Martin Buber.
You’re in line at the bank and you realize the person behind you is the postman.
Now there are two normal, acceptable responses. The introverted, internal, “huh, it’s the postman”, and the extroverted, external, “hey, Joe! Love that new freedom stamp you guys are making.”
The third response is objectified, and not acceptable unless this is a close friend you’re teasing. “Hey. Could you deliver this letter for me, please?” (and then if he says 'uh, no, there’s a mailbox on the corner, calling him an asshole, I mean you were nice and said please, what more was required!)
Recognizing Joe only as “the postman” isn’t objectifying him, it’s just acknowledging and dismissing input that is irrelevant to you at this moment. There’s the postman, there’s the velvet rope, neither one is of pressing importance to me as I stand here wondering if my check bounced. But assuming that his sole purpose on earth, wherever, whenever, is to deliver your mail, and beyond that he has no reality, is objectifying.
And it’s that response that causes the uproar. Joe-in-the-bank is not a mail delivery system, he’s a person doing banking. Similarly one might like the sight of a woman’s breasts, but that doesn’t mean the woman *exists * to give you a view of tits.
Well, street harassment has already come up as an obvious, gender-specific example of objectification that many women deal with in their day-to-day lives. There are subtler examples as well, but I note that your response to the one already shared by gracer was to look for reasons why she might be wrong about her own experiences.
As for the media, another obvious example of the objectification of women is advertising that equates the product being sold with the female body. Take for instance this Arby’s ad, which says “We’re about to reveal something you’ll really drool over” and shows a pair of round sandwiches being cupped by a woman’s hands as if they were her breasts.
Now, I’m not blaming Arby’s for men who react to a female passerby as if she were basically just a tasty sandwich rather than a human being with thoughts and feelings. This kind of behavior long predates Arby’s. But since the entire purpose of advertising is to influence people’s real-life behavior, I also think it would be naive to claim that the objectification of women in advertising is totally unrelated to the objectification of women in real life.
Women are every bit as competent as men to drive, operate computers, govern nations. It is only social illusions that prevent this.
I’m always comforted when a debate partner distorts what I have said and then rebuts on the basis of that distortion. It assures me that he is not capable of responding to what I have actually said.
Another night at the Algonquin Round Table. Say hello to Robert Benchley.
Yeah it would be nice and simple if we could attribute this to something else. But no. I’m the approachable one, the outgoing one. I’ll even start chatting with someone else. Then they’ll ask him about the film.
I should wear those glasses with a tiny camera in them some time, to show people afterwards.
Not to point fingers at the OP, because it is absolutely universal, but this is genuinely why, after a while, you just stop. You give up. Why even try to talk about it?
I know, Cadet, you didn’t mean it in a bad way at all. But I will say this: I thought hours before posting what I did, because of this. It’s a never-ending struggle to decide: say nothing, and nothing will change, or speak and be doubted, be debated on the smallest, finest points of your mundane daily experience.
Today, while cycling to the park, two men independently addressed me for no other reason than that to them I exist for their pleasure. Trying to explain how mundane, how everyday this is just doesn’t work when it is outside your experience. There is nothing I could possibly say.
I certainly believe you, because it sounds like a variation on “don’t pitch the bitch.”
You could take your wife naked to buy a car and she’d still be invisible to the salesman.
And don’t forget if you complain about it, you’re told, “What, it’s a compliment, why are you so offended! You should be flattered!”
I mean, I usually just roll my eyes and give these guys the finger, but come on. You know damned well it’s not just a compliment.
Understood. I just don’t like seeing this kind of blind spot, and I actually spoke to my gf about this and she agreed that in our case it did really come down to body language a lot. But in your case… Okay. That helps me understand. Thank you. 
I’ll have to watch for this kind of thing more often.
This issue with the questioning is something I’m getting to understand more and more. I always feel like an asshole for doing it, but I feel like I have to - I’m sort of slowly undergoing a major shift in how I look at the world, and I want to be damned sure I’m not mistaken before I slog my way through years of cognitive dissonance. It’s not an easy thing. And at the same time, you also have a lot of people for whom these questions are simply dismissive smokescreens. Hell, I came across as dismissive - I know that, but I don’t know how else I could have assuaged my concerns without sounding dismissive. Please just remember that there are those of us out there who really do have trouble understanding this, and for whom stories like yours really help clarify the issue.
Thank you for taking the time to explain your experience to me, and for putting up with my questions. It really does help me understand the issue, at least to some degree.
We’ve seen multiple sales people lose our business with that tactic. I control the purse strings, and if they get it wrong with me, I walk out and we find somewhere else to take our business.
Actually, you didn’t sound dismissive and you did sound as though you were really trying to understand. If I came across grumpy it’s because of years of people for whom debating those things is a game, while for me it is life. You don’t seem a part of that, and I’m sorry if I did sound like I was blaming you. (When I post at 3.18 am on Saturday night, they are not always my most balanced and clear-headed posts 
)
I’ve never met a woman who has experienced this, and I think it’s bullshit. I also find it hard to believe that you’ve never experienced it, I certainly have. Not sexual comments, not something “bizarrely threatening”, rather outright quite explicit threatening. Actually, I have got wolf-whistles, but I assume those are meant as an insult and a threat. I’m a young man with long hair, you know, and these things happen. I’ve never seen anything even remotely similar happen to a woman, though, nor heard of it from any of the women I know.
But keep living in your gynocentric dream world if that keeps your comfortable prejudices intact.
You honestly trust something a journalist says? Do you really think they’d have one of their editors there holding a sign saying “Well, no-one’s ever shouted at me in the street, but if they did I’m sure it would be very offensive and somewhat alarming”?
Statistically lesbian relationships are just as violent as heterosexual relationships and women are more likely to be violent in heterosexual relationships. So yes, it’s a good example, insofar as it’s another problem people like to pretend is a women’s issue, but isn’t.
Dear oh dear oh dear.
No, it’s not men who beat, it’s people who beat. In fact, given the incidence of violence under the influence of alcohol, it’s a least as much “people who drink”.
As for husbands having the right to beat their wives, maybe that was once the case. The evidence for it is a single reference in Blackstone’s legal works that says this may have been the case in the distant past, but was long obsolete in the enlightened eighteenth century.
In any case, the reason the focus is on the women is that no-one gives a shit about male victims. There’s generally no blame placed on the women, even when there should be, and certainly no legal right to beat your wife, although women are likely to be able to do likewise with impunity.
I use the passive voice to show how gentle I’ll be
– Jonathan Coulton, “Soft Rocked by Me”
People generally do that, not just women. The idea is to assume a disinterested and detached position to assume an air of impartiality. Women certainly have a stronger in-group bias than do men.
This isn’t a given. Some feminists are very pro-pornography and pro-sex work.
But anyways…
I lived in Japan for some years, and as such got to experience a certain amount of racism. As a white person, this was generally “positive” racism, but I think it helps to be in any sort of racial situation to understand the dynamic, positive or negative, and to extend that to other regions of discrimination.
One place where it stood out was with the topic of dating. A large number of men who go to Japan do so because they’re attracted to Asian women (AKA, yellow fever). Within Japan, there’s not a large call for white men. Women tend to live with their parents until they marry, and their parents have a strong influence in their choice of partner. Dating a white boy would be like a white girl, in the 50s, dating a Jewish boy. It’s relatively frowned upon.
But at the same time, there are some number of Japanese women who have “white fever”. They hang out in Roppongi and actively try to meet American men (generally soldiers).
As a white man, I could always have gone to Roppongi and had an immediate advantage with a girl. Alternately, I could stay away from Roppongi and have an immediate disadvantage with most women I might meet. And in neither case is anything about who I actually am involved. I didn’t choose to be born white, so that I could have Japanese women with white fever become attracted to me. If I had some Japanese woman start hitting on me, purely because she liked white men, I’d find it a bit creepy. She doesn’t know a thing about me, but is assuming that I’ll be some generic good ol’ American down-home boy, and thus desire me. I think I’m a perfectly fine and decent person, and perfectly desirable, but I’m not a good ol’ American boy.
If someone looks at you and has an opinion about your “value”, without any frame of reference, it’s creepy. And basically that’s what objectifying is. It’s saying, “I know what the product is, and I like/don’t like it.” Or worse, “I know what the product is and how to work/treat it.” You’re taking what should be a human interaction between equals, and instead unilaterally overriding the other person’s view of themself, and treating them like that. The case which is most specifically alluded to, and after which the issue is named, is when women are viewed as objects; something to be talked about, priced, traded, and used. In the pre-20th century world, women were basically property and the expectation of their behavior and how to treat them was largely interwoven with that view.
The (perceived) problem with something like pornography, is that it’s not a medium which tends to challenge people’s views about the other sex. It goes beyond that, straight to wish fulfillment. A large percentage of men, in our culture, wish that they could be the all-impressive, all-desirable alpha male. In a heterosexual sex fantasy, that basically means that women are submissive, out of their senses in the man’s presence, and ready to be used as he desires. The truth is that, that’s pretty unrealistic for almost all relationships, where you’re not Brad Pitt and she’s not a star-shocked tween. But it also results in the woman’s behavior fitting the historic goal of being an object. The worry that (some) feminists have is that the constant display of women in this way (in porn and popular film), the historic position of women in our society, and lingering cultural status quo, all result in men forming these fake stereotypes of women and applying them to the women they meet, perpetuating our cultural legacy.
Of course, other feminists say that people are aware of when they’re being fed fantasy, so porn is less of a problem than things like all heroes in Hollywood films being male. If nothing else, that at least points to the former status quo still lingering, even if it doesn’t spread fake views of women.
Yeah, but have you ever seen a One Direction concert? The dance moves, the outfits they wear? They’re totally asking for it.
I saw exactly this dynamic play out recently when we went to see a financial planner, with an eye toward retirement planning. It was revealing, disturbing, and really annoyed me.
My wife is the sole earner in our family. She is well-educated, and a partner at one of the Big Four professional services firms. She makes a very good living. All of this was in the paperwork we’d sent to this financial planner prior to meeting him for the first time. My wife and he had multiple phone conversations prior to our first meeting.
Throughout this meeting the planner, without fail, addressed me as if I was the decision-maker and primary interested party. Even after multiple instances of me deflecting his questions to my wife for her to answer, his focus remained on me. There was absolutely no reason for him to do so other than some underlying assumption, despite all evidence to the contrary, that my wife just wasn’t equipped to understand the complexities of retirement planning, or to make rational decisions in that area. She was “a woman,” not an actor in her own life. Needless to say, we did not have any further meetings with him.
My wife has countless other stories like this from her work life, but this was the first time I had been witness to something she puts up with all the time. Discrimination against women is still very much an issue and it is pervasive, even if it might be somewhat less obvious than in the past.
That’s the best description of the concept that I have seen. I’ve understood the concept intellectually for a long time, but this makes it so much more practical.
I lived in Japan for 25 years and had this happen countless times, usually because of my obviously non-Japanese appearance but a few times because of being male. I’ll first give an example or two of the latter.
My our daughter was around 18 months, I several months between jobs where I was a stay-at-home father, which worked our really well because my wife’s research job was particularly busy at that time. We did lots of things together, including hanging out at a local community center baby and toddler room for parents and children.
The local government had a free screening / health check for 18-month-olds, and my wife decided to join us that day. I filled in the survey and answered all the questions concerning both the child and the parent.
OK, this wouldn’t be that unusual in the States, but in Japan it’s still like the 1960s. the vast majority of mothers of babies and toddlers stay at home, and it’s pretty much unheard of for father to contribute much to child raising.
At the screening, after the basic health checks, we talked to the social worker (SW) who read the answers on the survey and asked follow up questions. I was the one holding our daughter. I was the one who had written the answers, and it would have been obvious that the hand-written Japanese was mine.
But every damn question was directed to my wife. “How well does she eat new foods?” the SW would ask, looking directly at my wife who would shrug and look to me. I’d answer it, and the SW would look to my wife for confirmation, although she had no clue since I was the primary care giver. Question after question after question. SW would ask my wife, I’d answer, but never once did the SW direct her questions to me or acknowledge my replies.
The most egregious exchange was when the SW asked how we thought our daughter was doing. I had spent a lot of time observing children of various ages and discussing the differences and similarities with the mothers at the community center.
However, when I started off saying, “Compared to other children her same age,” the social worker’s visceral reaction was remarkable. Her involuntary response was like I had claimed to have been the pregnant one.
Like in gracer’s example, she wasn’t prejudiced. It’s just that in her world, a father simply could not make meaningful contributions to raising children, let alone take care of them, and let alone be “a mother.”
There were tons of examples of being invisible because I was a foreigner. When my wife and I would bought computers or other things. I would ask all the questions and the sales clerk would answer to my wife, because she’s Asian (although Taiwanese but you can’t tell the difference).
More irritating where work related. I was the director of sales and marketing for a company that did millions of dollars in business, and yet, it was assumed that I couldn’t possibly understand Japanese culture. That. is. what. I. did. for. a. living. but people would want to talk to one of my subordinates.
My sister used to laugh at these experiences because she got them constantly as a female power engineer. She’s a woman, she can’t possible understand industrial transformers.
Since I first heard of sexual objectification back in the 80’s or earlier, it was clear to me it was nonsense. I think we can understand what’s going on better if we consider two topics: militant feminism and negativity concerning sexuality.
Militant feminism is a perversion of healthy feminism
It’s helpful to distinguish between two kinds of feminism. There is what I would call healthy feminism, in which thinking people try to improve society by getting rid of laws, traditions, and stereotypes that inappropriately discriminate on the basis of gender. I assume most of us would approve of this. I consider myself a wholehearted supporter of healthy feminism. The other type I’ll call militant feminism. Militant implies fighting some enemy. When feminism is about how terribly women are treated at the hands of men and how men are trying to suppress women, it portrays men in the role of an enemy women must fight against. Militant feminists feel they key to solving women’s problems is to get women angry and upset and fearful of what men are doing to them. Getting a body of angry, threatened followers is what makes militants successful, whether the issue is feminism or anything else.
People who are angry aren’t very good judges of what is true. As a result, the most successful militants (on any issue) will often rally their followers with exaggerations and falsehoods. They and their followers can become paranoid about their enemies.
I regard militant feminism as a perversion of healthy feminism. When we hear the term “feminist” we are likely to think of militants, which turns many people off because they are typically angry and bitter. This gives feminism a bad name. Dangerosa mentioned Andrea Dworkin and some of the excessive feminism of the 70’s. I’m concerned that militants are moving us back in that direction.
Sex isn’t dirty but our culture treats it as if it is.
We think we are enlightened about sex because we are no longer as uptight was we were 50 years ago and we’re far better than some third world cultures. But frankly we are still a long ways from having a healthy attitude about sex. Like fattening treats and alcoholic drinks, sex is glorified as momentary pleasure but looked at as corrupting overall, except of course, in the context of a long term committed relationship. We are afraid to let children know about it because we are afraid they’ll lose their “innocence.” We panic when a nipple is seen during a Superbowl halftime show. People under 18 are deemed incapable of consenting to sex even though they can consent to dangerous activities like football or skiing or riding bicycles in traffic. Even the sex you have with your appropriate partner is something you can’t talk about in polite company. Prostitution is illegal and pornography is generally considered shameful and disgusting.
Particularly troubling is the idea that women (but not men) who have an active sex life with a variety of partners should be shamed as sluts. This is totally sexist. Men are glorified if they have a variety of partners while women are reviled. Healthy feminists fight this tradition, but militants tacitly embrace it since it gives them an excuse for claiming men’s interest in sex is harmful and degrading to women.
Sexual objectification is complete nonsense
Does the fact that a man has an interest in sex with a woman imply he has total disregard for her welfare? No. This is the essence of the sexual objectification claim and is complete nonsense. Personally I check out the sex appeal of just about every woman I ever see who’s over the age of puberty. It would not occur to me under any circumstances whatsoever that these people are unfeeling objects. I can’t think of any reason I, or anyone else, would feel that way and I don’t know of a shred of evidence that this is in any way normal. Do the men reading this board find that whenever they think a woman is sexy she is therefore nothing but an unfeeling object? Or in any way less a human being? I see this as purely a fabrication by militants who want women to be angry at men.
If this is a pure fabrication, why is it accepted by so many normally intelligent people? Since we regard sex as bad, it’s easy to assume that a man who has sexual thoughts about a woman has bad intentions. Add in the deep distrust of men promoted by militants and the harmful nature of “objectification” becomes even easier to believe. In addition there is a sense of legitimacy since “sex object” was a psychological term used by Freud. However when Freud used the term it referred to the object of one’s sexual attention who might be, say, a woman’s father rather than her husband. It certainly didn’t imply the “object,” typically a relative or spouse, was not a thinking, feeling being.
There certainly are cases where men treat women badly because of their sexuality, but they clearly are not seen as unfeeling objects. Men (often conservative religious types) who have contempt for women they think of as tramps or sluts may treat them quite badly. To call this objectification is inappropriate because the women are certainly not seen as objects, they are seen as sinners who deserve to be punished. Referring to this as objectification distracts from the real problem which is the archaic stereotype that women should be sexually pure.
As to the subject-object dichotomy, I feel like this is a tortured attempt to make the argument sound intellectual for a problem that is totally contrived. Unlike sexual objectification, it doesn’t even have any intuitive appeal.
I agree with blindboyard that this is a made up problem which “confuses object in the grammatical sense with object in the physical, inanimate sense” but think we should recognize that there is also legitimate feminism with legitimate problems involving traditions and stereotypes. Healthy feminism certainly isn’t a hate movement.