Serena Williams isn't just an athlete. She's an icon, a person who needs no last name. Putting her body on display is something she takes very seriously, whether on the cover of a magazine, on the tennis court, or wandering around with friends. When hawking her clothing line on Home Shopping Network a few years back, she noted that long sleeved shirts helped her remain incognito, as people could identify her from her muscular arms.
The arms that are her calling card also send balls over the net at 120-miles per hour. They are the same arms that ignited a fire in Ben Rothenberg's discussion in the New York Times of how women on the court balance body image with ambition. Critics of Rothenberg's piece called out how it accepted the norms presented about women's bodies, especially black ones, and what they can do, instead of challenging them. As the most successful tennis player of all time (yes, that is a premise here, not an argument to be made), Serena's story is that strength and success and speed and determination and dedication come in all shapes and sizes, gender be damned.
An athlete like Serena can't be the exception to a belief that one is a woman first, and an athlete second. She is who she is because she works damn hard to get that way. And it works. On display on the cover of Vanity Fair is the body that won the Australian Open last December while eight weeks pregnant, never dropping a set. It is the body that has accomplished, as the article inside says, an aggregate winning percentage over 85%. It is the body that has won 72 Women's Tennis Association tournaments. It is the body that has made it to 29 Grand Slam singles finals, winning 23 times (10 times after after it turned 30). It is the body that plays doubles with sister Venus, to the tune of 14 Grand Slam titles. It is the body that has won four Olympic gold medals. It is the body that has won nearly $84 million in prize money, never mind her endorsement deal earnings.
– Amy Bass, CNN