david, their mascot doesn't do a whole lot for the cause...

My God, what is so wrong with showing some leg in the picture? I believe they're trying to market this to young women, not grannies.

One of the points we're trying to make is that smart and sexy are not mutually exclusive.
It's not like she's bikini-clad, greased up and bent over the hood of a car. She's just showing a little leg while she reads Dostoevsky. Or whatever.

"One of the points we're trying to make is that smart and sexy are not mutually exclusive."

But what the logo appears to be saying is that the stockings and garter belt are exactly what's needed to make the image sexy because a conventionally attractive woman reading a book obviously isn't sexy enough. Who puts on stockings and garters to sit down and read?

Environmentalists criticize the combustible engine for being ancient technology, over a hundred years old and still in widespread use despite newer, clearer inventions that could stop global oil wars. Similarly, stockings and garters are sexual-signifier artifacts from almost a hundred years ago, clothing made synonymous with female sexuality in American culture by the sassy dancing of flappers. All these years later they're highly impractical but fetishized as part of the modern Sexy Girl(tm) costume. Maybe a thonged ass or painted-on latex would be the modern equal for a modern logo aiming for explicit hotness, but if it were just a logo of a woman reading it should still be considered hot in the feminist worldview we're aiming for. To me the point appears to be that it's actually the book being read by the woman that should be considered the hot part.

Consider it hipster irony. I love the icon.

It’s not ironic, it’s the opposite of ironic. An image of an unattractive woman intended to represent hot women is ironic. A sexy/hot woman representing hot women is as literal as frosty fonts advertising ice.

When Eminem says his lyrics about raping and stabbing lesbians in the head are ironic he doesn’t expect his listeners to actually embrace and respect lesbians, he expects most critics can't discern what irony really is so they can’t effectively argue why it’s an incorrect usage and an inadequate excuse for promoting status quo stereotypes.

“And while some REALLY hot women might look awesome in a bikini, they know that’s not all they have to offer.”

I would say the bikini comment was a parody of George Lakoff (“don’t think of these women wearing bikinis”) if I didn’t know it was not.

For claiming a goal of de-emphasizing stereotypical notions of “hotness” for women, there’s a lot of emphasis in this project on how sexy-looking=hot women. No one would preface a list of politically accomplished young men with, “While some of these men might look good in tight white underwear, that’s not the point because their accomplishments are” and no one hoping to have their list of up and coming citizen leaders taken seriously would design a logo emphasizing gender specific sex-fetish clothing.

I can’t help but feel these trappings undermine the central issue of redefining what is hotness in a woman. Some women say, “I’m not a feminist, but...” and some feminists say, “I’m a sexy woman, but...” and the same ‘but’ that drives feminists nuts in the first instance should elicit a similar response in the second.

As author Jean Kilbourne knows, one image can always be defended on its own, but put that image next to 1000 similar images and the problem comes into sharper focus. The unnecessarily sexed up Hot 100 logo is stock footage in a world that values sexiness in women over everything else. I don’t see how using an image like this one challenges as much as it overtly banks on traditional feminine sexiness displayed for the extra media attention.

I have no hope the women of Feministing might take in these considerations and modify the image, not since witnessing how obstinately they cling to the “prostitution as female sexual liberation” ideology and refuse to link to any feminists suggesting otherwise, but maybe other readers more open to divergent opinions will consider what I’ve written and think about it in relation to their own burgeoning feminist projects.

I have often wondered about some of the imagery on this site (which I still love). For example, the Feministing shirt ad... why is it necessary to sell "Feminist" shirts with a picture that basically shows of a hot girl and her boobs?

I could be wrong, but I just assumed the "hot girl and her boobs" was one of the bloggers here. Excuse her for being hot! (And for bringing her boobs with her for the picture.)

Terpiskore, I see your point and think your concerns are valid. But I also see how out of touch that seems to young women. We aren't perfect. The media has sold feminism as being very un-hot. And while we should be "above" all that, the sad truth is that most women are too insecure to have their hotness challenged. It's like, "I'll be smart as long you promise I can still be hot."

We can't ignore that this is the way things are. Feministing is at least trying to challenge the idea that traditionally hot is all a woman can be. There's no way young women are going to dump hotness completely.