GQ just announced its 2023 men of the year, which includes Kim Kardashian.
What’s up with men and women cosplaying as the opposite sex and winning awards? First, USA Today named Rachel Levine, America’s highest-ranking transgender federal official, “Woman of the Year” in 2022. Then, the University of Pennsylvania submitted Lia Thomas, a male swimmer who pretends to be a female, for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award. There’s also transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who won Attitude magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in October.
Now that men receive so many women’s awards, maybe GQ‘s recent “Men of the Year” issue was partly meant as an act of charity for wronged women. More likely, the magazine tried to capitalize on the hip “this award is for men, but what does gender matter, anyway?” trend that’s all the rage.
GQ’s decision doesn’t do much for women, despite the “girl boss” attitude Kim Kardashian radiated on the magazine’s cover. Kardashian is a woman, and her success as a woman deserves celebration (especially because she amassed a $1.7 billion net worth while having four children). Let’s also not forget how she initially rose to fame — which, as she has acknowledged before, was aided by her more, well, womanly assets.
To honor women as women and men as men — or simply award a “Person of the Year” — would be preferable to this publicity stunt against gendered awards. While it’s a fine thing that Kardashian can rival the boys, that certainly isn’t her only success or her crowning achievement, as GQ seems to suggest.