The cold weather may finally be slipping away, and sweaters will soon be swapped for swimwear.As per the norm, Sports Illustrated recently released its annual swimsuit edition, full of — you guessed it — women in bikinis.Many decry this edition and other magazines like it, claiming the images do nothing more than turn women into hammers — a tool for men to accomplish a goal (though that goal is not hammering). Many also say magazines like this are the reason men see women as sex objects in the first place, and were it not for the slow entropy of our society, women might never be seen as objects.This is tough to prove beyond simple logic. Until now, that is.A recent Princeton University study proved men see bikini-clad women much like they see screwdrivers and pipe-cleaners, according to CNN.This means a few things. First, opponents of these magazines are correct that men see these images as not just objects but actually as tools. The study showed “the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.””Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” may never sound as innocent again.The results of the study also offer another interesting tidbit — men may have actually evolved to see bikini-clad women as objects as a means of proliferating the race, Darwin-style.”The way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it’s a byproduct of human evolution, experts say,” according to CNN.Back when wooly mammoth was reining the earth, men would have been looking for a fertile mate without the help of Reggie’s or Match.com.But we live in a society that doesn’t need to proliferate itself merely to subsist, and magazines like this are doubtlessly obstructing women’s rightful place in society as more than child-bearers and sex toys.With information as starkly scientific proving what has always been argued, perhaps industries like Sports Illustrated and pornography — however important for the progression the film industry it may be — should give a second thought to what they peddle.They won’t.But the situation seems even more dire when looking at a “supplementary study on both male and female undergraduates [that] found that men tend to associate bikini-clad women with first-person action verbs such as I ‘push,’ ‘handle’ and ‘grab’ instead of the third-person forms such as she ‘pushes,’ ‘handles’ and ‘grabs.’ They associated fully clothed women, on the other hand, with the third-person forms, indicating these women were perceived as in control of their own actions,” reported CNN.A reigning view exists among college males, it seems, that feminism theory is ridiculous, pedantic, over the top, patronizing and unnecessary. The reason is two-fold: No one likes being told they act like animals, which is often how feminism is perceived by college-aged males. The second is that college-aged males love naked girls.It’s hard-wired in.These discoveries won’t change anything.The porn industry will remain, and the swimsuit edition will continue to be released on an annual basis, all breasts PhotoShopped bigger while all tummies are PhotoShopped smaller until reality can’t even trigger these areas of the brain.And columns like this will continue to be written, and scientists will continue to prove that columns like this are, at least somewhat, correct.But these days information is our only real power. And now that information is based in cold hard facts.So we’ll continue to throw it out there and see what happens.Travis Andrews is a 21-year-old English: creative writing major from Metairie.——Contact Travis Andrews at [email protected]