Fair warning: This thread contains complex and difficult discussion about mature topics. If you believe yourself too immature to consider them, I recommend you leave before reading.
So I'm a feminist. As part of being a feminist I hear the word "Objectified" bandied around an awful lot. To do with porn, clothes, behaviour, hell even words. There seems to be an awful lot of stuff that objectifies people, especially women, but I've yet to find any blogs which actually address what the term itself means. Feminists are taught "Objectification is bad!" but not what it is.
There are two primary schools of thought about this. The mainstream one is that it turns the person into an object, a thing. Divides them up and makes them the focus of endless amounts of imagery to titillate and arouse the viewer. In this context it is generally viewed as dehumanising and degrading because of the association with inanimate things.
The second, and in my opinion the more accurate one, is that it is a grammatical reference. As no-one studies grammar these days unless they're an English major, few people pick this up. In the time that the word was first used grammar was widely taught. In sentence structure there are two types of nouns, subjects and objects. The subject does things to the object. The boy licked the dog. Boy is the subject, dog the object. Now in imagery, particularly erotic or pornographic imagery, this comes across through perspective. If you're looking at one person almost exclusively, then that person becomes the object, looked at by the subject.
I've heard the argument that men are objectified by pornography. While I can see the validity of this under he first definition, that they are dehumanised to be nameless providers of a body part, under the second definition they are subjectified.
Now onto the difficult discussion bit. I don't think that objectification and subjectification are inherently negative things. I think that when they are used to dehumanise then they are, but that is a use rather than something intrinsic to their nature. I also think that the most damaging part of current pornography, and all other images where something is made to be 'attractive', is their nigh-exclusivity to the subjectification of men, and objectification of women or people in female roles. This perpetuates the patriarchal[footnote]The patriarchy is not "ruled by men" but "ruled by patriarchs", namely the collection of middle-aged males who control the vast majority of power in the world. This is damaging to people of all genders because it perpetuates gender roles within cultures, yadda yadda.[/footnote] myth that men chase, women are chased. Men look, women are looked upon.
If the distribution was more even I'd be a happy feminist. I find it intensely confusing that women should be splayed everywhere as the "Fair sex", implying that men are what, too unattractive to advertise? Too unattractive to be desired? Fuck that. Hell, it doesn't even gel with another hegemonic perception that bisexual women are really straight and bisexual men are really gay. How can men be SO IRRESISTIBLE if they're so unappealing?
The point of this thread is to help clear up that grammatical understanding and to inspire conversation about it, do forgive me for the tangents.
So I'm a feminist. As part of being a feminist I hear the word "Objectified" bandied around an awful lot. To do with porn, clothes, behaviour, hell even words. There seems to be an awful lot of stuff that objectifies people, especially women, but I've yet to find any blogs which actually address what the term itself means. Feminists are taught "Objectification is bad!" but not what it is.
There are two primary schools of thought about this. The mainstream one is that it turns the person into an object, a thing. Divides them up and makes them the focus of endless amounts of imagery to titillate and arouse the viewer. In this context it is generally viewed as dehumanising and degrading because of the association with inanimate things.
The second, and in my opinion the more accurate one, is that it is a grammatical reference. As no-one studies grammar these days unless they're an English major, few people pick this up. In the time that the word was first used grammar was widely taught. In sentence structure there are two types of nouns, subjects and objects. The subject does things to the object. The boy licked the dog. Boy is the subject, dog the object. Now in imagery, particularly erotic or pornographic imagery, this comes across through perspective. If you're looking at one person almost exclusively, then that person becomes the object, looked at by the subject.
I've heard the argument that men are objectified by pornography. While I can see the validity of this under he first definition, that they are dehumanised to be nameless providers of a body part, under the second definition they are subjectified.
Now onto the difficult discussion bit. I don't think that objectification and subjectification are inherently negative things. I think that when they are used to dehumanise then they are, but that is a use rather than something intrinsic to their nature. I also think that the most damaging part of current pornography, and all other images where something is made to be 'attractive', is their nigh-exclusivity to the subjectification of men, and objectification of women or people in female roles. This perpetuates the patriarchal[footnote]The patriarchy is not "ruled by men" but "ruled by patriarchs", namely the collection of middle-aged males who control the vast majority of power in the world. This is damaging to people of all genders because it perpetuates gender roles within cultures, yadda yadda.[/footnote] myth that men chase, women are chased. Men look, women are looked upon.
If the distribution was more even I'd be a happy feminist. I find it intensely confusing that women should be splayed everywhere as the "Fair sex", implying that men are what, too unattractive to advertise? Too unattractive to be desired? Fuck that. Hell, it doesn't even gel with another hegemonic perception that bisexual women are really straight and bisexual men are really gay. How can men be SO IRRESISTIBLE if they're so unappealing?
The point of this thread is to help clear up that grammatical understanding and to inspire conversation about it, do forgive me for the tangents.
