19 November,2009 08:30 AM IST | | Agencies
Sarah Palin, the former US vice-presidential candidate, has denounced as "sexist" and "degrading" a Newsweek cover that depicts her in a coquettish pose in gym kit.
Palin, who is making front pages across the US this week as she promotes her memoir Going Rogue, told more than one million supporters on Facebook that the image and the treatment of her were depressingly
predictable.
The headline used was "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?", a play on the song Maria from The Sound of Music in which the nuns lament the frivolity of Maria Von Trapp. Both articles inside the magazine are highly critical, even dismissive, of Palin.
The former Alaska governor wrote, "When it comes to Sarah Palin, this 'news' magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant."
She added, "The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or colour of skin."
The photograph Newsweek used was one of a series taken for Runner's World magazine in August for its regular "I'm a Runner" feature.
The magazine issued a statement saying that the photograph had been used by Newsweek without its permission and had been subject to an embargo of a year.
