London Parks
Staff Writer
There is a particular kind of irony in a society that tells women to be proud of themselves while giving them a thousand reasons to question their worth. Women are told to embrace their bodies, speak their minds, and take up space, only to be reminded that their appearance, their opinions, and their reactions are open for public criticism. We are encouraged to be unapologetically ourselves, so long as we remain palatable to everyone else.
The recent controversy surrounding comedian Shane Gillis and his comments about women’s gym attire is only one example of a much larger contradiction. The conversation, as it so often does, extends beyond what was said and into whether women have any right to be offended by it. And perhaps that is the more revealing question: Why are women so frequently expected to defend their dignity before anyone considers whether it had been disrespected?
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now,” “Saturday Night Live” host Shane Gillis said during his opening monologue. “Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe [it]. Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. You’ve seen the shorts? They’re those neon, like, artificial bait-colored [shorts], and the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look! You’re not allowed to look.”
Gillis has a history of using women as the target of his jokes. After the reports about a former Cornell University student who claimed she was gang-raped at an on-campus fraternity in 2024, many have called this opening joke tone deaf.
These “jokes” have become a remarkably convenient defense for comments that might otherwise deserve a second thought. They shift the burden from the person making the joke to the person offended by it, transforming a discussion about what was said into a debate about whether someone is allowed to care. The focus then becomes women who didn’t laugh.
The backlash surrounding Gillis’s comments about women’s gym attire illustrates this familiar pattern. But the issue extends beyond one comedian, one monologue, or one television network. Dan Levy, a comedian, actor, producer, and director, spoke for a chorus of viewers in a video he posted to Instagram.
“Women wearing shorts at the gym does not make them whores,” Levy said. “It makes the men calling them whores misogynists.”
Levy went on to say that more men should be standing up in opposition because complacency in response to these events has created an environment in which women being sexually assaulted is viewed as a “conversation” as opposed to a crisis.
The word “whore” is doing a lot of work in this controversy. Gillis isn’t simply commenting on gym fashion; he’s using women’s clothing to make a judgment about their character. Why are women’s bodies so often treated as evidence of their character, intentions, or sexual availability? Women can make completely ordinary decisions about their own bodies and still find those decisions turned into public debates about the kind of people they are.
Women are encouraged to love their bodies, but not when that confidence makes other people uncomfortable. They’re told to speak up, but they can be dismissed as dramatic or oversensitive when they do. They’re encouraged to dress for themselves, but they can be criticized for what they wear.
“[It’s] just a bunch of brainwashed white women and gay dudes virtue signaling,” one commenter shared under “SNL’s” Instagram post of the monologue. “… the past decade of their lives they have been propagandized into a fake sense of self righteousness, and they are completely out of touch with reality now.”
This controversy reflects a much larger issue. Women’s worth is not determined by the validation of others. They enter the world whole, worthy, and deserving of dignity.
The idea sounds simple until we consider how often society suggests otherwise. From the scrutiny placed on women’s appearances to the dismissal of their concerns as oversensitivity, society often treats women’s worth as something open to debate. We are taught, in a thousand subtle ways, that being enough is conditional.
This is not a blanket condemnation of men, but rather a call to action. This is not an issue that concerns only women; it is an issue that involves everyone. When men are allowed to objectify women in the media without consequence, it reinforces attitudes that encourage others to view and treat women as objects rather than people.
There is a place for everyone in the pursuit of equality and respect. The question is not whether women have the right to be offended when their dignity is mocked. The question is why they are so often expected to defend their dignity in the first place.
Women should not have to earn the right to be treated with dignity. They should not have to justify why degrading language is hurtful. Respect is not conditional, and neither is worth.
