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Serena Williams being named GQ's woman of the year should be a celebratory milestone.
The 37-year-old tennis star is the only woman featured on one of GQ's four covers for December, alongside Michael B Jordan, Jonah Hill and Henry Golding.
The honor comes after the Olympics last year, but suffered some losses on the court including Wimbledon.
However, the cover features the word 'woman' in double quotation marks beside each image with 'men' crossed out – and fans are not best pleased.
It turned out, the 'woman' logo was designed by Louis Vuitton artistic director Virgil Abloh, who famously uses the font in his designs. However, that explanation has been enough to appease the critics who feel the quotation marks are in 'bad taste'.
Reactions on Twitter included included:
Mark Rouse, research manager at GQ, waded in to the backlash by defending Virgil's design.
The executive said: 'Because it was handwritten by Virgil Abloh of Off-White, who has styled everything in quotation marks (see Serena's US Open apparel that he designed).
'It's quite literally has tags / quotes around because that's Virgil's own style / branding, including in his partnership with Nike and Serena herself. That's the only "message" behind it. "
Not everybody bought Mark's reasoning as a Twitter follower replied: 'Everyone knows Virgil. We know his designs. We get the quotations. Does not mean putting quotes around the woman makes it any less insensitive esp. considering the masculinization of Serena and black women in general! [sic]'
More: Serena Williams
The quote marks were not the only thing critics were not happy with, aside from the critic noted: 'Question: why does the woman get to be half-dressed and the men get to be fully-dressed?
As you know, GQ is the only way for you to have a magazine. Nevermind that she's being honored for her achievements. '
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