Well, look at that. Apparently we do know what a woman is after all. All it took was Sydney Sweeney taking off most of her clothes for a Novig ad, and suddenly female athletes and their defenders were everywhere reminding us, quite emphatically, “this is what women in sports look like.” Women. In sports. Actual women. Glad we got that cleared up.

Oh, Now We Are Worried About Women?

But the surprises didn’t stop there. Some female athletes are now arguing that Sydney Sweeney and her barely-there Novig ad are setting women back 20 years.

No, hon. Men competing in women’s sports are doing a pretty good job of that all by themselves.

We’re talking about women losing places on teams, competing against biological males for medals and records, and watching the very meaning of women’s sports get stretched beyond recognition. If we’re going to talk about setting women back, perhaps that deserves at least as much outrage as Sydney Sweeney wearing next to nothing in an ad.

Case in point.

Feminists say Sidney Sweeney has set women’s sports back years.

America I present to you Leah Thomas pic.twitter.com/i08G8horlR

— Val (@TrumpsHurricane) September 16, 2026

Apparently The Confusion Has Cleared

I had mostly dismissed the outrage over Sweeney’s ad as the usual internet hysteria until I read Lauren Bair’s piece at the Daily Wire. She noticed a rather glaring blind spot in all this sudden concern for female athletes, and once you see it, it’s awfully hard to miss.

We’ll pass out holding our breath waiting for the outrage mob to catch on to the fact that not all biological sexes should be welcome in women’s sports. What about all that blood, that sweat, and those tears we’re supposedly aiming at Sydney Sweeney? The same contingent screaming their guts out about a pretty girl doing sports wrong seems totally fine with a man doing whatever he wants all over the equal playing field.

Listen, before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, it’s perfectly fine to support women’s sports without condoning commercialized debauchery — or even gambling in the first place. Yes, Sweeney’s ad is meant to be tantalizing. But it’s not about women’s sports. And I’d argue it’s not really about women, either. There’s a larger conversation to be had around who gets to step into the arena and represent women. And it ain’t about Sydney Sweeney. – Daily Wire

The Daily Wire author is right. This isn’t really about Sydney Sweeney at all. It’s about the remarkable clarity everyone suddenly seems to have about women when Sydney Sweeney takes off her clothes.

We can identify female athletes just fine. We can celebrate their muscles, their strength, their hard work, and everything their bodies are capable of doing. There doesn’t seem to be much confusion about who we’re talking about.

But somehow that clarity has a funny way of disappearing when the conversation turns to men who identify as women competing in women’s sports. Then all that certainty about women, their bodies, and their accomplishments seems to go right out the window. Where are these same female voices, so willing to criticize an actual woman for appearing in an ad, when women are being asked to compete against biological males?

Men playing against women didn’t make them care.

Naked men in women’s locker rooms didn’t make them care.

But Sidney Sweeney looking hot as hell? That’s a bridge too far.

— Erika Sanzi (@esanzi) September 15, 2026

Everybody’s God Some Explaining To Do

So here’s a suggestion for the women furious with Sydney Sweeney: save a little of that outrage for the fights that actually affect female athletes. Sydney isn’t trying to take your spot on the starting line, your place on the podium or your record. Maybe worry a little more about the sicko men who are.

Plenty of conveniently flexible thinking goes around here. We’ve spent years complaining, often rightly, about the pornification of practically everything in American culture.

Then Sydney Sweeney showed up wearing almost nothing and suddenly a whole lot of people discovered an expansive new appreciation for artistic expression and female agency. Apparently principles can get a little wobbly when the woman violating them is really, really pretty.

You know I had to get that little dig in.

Maybe that’s the one useful thing to come out of this ridiculous controversy. Sydney Sweeney managed to clear up an awful lot of confusion without saying much of anything. We know what women are. We know what female athletes are. We apparently know what sexualization looks like, too. Everybody seems remarkably certain about all of it when Sydney Sweeney is standing there in her underwear.

Now, if we could just hang onto some of that clarity when Sydney puts her clothes back on, we might actually be getting somewhere.

Feature Image: JoshPopov / WikiPortraits / edited in Canva Pro / License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International