Story highlights Peggy Drexler: No question Christie Brinkley photos send a powerful message

That message not really the positive, affirming one of which Brinkley is thinking

Peggy Drexler is the author of "Our Fathers, Ourselves: Daughters, Fathers, and the Changing American Family" and "Raising Boys Without Men." She is an assistant professor of psychology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and a former gender scholar at Stanford University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

(CNN) On Monday night, supermodel Christie Brinkley took to Instagram to announce her return to Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, the cover of which she graced for three consecutive years starting in 1979, when she was in her 20s.

This time, Brinkley, now 63, appears with Alexa Ray Joel, her 31-year-old daughter with ex-husband Billy Joel, and Sailor Brinkley Cook, her 18-year-old daughter with ex-husband Peter Cook. "Thank you Sports Illustrated," she wrote, "for sending the powerful message that good things come in packages of every size and we do not come with an expiration date!"

No question, the photo spread sends a powerful message -- but it's not really the positive, affirming one of which Brinkley is thinking. In fact, at this particular moment in history, as millions of women march for rights that are being threatened, or which don't exist -- including reproductive rights and the right to equal pay -- her SI babes-in-swimsuits project rings extremely tone deaf.

You could argue -- as people try to do every year -- that the iconic issue is empowering, a celebration of women, edited by a woman . Many of the models are paid very generously for their work (modeling, in fact, is one of the few industries in which women out-earn men ). And over the years, the magazine has done a decent job featuring models of a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, including athletes like American mixed martial artist Ronda Rousey and Australian hurdler Michelle Jenneke. Last year's big news was the inclusion of the issue's first "plus-size" cover girl, Ashley Graham

And, yes, this year, as Brinkley notes, the magazine includes as a swimsuit model a sexagenarian, a concept that apparently shocked even her. "My first thought was, 'At my age? No way!'" Brinkley tells People magazine . "When I turned 30, I was like, 'This is the last time I'm posing in a bathing suit!' When this issue comes out, I'll be 63. I thought, 'Those days are over.'"

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