‘GQ’ Names Serena Williams ‘Woman’ of the Year, But Cover Causes Controversy

Serena Williams
AP Photo/Julio Cortez
Warner Todd Huston

GQ chose tennis star Serena Williams as its woman of the year, however, the magazine is taking flack for its decision to put quote marks around the word “woman” on the cover.

The magazine announced its award of woman of the year along with its men of the year awards. But the images of the various covers drew sharp criticism because the men of the years had no quote marks around the word men while the Williams cover did feature the quotes around the word woman.

The cover featuring Williams has the word men crossed out and “woman” seemingly written in by hand.

But, quote marks around a word — sometimes called scare quotes — are often used to put the word inside the quotes in doubt and many wondered if GQ was saying that Williams is not really a woman.

The magazine itself has not yet made any public statement, but one magazine official explained that the word woman was placed in quotes because it was handwritten and meant to replace the typeset men on the cover to emulate the designer’s style

According to CNN, “…in response to a Twitter thread Mick Rouse, research manager for GQ, according to his Twitter bio, tweeted: ‘Because it was handwritten by Virgil Abloh of Off-White, who has styled everything in quotation marks as of late (see Serena’s US Open apparel that he designed).'”

Rouse later went on to post a photo of the Serena Williams tennis shoe to show that her name is surrounded by quote marks even on the side of the shoe.

“It quite literally has tags/quotations around it because that’s Virgil’s own style/branding, including in his partnership with Nike and Serena herself. That’s the only ‘message’ behind it,” Rouse wrote.

But many who responded on the magazine’s cover tweet didn’t understand that the quote marks were any sort of hallmark of a fashion designer.

One Twitter user didn’t get it at all saying, “Okay but why is woman in quotation marks @GQMagazine?”

One responder wrote, “It quite literally means – I’m writing ‘woman’ because I don’t mean woman. That’s what those quotes quote literally mean. Did no one go to school there?”

Another claimed, “a whole lot of people are going to think it was in poor taste.”

Still another wrote, “I’d just like to say I’ve no clue who the designer is or his style. I do think that people will read it the wrong way, as that’s what people do now a days.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.

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