Ilona Maher is Sports Illustrated's latest swimsuit cover model. Will that change how we judge women's bodies?

Fresh off a medal win with her team in the Paris Olympics, U.S. rugby star Ilona Maher is making new waves as the latest digital cover model for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition. 

The 28-year-old bronze-medal winner was announced Wednesday as the cover model for the September digital swimsuit issue. The image, which shows Maher posing in a brown bikini on a dock, quickly racked up positive reactions, with nearly one million likes on Instagram as of Thursday afternoon. 

In a statement, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit editor-in-chief MJ Day called the rugby player a "modern-day role model of strength, conviction and authenticity."

Her "presence on the cover symbolizes a shift in the narrative — one that celebrates not only physical prowess but also the courage to lead, inspire and advocate for change," she said.

Some are hailing the decision to have a woman with an athletic, powerful build on the cover as a step forward in disrupting narrow beauty standards for women. But others say we've still got a long way to go.

"I think it's awesome," said Katie Fortune, a PhD student and gender studies instructor at Memorial University in Newfoundland. 

"There's got to be thousands of women who take this as, like, a big step — for every time they were told their legs were too big, or their shoulders were too broad.

"I hope this is like that coming-home moment."

'Women don't need to apologize for being muscular'

Maher, who has millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok, is known for her quirky, comedic online presence as well as her advocacy for body positivity. 

Maher's powerful legs, broad shoulders and height — she's five feet 10 inches — all help her excel in an incredibly physical sport. However, she's shared on social media that she's had to deal with misogynistic comments calling her too masculine or over-scrutinizing her body. 

It comes from the societal equation of muscle with men, Fortune says.

"To gain muscle is to lose femininity," she told CBC News. "That's a loss of social and cultural capital, right? You lose some standing as a woman, and I think we see female athletes always kind of battling that."

Elizabeth Daniels, professor and director of the Centre for Appearance Research in the U.K., said current conversations are challenging this perception. 

"Women's bodies can be muscular, and that's completely a fine option, right? Men don't get the ownership of muscularity, and women don't need to apologize for being muscular," she said. 

In a viral TikTok post in July, Maher shut down a user who criticized her body. The commenter speculated she had a body mass index of 30, which would label her obese.

Maher confirmed this, but then pointed out that BMI "doesn't really tell you what I can do."

"It doesn't tell you what I do in the field, how fit I am, it's just a couple numbers put together. It doesn't tell you how much muscle I have or anything like that," she said. 

Critics view BMI as an outdated metric, in part because it doesn't take muscle mass into account, which can make it inaccurate, especially for athletes.

Daniels said Maher's response was "fabulous" for pushing back on the false narrative "equating thinness with performance."

Images of athletes in action seen as more inspiring

The cover may be sparking excitement online, but Sports Illustrated Swimsuit as an institution has historically helped set narrow expectations of what a woman's body should look like. 

In recent years, the magazine has featured some diverse models on its covers, such as wrestler Ronda Rousey and plus-size model Ashley Graham in 2016, and trans model Leyna Bloom in 2021. 

And in 2019, it featured Somali American model Halima Aden, in a hijab and burkini:

But the magazine doesn't necessarily deserve heaps of praise yet, Fortune said: "I think this is a nice step, but I would like to see more diverse athletic bodies come to Sports Illustrated."

Daniels, who studies the impact of media images of female athletes on women and girls, is more impressed with Maher's social media presence than one photo. 

While the Ilona Maher cover may be empowering to some, Daniels says her research has shown that images of female athletes in action, performing their sport, are more inspiring to women and girls. 

"Those images evoke positive feelings about body, competence and functionality in female viewers," she said. 

If the new cover does inspire any young girls, Fortune says, she hopes it's to try rugby. 

"Hopefully it spurs capability — [not] 'I want to look like,' but 'I want to be like.'"