Beyonce Named GQ's Miss Millennium, '100 Hottest Women of 21st Century' List Draws Controversy over Ethnic Categories

Although there's still 987 years left in the millennium, GQ magazine recently released its list of the "100 Hottest Women of the 21st Century" (the popular men's tabloid had to get an early head start, considering "this is one of the top three hottest millennia ever"). The beautiful and talented Beyonce was ultimately named Miss Millenium, while a slew of other starlets were honored in several different "sexy" categories including Mil Kunis, Katie Holmes, Megan Fox and "Jersey Shore" reality star JWoww. While it's hard to take GQ's "Hottest Women" list seriously with titles such as "Hottest MILF," "Hottest Blue Chick," and "Hottest Uber-Geek Girlfriend," some critics are fuming over the mag's breakdown of specific categories based solely on race and ethnicity. According to some, objectifying women based only on their looks is degrading enough... dragging ethnicity into the mix just worsens the problem.

Out of GQ's 60-page slideshow, here are some "100 Hottest Women of the 21st Century" honorees who really managed to turn some heads:

-       "Hottest Indian Chick": Freida Pinto

-       "Hottest Pregnant Sri Lankan": M.I.A

-       "Hottest Italian Chick": Monica Belluci

-       "Hottest Chinese Chick": Zhang Ziyi (sometimes credited as Ziyi Zhang)

As several critics point out, only some women are "judged" by the beauty of their race... many others (Beyonce, for example) are simply praised with more generalized titles. According to Ruth C. White, a Ph.D. Associate Professor of Social Work in the Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work at Seattle University:

"If the magazine were saying, 'These are all the beautiful women from every country in the world', that would be a bit different; that's what the Miss Universe pageant is all about... But by calling out certain women's ethnicity and not others, what they're implying is that these women are not beautiful simply because they're beautiful; they're only attractive within the context of their own ethnicity. This is qualifying their beauty and dismisses the idea that beauty comes in many different forms." 

What do Mstarz readers think about the recent controversy surrounding GQ's "100 Hottest Women of the 21st Century?"

Check out the full list of "Hottest Women" winners here.