by Imran Siddiquee and Margarita Diaz

Yesterday Chris on Twitter sent us this picture of the most recent cover of Newsweek:.

Here we see an unknown woman reduced to nothing more than perfect photoshopped skin and red lips, meant to attract readers with her “sexy” suggestive pose.

When a picture features only parts of a woman’s body, it erases the “individuality communicated through face, eyes and eye contact,” as put by Dr. Caroline Heldman. Such images saturate popular media and make it easy for women to be perceived as “nothing more than a body.”

(Sidenote: can we imagine a national magazine like Newsweek – which reaches over 1 million homes a week – running a similar image with a man in her place?)

What’s the relevance of such a sexualized picture for a restaurant-themed article anyway? (You’ll be disappointed if you open it up looking for a feature on “asparagus as an aphrodisiac” or anything like that). There are any number of eye catching ideas that Newsweek could have gone with instead (that took us 15 seconds to Google): food that looks really good, food in the shape of a heart, or you know, a chef cooking or something. The possibilities are endless.

Perhaps even more troubling is that this isn’t the first time Newsweek has run cover images that diminish women. Earlier this year they ran a very similar image of a naked woman whose face was blindfolded – again reducing her to merely an anonymous body. And last year, the magazine received some flak over their election-related cover image of Michele Bachmann, which many felt was sexist.

Outraged? Want to speak your mind? Let Newsweek know you’re #NotBuyingIt by tweeting at them (@newsweek) or just clicking the button below:

UPDATE: Tiffany H. let us know that Newsweek’s Art Director is on Twitter as well. Let her know what you think: …

UPDATE: We can direct our tweets to Editor-In-Chief Tina Brown @theTinaBeast