Serena is Bootylicious...Can You Handle This?

Women's tennis tends to promote a particular standard of femininity. Chris Evert was the media's darling for the better part of two decades: a pretty, demure girl next door who rallied fans against her main rival, Martina Navratilova, a plain, openly gay woman born outside the United States. In recent years, skinny blondes such as Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova have dominated headlines and image galleries.

A compelling part of Serena Williams' improbable Australian Open victory, then, is that she embodies a competing image of femininity. Leading up to the tournament, commentators openly speculated about Williams' fitness, based largely on observations about her weight. All Williams did was win seven matches over 14 days, including a 6-1, 6-2 annihilation of the top-seeded Sharapova. After the match, Serena was asked, "Are you in better shape than people give you credit for?" You can read the full exchange at tennis.com, but in a nutshell, she responded, "I definitely think so. Just because I have large bosoms, and I have a big ass....it just looks like I'm not fit....I'm bootylicious, so to say. That's just how it is and always going to be."

Now, Serena's arrogance can be insufferable, but her comments are a refreshing demonstration of self-esteem. This isn't the first time that she has challenged expectations of femininity (see the "cat suit" from the 2002 U.S. Open), of course. But given the extended commentary about her "fitness" (read: "she looked fat"), Serena had every right to assert her assets. In a world saturated with images of painfully thin women, Williams provides a necessary image of resistance.