That is, if a man sees you as a sex object, is that an instance of male chauvinism? Is he seeing you/treating you as something less than an equally autonomous person with your own needs, views and feelings? Is pornography (the kind aimed at straight males) inherently demeaning to women? Is exotic dancing? Prostitution?
My view is, of course females are sex objects to (most) males, that’s just part of nature – human nature, mammalian nature, vertebrate nature, probably invertebrate nature too.
It is sexism to forget, or not to care, that every woman is also a great many other things in addition to that.
Heck, I objectify most of the people I interact with. The person who took my money and handed me my food at the drive-through has, I’m sure, a rich and layered personal life, but if they were replaced with a machine that took money and dispensed food, I wouldn’t care.
Context matters. If someone doesn’t want to be objectified at a given point, then it’s wrong to do it. When a woman poses in alluring clothing for an advertisement, that’s one thing: when she’s on the City Council and proposing an amendment to the budget, that’s very much another.
But, for some reason, there are feminists who regard (straight-male-targeted) pornography as essentially degrading to women even when everyone involved is there by informed choice.
Not necessarily. Some reject pornography even if willingly chosen because it impacts negatively the image of women in general.
ETA : some object to Domination/submission related kinks for the same reason (although they also have a tendancy to question that a woman really freely partake in such a kink, rather than reproducing oppressive male/female structures, etc…)
I don’t see how anyone could, in this day and age. (WRT porn performers or strippers, that is; prostitutes are another matter and are often de facto slaves.)
If large numbers of men pervasively use pornography and allow it to color their perceptions, that could have an effect on all women, not just those who chose to participate.
Start with the believe that many porn performers and strippers came from abusive pasts and don’t understand healthy relationships and it isn’t hard. And statistically, a lot of them have come from abusive pasts or are in abusive situations currently. For those women, is it a free choice they’d have made if their history were different?
I reject the concept of the subject/object dichotomy since, taken to it’s logical conclusions, we would all be guilty of objectifying everyone at all times since we always limit the use of people to what we want them for. My Boss is objectifying me as nothing but a worker, etc.
Some people use this perspective, and cherry-pick when they apply this logic, and when they don’t. In this case it’s women who don’t understand the constant sex-drive men have, and so view it as insulting.
As long as your not harassing (giving unwanted attention after you’ve reasonably concluded it is unwanted) the individual you’re sexualizing, then sexualize away.
I’m mostly a feminist, although more of the equal-wages-and-job-opportunities variety, and porn doesn’t bother me too much, because it objectifies both sexes. It’s equal opportunity degradation.
Also, porn is really cartoonish, ultimately. It’s a parody of sexuality; it’s sex in a sit-com kind of stylized way, like those Balinese dancers whose motions have been fixed for centuries.
The catcalling thing is more disturbing, as it crosses the boundaries of choice. It takes women who might be in business attire, on their way to City Council meetings, and treats them as if they were in bikinis on the set of a vodka advertisement. It denies who they want to be, and forces a different identity on them.
Most women don’t mind being sexy; they just don’t want that to be all that they are, nor all the time. (Most men don’t mind being sexy, too. When we go to the beach, most of us think we’re pretty hot. But if I’m presenting a proposal to the v.p. of sales, I don’t want to hear, “Good idea, sugar-hips.”)
Do some women see men as “objects” too, often in different ways? Just throwing that question out there. Not taking a stance on this topic until I read more of what some have to say.
When I think about sex, I don’t see it as “objectifying”.
**Dangerosa **said:
“Start with the believe that many porn performers and strippers came from abusive pasts and don’t understand healthy relationships and it isn’t hard. And statistically, a lot of them have come from abusive pasts or are in abusive situations currently. For those women, is it a free choice they’d have made if their history were different?”
Not trying the question the legitimacy of what you’re saying, (well… technically I am,) but do you have a site for the claim that statistically a lot of the are, or were, being abused? Even if that’s true, they are still adults. Perhaps they feel like they own their sexuality in those cases? Also, who’s to say what a “healthy relationship” is?
Yes, it’s degrading. I’m past the age where it was a fairly frequent thing, but I vividly remember that in the 1970s and 80s I could not walk down a block on the upper West Side of Manhattan, or board a subway train, without some sleazebag making disgusting little lip-smacking noises or highly personal and obscene suggestions about what they wanted to do to me sexually. That recent video of the woman walking around NYC in jeans and a high-necked T-shirt? It used to be worse than that. A lot worse than that.
I experienced some pretty direct behavior at work, too–including having some jerks who were watching a porn video in a back room and suggested that they recognized me in the scene.
This makes one feel AWFUL. No matter that I’ve been a brilliant student, pretty good engineer, later top-notch lawyer. This kind of behavior says “None of that matters: you’re just an outlet for MY MALE sexual satisfaction.”
It’s horrible–and it has very little to do with sex. It’s about cruelty and domination and bullying. The people who perpetrate it are sadists who take pleasure in humiliating other people.
Most fertile women are ‘sex objects’. It’s pretty much the only game in town.
Personally, as a male, I find it a hassle and pretty sad to be so dominated in perspective but what can you do when it’s hard wired by millennia of evolution.
It depends on who’s doing the objectification and under what circumstances.
If my boyfriend tells me how much he likes how my ass looks when I wear really high heels, that’s one thing. If my boss or a random stranger does, that’s totally different.
