Paige Spiranac Drops Major Truth Bomb About Female Athletes Showing Off Their Bodies
Former pro golfer and influencer Paige Spiranac is no stranger to speaking out and standing up for women, particularly fellow female athletes. Last week, Spiranac weighed in on controversy surrounding Olivia Dunne, offering her support to the LSU gymnast on Twitter after the New York Times published a piece critiquing female athletes like Dunne for relying on their sexuality to gain name, image and likeness deals.
Today, Spiranac took to Twitter to further illustrate her point.
“There has been a ton of discussion around female athletes and showing off their bodies,” Spiranac said via Twitter. “People are saying, ‘Stop oversexualizing yourself, you’re taking women back, no one’s going to take you seriously.’” Spiranac vehemently disagrees with this generalization.
She then went on to cite the top four highest-paid female athletes in the world from the 2021 Forbes ranking: Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Simone Biles. Together, those four women netted nearly $125 million last year. Spiranac pointed out that while these women are all top-tier athletes in their respective sports, as well as successful entrepreneurs, they have something else in common, too: they’ve all posed for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.
“Women… they can actually do it all!” Spiranac exclaimed in her video. “And I know what you’re thinking, ‘Paige, a man would never ever show off his body for attention or oversexualize himself or do [so] for monetary gain.’” Her video then cut to images of scantily-clad male athletes, including David Beckham, Tom Brady, Michael Phelps and LeBron James, before ending her message with a cheeky smile.
Dunne, who reportedly makes nearly $2 million a year as a college athlete and influencer, clapped back against the critique herself on TikTok.