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There’s A Major Problem With This Sports Illustrated Story About The Magnificent 7

Sports Illustrated's recent "Where Are They Now?" issue catches up with past athletic greats like Billy Blanks, Ken Griffey Jr., and the 1996 U.S. olympic gymnastic team, also known as the Magnificent Seven. Overall, it's a nostalgic good time, with no hints of sexism whatsoever — in Blanks' and Griffey's features, that is. While the online article on the Magnificent Seven is thorough and appropriately in awe of the team's history-making achievements, one observant R29er noticed something amiss in SI's print version of the story. One page features the seven gymnasts as they are now, posing happily in evening wear, with a caption over each of them. Supposedly, these blurbs list their main accomplishments in the past 20 years, but, as our staffer pointed out, all of these updates start with the same word. Kerri Strug "married Robert Fischer in 2010," Dominique Dawes "married Jeff Thompson in 2013," Amanda Borden "married Brad Cochran in 2006" — hopefully you see the troubling pattern by now. Amid a group of olympic athletes who have gone on to be doctors, to work for the Justice Department, and even to survive cancer, it totally makes sense to focus on the men they married, first.
Let's just hope that, when we're wondering where Simone Biles or Gabby Douglas is in 20 years, we'll be more curious about their careers than whether they've settled down and procreated a whole bunch. Check out the page in question below and tell us what you think the magazine should have focused on in the comments section.
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