Hugh Hefner, the founder of the infamous Playboy magazine, died on September 27th, 2017. Feminists have long debated whether Playboy has harmed or hurt women. In my opinion, Playboy flourishes because of deep rooted misogyny in our society (New York Times). Hefner claims that it was a response to society’s stigma around sex and how he believed it hindered his own youth; he responded to moral righteousness with moral callousness. Playboy featured 11-year- old Eva Ionesco and 10- year- old Brooke Shields in the nude (Earn The Necklace). In addition, Playboy also published naked photographs of Marilyn Monroe without her consent. She posed nude for a photographer named Tom Kelley in 1949, four years before the photos were in Playboy. She agreed to the photographs because she was between jobs and needed the money, but she was embarrassed by it and did not want her real name attached to it. Agreeing to these nude photographs and compromising bodily autonomy due to financial hardships does not indicate consent. In addition, she did know they were going to be published in a Playboy calendar two years later. These are just some of the stories that encapsulate Hugh Hefner’s empire He should not be lauded as a feminist hero for capitalizing on the grossest examples of sexism (Refinery).
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UWindsor chapter.