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Sexual
Objectification: A Necessary
or Dispensable Human
Attribute? Access
2005-6 Major Project Student:
Julian Lees Supervisor:
Gordon Bartlett Completed:
15.04.2006 Part 1: Introduction In
this piece of writing, I want to examine how men and women look at each
other
and don't see complete people, but beautiful or useful things (or the
opposite
of those) that they will try to use for their own gratification. In particular, I want to understand whether
the way we look at people causes conflict and suffering, or conversely,
is the
satisfactory result of a consensus between the sexes regarding
behavioural
norms. I
have found it necessary to impose some limitations on the scope of this
inquiry. Firstly, the whole matter that
forms its substance has entered my consciousness over many years as an
issue
concerning the male objectification
of women. Although the
contrary relation is also widely
manifest and increasingly deserving of discussion, I see this as a more
recent
trend in our society, in which the sexual objectification of women has
been a
central feature for centuries, possibly millennia.
Most of the existing writing on this subject
is from a female perspective, and it seems reasonable that any informed
analysis
of the counterpart male condition should take all those writings into
account. I therefore feel more
comfortable, at this early stage in my exploration of the subject, to
confine
myself mainly to looking at the more prevalent and widely documented
phenomenon, and that within my own culture that is known broadly as
'the West'. Of
course, here I encounter an obstacle – that of my own gender. How can I as a man write meaningfully about a
phenomenon, often seen as a major problem, that exists in a certain
sense only
in the female perception? It is women's
consciousness that marks the discrepancy between their real existences
and the
often simplified view that men have of them.
It is easily said that I cannot speak of women's
perceptions without
having a woman's consciousness. Many
would say that men should stick to representing themselves, and feel
satisfied
enough in that. While
that is a perfectly justified view, if it were universally applied, the
whole
of literature would consist only of diaries, and most of science
(always asking
what one might see if one could stand in all sorts of unlikely places,
like at
the centre of a beehive, or on a beam of light) would never have gotten
off the
ground. To placate critics of my
involvement in this topic, I would say that I have at my disposal two
immensely
helpful tools – first, my skill of empathy, and second, the women's
writings
that I have researched. At the end of
this inquiry, I will make no claim to having uncovered any new or
fundamental
truth. I cannot speak for the female
experience, only of it, and neither can I speak for other men. What I write will be inescapably subjective,
and can only serve to inform readers of my personal and limited, that
is,
Western, white, middle-class, and male, understanding and views based
on the
particular texts that I have accessed. So
without further ado, in the following section, I intend to clarify some
of the
different ways in which distinction has been made between the sexes,
and what
exactly I mean by 'sexual objectification', of which I will supply some
examples. In Part 3, I will address the
question of whether sexual objectification is a natural, or a cultural,
phenomenon, and in Part 4, whether it is freely chosen by people and
therefore
consensual, or whether it is always imposed by some people on others. In Part 5, I will attempt to make some
value-judgement on sexual objectification, asking whether it performs
some essential
psychological or social function, or is merely a limiting and
deleterious
cultural construct that holds back human development.
Depending on that outcome, finally, in Part
6, I intend to address whether as a society we are capable of moving
beyond
this mode of perception, and how this might be accomplished. Part 2: Definitions It
seems reasonable first to ask, what are men, and what are women? Obviously, most humans fall into one of the
two biological categories bearing these names – those with two X
chromosomes
being female, and those with an X and a Y being male.
There are many features of the sexes that are
the physical and psychological expression of these sets of genes that
have
therefore been designated 'male' and 'female' characteristics. But is that all? Is
our sex based just on the information
carried in a random spermatozoon? In
her book The Second Sex, Simone de
Beauvoir makes the distinction between 'woman' as a biological entity,
and
'femininity' as a social construction.
She pointed out that while each of us is given certain
things by nature,
exactly what sort of people we turn out to be is heavily dependent on
the
social context within which we develop. 'I
deny that anyone knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as
long as
they have only been seen in their present relation to one another ...
What is
now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing – the
result of
forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others.' (John
Stuart Mill 1986 [1861]: 27 The
Subjection of Women) As
Mill stresses, of the potentials each of us innately has, some are
stimulated
to very full expression, whilst others are suppressed.
In this way, a girl's maternal instincts may
be groomed for future motherhood by the provision of dolls for her to
play
with, while her brother's capacity for aggression is honed by playing
with mock
weapons. If she channels similar
tendencies
by pulling the heads off her dolls, she is liable to receive negative
feedback
from the adults around her. De
Beauvoir neatly states, 'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.' In one sense this is a truism, in that few of
us were anything much when we were born – but it permits that womanhood
is
reached by a process of becoming that is not predestined.
The eventual outcome is contingent on much
more than just genes. Although a
person's sex may be genetically given, there are situations in which
their
gender may be determined on an ambiguous biological foundation, or even
contrary to it. For example, in Androgen
Insensitivity Syndrome, a genetically male foetus develops female
characteristics, and the condition may only be identified in the
resulting
woman by a skilled gynaecologist.
Intersex children may be brought up as either girls or
boys (though in
some cases, they grow up to reject their gender assignations). In some South American tribes, boys
displaying feminine (not female) characteristics are identified at a
young age
by the elders to be brought up as women.
Despite their male bodies, they dress as women, and occupy
themselves
with activities traditionally regarded as feminine preserves. They are recognised officially within their
community as belonging to a third gender. In
her 1976 study 'Just Like a Girl', Sue Sharp concluded that a person's
gender
is socially constructed upon a biological foundation (their sex), which
in my
understanding can in some cases even be completely ignored. As a basis for social interaction, a person's
first consideration concerning another is not their sex, but their
gender. Sex matters, and people cling to
its supposed
certainties, but its either/ or simplicity is insufficient information
to
provide a basis for people to modulate their speech, behaviour, and
thoughts
nearly to the extent that they do. A
woman is a woman is a woman, in the majority of cases... but some are
more
feminine, less feminine, more emotional, more intellectual than
others... some
are mothers, some are fire-fighters, schoolteachers, or surgeons, and
the
unique mix of all possible characteristics determines the social
projection of
each woman's gender, and how others respond to her. 'Sexual
objectification is the act of treating or judging a person with values
generally appreciated in animals or objects (e.g. disregarding
intelligence and
problem-solving skills at the profit of other attributes like physical attractiveness, submissiveness, and
gullibility) ... treatment [of women] as objects valued for their
physical
attributes, rather than their intellect.' (Wikipedia) Sexual
objectification is not to be confused with unwanted sexual attention,
although
that is a possible consequence.
Objectification in its loosest sense here is to define the
owner of a
consciousness as a thing relative to the consciousness of the
objectifier. It
takes various forms, the most ubiquitous of which is linguistic – the
gender-neutral use of male pronouns, and the resulting masculine
pretence to
universal subjectivity, rendering women as entities forever talked
about,
rather than being included in the human viewpoint from which so many
men
purport to write. Socially, women are
often seen as being married to particular functions – those of wife,
mother, or
whore, for example – which are always relative to men.
The media have commodified the female image
to such an extent that women have become commodities themselves, and
both male
and female expectations of what a woman is, or rather should be, become
dominated by the perceptions expressed in magazines, film and
advertising. The
result is that the general or male perception
of women does not reflect the complexity and feeling of their real
identities. They are reduced to a small
reservoir of
functions and images, and their qualities may then be rated according
to
simplistic criteria. Most people have
experienced this either on the making or receiving end of the judgement
'Is she
hot, or not?'. Certain aspects of women
are venerated by men (breasts), while others are despised (periods). The real woman caught in this web of
judgements faces the choice of whether to serve the expectations that
are made
of her, or to be herself. 'A
lap-dance is fine, silicone implants – fine.
But we don't like to see breastfeeding in public places.' (Germaine
Greer) Part 3: Nature or Culture? In
a Functionalist analysis, women have a natural role to fulfil in
society,
outside which they will only become victims of anomie.
Structuralists such as Talcott Parsons would
argue that any perceived injustices in the relations between the sexes
would
disappear if only women would stop trying to become what they are not,
in other
words, to adopt masculine preoccupations, or ignore feminine ones. There are two problems with this
analysis. Firstly, the model of the
nuclear family that Parsons proposed as the ideal is only one of
multitude of
designs that has worked in particular places and times around the world. Simple societies often have more
community-orientated family structures in which women's roles need not
be so
rigorously defined. In complex
civilizations, any number of peculiar structures has been tried, and
many have
endured for long periods. This diversity
leads me to question Parsons' justification for singling out his own
ideas as
those most closely reflecting 'nature'.
Second, his views appear to be based not on any
consultation with
women. The model he proposes is one
designed and refined by men, for men. It
serves male interests, and does not take the feminine viewpoint into
account. 'In
all known societies, woman has always been looked upon as the
other.' (Simone
de Beauvoir) In
much of history, women are viewed as property.
They were regarded as chattels of the families, belonging
first to their
father, or if he died, their brother, and then to their husband. In most cultures this is reflected by the
name transmission within families occurring through the male line. Since
the Greeks, European cultures have perpetuated a view that women are
equipped
with a lesser consciousness than men, as Eric Matthews explains: 'The
only truly 'spiritual' relations must be those between men, since men
alone
have 'spirits', or subjectivity.
Relations between men and women, or women and women, are
reduced to a
low level of pure carnality.' This
ancient view underpins a vast proportion of the work of male writers
since, and
provides the dominant theme of our culture.
Luce Irigaray, a philosopher born in 'The
subject has always been written in the masculine form ... even when it
claimed
to be universal or neutral.' (Irigaray) She
used a deconstructive reading of several great works of philosophy to
show that
where the subject purports to be human it is in fact always masculine. As a consequence, women 'have been denied
full subjectivity and reduced to the status of objects of a male gaze'
(Matthews
1996). It
is perhaps a problem in academia that in the search for general or
universal
truths, in the quest to make a greater impact, personal opinion is
accorded
little value. Students set themselves
the goal of producing work in which no personal pronouns occur, which
may
sometimes compromise the honesty of their writing.
In this way, some very powerful voices in
philosophy and other disciplines, due to their pretence to universal
subjectivity, have had their opinions accepted as general truth. With a few statistics, any sociologist can
change 'I think...' to 'Research shows...'.
The resulting world-view leads, in Irigaray's words, to
'scientific or
technical imperialism that fails to consider the living subject.' Within the feminist movement, mainstream (or
'Malestream') social research has frequently been criticised for making
it
difficult to find unskewed evidence to provide a sound basis for the
discussion
of gender issues. Another
French philosopher, Michele Le Doeuff, made similar observations of
literature. Francis Bacon described
nature as a woman that false knowing treats as a prostitute, but true
knowledge
as a lawful wife. Le Doeuff concluded in
her study of Bacon that this is hostile to women for three reasons:
that the
knower must be a man, that knowledge may be compared to the sexual
penetration
of women, and therefore, that women are incapable either of knowing or
of
reasoning – and certainly incapable of being philosophers.
As one of the great English writers, Bacon's
message has been received by thousands of readers, and thus
disseminated widely
in our culture. In more recent times, it
remains alive and well, as revealed in her thoughts on Sartre: 'In
his philosophical writings, I have nowhere come across a female
character involved
in a historic situation (the war or the Resistance, for example), nor
even in a
workplace situation (in the fashion of, for example, a café
waiter). Woman is always seen only as a
body, and a
sexual body.' (Le
Doeuff 1991 Hipparchia's Choice,
trans. Trista Selous, Oxford: Blackwell). For
Irigaray, language is primary; the construction of an identity is the
construction of a language of one's own.
Women are denied identity in society, she contends,
because the language
of that society excludes them. The norm is always male; women are seen
always as the other. Against
this tide, many writers have attempted to redress the balance, and to
show that
a fundamental shift in perspective is not impossible, but could be
achieved by
a conscious effort. The following
extract ridicules attachment to the gender status quo by likening it to
the
struggle for racial equality: 'Most
of the clamour, as you certainly know by now, revolves around the
age-old usage
of the noun 'white' and words built from it ... The Negroists claim
that using
the word 'white', either on its own or as a component, to talk about
all the
members of the human species is somehow degrading to blacks and
reinforces
racism. Therefore the libbers propose
that we substitute 'person' everywhere where 'white' now occurs. Sensitive speakers of our secretary tongue of
course find this preposterous. There is
great beauty to a phrase such as 'all whites are created equal' ...
Think how
ugly it would be to say 'all persons are created equal' or 'all whites
and
blacks are created equal'. Besides ...
such phrases are redundant. In most
contexts, it is self-evident when 'white' is being used in an inclusive
sense,
in which case it subsumes members of the darker races just as much as
fairskins.' (Douglas
Hofstadter 1998: 141 A Person Paper on
Purity in Language) The
ways that people talk about things both reveal and inform how they see
them. Language is both the disseminator
of sexual objectification, and the primary means by which it is
inculcated in
succeeding generations. Despite its
central role in human consciousness, language itself remains flexible
and
fluid, and manifests in thousands of different forms, each attached to
a
distinct culture. It is difficult to
talk about sexual objectification without reference to language, and as
such
reveals itself to be an aspect of culture, not nature. Part 4: Imposition or Choice? The
question of whether sexual objectification is imposed on women or
consented to
by them is best answered in two stages: 'Can they avoid it?', and 'Do
they
accept it?'. Negative answers to these
questions would show that this phenomenon is in fact forced upon women. So,
can women avoid the objectifying gaze personally, and can they avoid
being
presented with the view that women generally
are objects of a male gaze? In the
modern world, the most obvious answer to this takes the form of the
mass media
– a constant and unavoidable stream of images that frequently carry a
very
strong emphasis on women as sexual things.
They are presented to male audiences as the idealised
fulfilment of
their physical desires, and to female audiences as the idealised
fulfilment of
their supposed personal ambitions (to look like a model in your
twenties, to be
a glamorous and successful working mother, and to look as though in
your
forties when in your sixties). I feel
little need to write at length on this topic, but refer any doubting
reader to
an online collection of advertising images that explore this theme very
fully
at http://www.genderads.com/. According
to the Hypodermic Syringe Theory of the media, all these messages are
injected
into our minds with little resistance, and we soon adopt the viewpoints
laid
down for us. The most emphatic criticism
usually made of this theory is that people simply aren't that stupid,
that they
consider carefully what they see, and absorb only what they agree with. That is true in many respects, but most
people have a friend or several who is unreasonably concerned about
their
weight, know a woman who spends a considerable sum on makeup despite
being
young and having good skin, or have simply observed the frequency with
which
people expend their still-functioning mobile telephones in favour of
the latest
model. If there was nothing in it,
advertising wouldn't pay... but it remains uncomfortable to admit,
'Gosh, we are that stupid!'. Feminists
often see the mass media as an extension of Patriarchy.
Patriarchy differs from traditional slavery
in that women have become their own oppressors – in newspaper personal
ads,
women sell body shape, while men sell their profession and
'hunter-gatherer'
capabilities. Media stereotypes are met
with agreement by people's actual behaviour. But
the question remains, how did all this come about?
Herbert Marcuse, a critical theorist of the A
Marxist analysis might begin with a familiar theme, but with a
different
judgement. Instead of women's roles as
workers, mothers and wives mutually profiting a good and natural social
order,
they are subjugated to Capitalist ends to which their enslavement is
fundamental. Women are indoctrinated to
fill certain niches or marketed as sexual objects to make money for the
system
and those who control it. This may be
seen purely as Patriarchal exploitation, or also as money being made
out of
men's weaknesses. The sexes are carefully
divided, but a clear argument is not made that either especially
benefits from
these arrangements. The true division
here lies not between the sexes necessarily, but between the masses and
their
oppressors. One writer states that
religion amongst all the social institutions that form the Marxist
superstructure – though his words may be applied to any of them and
indeed the
topic of this essay – is 'a belief system whose chief purpose is simply
to
provide reasons – excuses, really – for keeping things in society just
the way
the oppressors like them.' (Pals 1996).
Change is of course inevitable, but rarely does it occur
in the
direction hoped for. Fewer restrictions
for women than in the past increasingly grant them the choice to behave
as men
have always behaved. Post-Feminists
might welcome these freedoms, but many also bemoan the lack of real
progress
made. The state in which some people
hold power over others and use it to treat them badly persists, only
now an
oppressor may be of either sex. Backtracking
slightly, Marxist ideas about alienation and his theory of political
economy
may be applied to elucidate the position of women in society. According to this, women become objectified
by being seen over several generations to put their energy into certain
tasks
such as reproduction, child-rearing, homemaking, and being sexually
attractive. The feelings associated with
these tasks become invested in certain ideas such as fertility,
motherhood,
domesticity, and sexiness. These are
collectively developed into a social ideal of womanhood.
Although each woman is identified with
'Womanhood', as a real person she cannot hope to match that ideal. She becomes its object, and the social
conception of Womanhood assumes control over her, issuing all sorts of
demands. She is then alienated from
Womanhood, and its once-joyful tasks are reduced to means rather than
ends in
themselves. Instead of smiling to
herself in the certain knowledge that 'I am sexy' or 'Bringing up my
kids fills
me with joy', she constantly asks herself 'Am I doing this right?'. Magazines and the gaze of her neighbours
overtake her own judgements of her efforts, because she has lost the
power as
arbiter of her Womanhood, whose ends may then be freely appropriated by
her
father, husband, or boss for their own uses.
Her successes and failures are no longer merely her own –
they are
broadened to be the failures of her sex.
A wife in her family feels increasingly disconnected from
her husband,
as their aims are not the same. She feels
isolated from other women, and the consciousness of her self-worth is
diminished. Interaction with other women
becomes focused around issues of motherhood or wifeliness.
Expressions of the intelligence, uniqueness,
and commonality of all women are reduced to debates on how to juggle
infants
and a career, get the family's shirts really white, or give the perfect
blowjob. Her class consciousness and
even her original sense of being a woman are eroded by the pressures of
fulfilling her duties. Her social
instincts atrophy, as no relationship is permitted to eclipse with its
importance her defined roles of wife and mother. All
relationships must somehow contribute to
those aims. She is now a solitary
object, subordinated to the demands of her sex – that standardised, prescribed recipe for what a woman
should be. Believing this to be the
right and true way for her to live, she has given in to false
consciousness. The myth of its
certainties is reinforced on all sides.
Any happiness she finds within the myth is illusory. Only the abolition of ideas of
conventionalised Womanhood by which she is objectified may permit the
resurgence of real consciousness, and real happiness. Marx's
conceit that 'It is not consciousness that determines life; but life
that
determines consciousness. ... Circumstances, therefore, make man just
as much
as man makes circumstances.' may trouble us as an example of a piece of
philosophy that excludes female subjectivity in the manner objected to
by
Irigaray as discussed earlier, but I reproduce it here to underline the
point
that he saw revolution as being necessary to effect change. According to this viewpoint, women cannot
free themselves from the shackles of conventionalised womanhood until
that
institution has been thoroughly dismantled.
Until such a time, their objectification would seem
unavoidable. The
mechanisms of this process may be further explained with reference to
Labelling
Theory. Women are constantly reminded
that they are perceived and commodified as objects.
Even from early childhood, girls are groomed
to subjugate themselves to male expectations, ever more rapidly
expressing
curiosity about makeup and adult clothing.
'Lacking any choice, labelled persons come to see
themselves as the
person they have been forced to become' (Jones 1993).
This creates a loop of sexual inequality
amplification that although checked considerably in recent decades,
continues
to stamp the minds of each generation of little boys and little girls
with what
they can expect from each other when they grow up.
Even the Feminist movement itself can be
drawn into this observation. By
emphasising the suffering of women in the historical or current
situation in
order to provide a contrasting solution, Feminist labelling might be
seen to confirm female victimhood.
It is very difficult to have any discussion
of these issues without contributing to their weight. Of
course, many people rebel against moulds that are imposed upon them. They are critical of the messages they
receive, or learn to distinguish between seeing and believing. To contrast with the hypodermic syringe of a
Patriarchy
that fills our minds with instructions on how to serve the forces that
dominate
our culture, the Uses and Gratifications Model of the media permits
audiences
to react to what they see, and thus to perceive things in ways very
different
to how they were intended to be taken.
This must also be true, for otherwise, all arguments
against censorship,
all protest, all satire... could not exist.
The forces of domination are real, and very powerful, but
ultimately not
more powerful than the approval of the people.
However bleak a situation may appear, there is always
consensus to be
found within it. Great optimism on this
score however, I feel, may be missing the point. For
as long as there is nearly one man for
each woman, the female voices within our society in its present and
ancient
form will always struggle to be heard. *
* * * * Having
demonstrated to a reasonable degree that sexual objectification is not
something that women are currently in a position to avoid, I now ask to
what
extent they accept the situation. In
no situation is there a greater potential for submission to a stranger
on a
general principle, or to protest their actions, even if only to
ourselves, than
in the direct gaze, be it momentary or lingering, that each person
gives and is
subject to perhaps hundreds of times in a week.
In contemporary British heterosexual culture, a persistent
gaze between
strangers carries various possible meanings.
A man looking at a man for any reason usually avoids doing
so
conspicuously, but if he should gaze openly, may experience feelings of
power,
with rising adrenalin. The object of his
gaze senses aggression, or suspects homosexuality, or simply asks
himself 'Do I
know him?'. He assesses the potential
for conflict and either avoids eye contact, stares pointedly back, or
escalates
the encounter to a verbal stage. A woman
looking at a woman feels most of the things that a man feels looking at
a man. The object may experience a
sensation of
being admired, of being different, or of being disliked.
A man looking at a woman for any length of
time is in many cases viewing her as an attractive object placed on the
earth
for his visual satisfaction. His is a
lecherous gaze. The woman gazed upon may
feel admired, annoyed, or scared, and may either court it (she is then
often
viewed as a slut), or shun it (which may also be interpreted in sexual
terms,
as playing hard to get, or being frigid).
Either way, she is tempted to view men (I think justly, in
this regard)
as being rather simple creatures. In the
opposite case, a woman looking at a man may feel similar things to a
man
looking at a woman. The man might feel
harassed,
but is more likely simply to receive an ego boost. It
should now be evident that by looking at people in a certain way, we
limit and
polarise their choices of what they can be to us. The
question is whether either men or women
are more likely to invite others to perceive them as sex objects. Cases may be made that particular ways in
which people attend to their appearance, or pose in certain contexts
(girls on
a night out, male surfers on a beach), constitute their ripening
themselves for
sexual predation. This asks the further
question, 'Who decides the meaning of an action?'.
A man on a beach might look toned and tanned
as a natural consequence of his lifestyle, and be there only to surf. But he might have chosen his lifestyle to
appear more attractive to women. Or he
might be a useless surfer, and be posing with that hope.
He might be gay. He might
have recently emerged from a
harrowing relationship, and be seeking to unleash Havishamesque
vengeance on
the owner of any lascivious eye to fall upon his accomplished body. Anyone looking at him must decide for
themselves. Even if they decide that
they cannot be sure of his motivations, that is itself a decision. True, the surfer may know his reasons, and
the girl on the town may know hers. But
few people ask, or completely restrain their instincts from
contaminating their
perception of what they are told. Symbolic
Interactionism tells us that 'I am what you think I am'.
There is a limit to the extent that people
can manipulate and use the labels that others give them.
Baudrillard inserts the argument that
self-perception is flexible: although
some people may objectify me in a particular way, others will do so
differently, and I'll put on different masks, wear different
identities,
depending on my audience, or even my fancy.
This enables me to perceive myself differently at
different times, but
does not necessarily allow others to see more than one view of me. Few people, I think, gain full control over
the selection of which faces they show to others. Actors
can do it, but it requires greater
energy than letting each audience choose what it wants to see. There is therefore little we can do to
influence the thoughts passing through the mind of the gentleman across
the
pub, be he knitting his brow or flashing his most endearing smile. This
mask-swapping that forms the basis of the Dramaturgical Model of
selfhood is a
strong argument against the idea that each of us has any fundamental
identity. We are created in response to
social forces, either in reaction to or in consensus with them. The way in which a woman sees herself depends
on the exact condition of her social context.
This refutes any argument for an essential nature of women
that might be
used to say that women generally invite or repel the male gaze. Each woman's attitudes are a reaction to her
wider culture and her immediate society, which are highly variable. One might argue that many women have been
colonised by ideas that are not really their own, with which they are
not truly
comfortable – but who can say which ideas fall into that category? Germaine Greer argues that penetrating the
body outline is a form of violation in itself... but many women enjoy
penetrative sex without the feeling that they have been violated or
used. To tell them that they have been
colonised by
male expectations, and that their pleasure is somehow illusory, would
seem to
be counterproductive. So
if girls and women are taught that power, respect and wealth can be
derived
from one's outward appearance, and they take it on themselves to
cultivate it
for their gain, are they quite blameless?
Each woman lives in a particular reality, and decides that
she wants to
pursue certain goals. Is there a right
or wrong way for her to go about this?
Some would say that merit in one aspect should not be
traded for
advantage in another. Others would say
that the rules that permit such transactions add both to the complexity
of our
society, and thus to the opportunities within it. In
a simple situation, its limits are reached
sooner. From the grass roots, women have
always sought new ways to interpret their environment to enable them to
attain
their ends. 'Whatever
name we give it, we shall always find in human beings this great line
of
activity – this struggle to rise from an inferior to a superior
position, from
defeat to victory, from below to above.' (Alfred
Adler) Progress
has always been made by a combination of success in the terms of the
status
quo, whilst slashing at its roots.
Certainly, and even despite the discussed limitations on
the certainty
of outcomes, women do manipulate
men's perceptions of them for their convenience. After
all, the alternative was frequently and
even remains starkly unattractive.
Friends, a husband, a good job – these things didn't
happen without some
effort by women to present themselves in a particular way.
Even now, it often seems that men remain the
arbiters of all women's efforts. Whether
they were unconsciously colonised, or have full awareness of their
reasons,
women collude with male agendas through fashion, sex, behaviour, speech
and so
on. If there were no men,
would makeup and heels still be seen as empowering by
even the most ardently
optimistic Post-Feminists? Would
Madonna's self-determined defloration still be seen as having been a
good 'career
move'? Though no longer forced, in order
to participate in mainstream society women are still strongly
encouraged to fulfil
male expectations of them. 'Women
have the right to do what they want, that is to want
what they do – not to have sexual practices imposed upon
them.' (Germaine
Greer) The
decision to have such freedom is still too frequently a personal one,
to be
made with little support or understanding from male partners or even
other
women. Many
women enjoy putting on makeup, but they also demand it
of themselves. In
a climate where willingness to submit to such practices may influence
earnings
or prospects for promotion, women's motivations for self-adornment are
frequently instrumental. But something
extra is required to explain the mania with which a proportion of women
maintain their appearance: 'The
woman who checks her makeup half a dozen times a day to see if her
foundation
has caked or her mascara run, who worries that the wind or rain may
spoil her
hairdo, who looks frequently to see if her stockings have bagged at the
ankle,
or who, feeling fat, monitors everything she eats, has become, just as
surely
as the inmate of the Panopticon, a self-policing subject, a self
committed to a
relentless self-surveillance.' (Sandra
Bartky 1990 Foucault, Femininity, and the
Modernization of Patriarchal Power) The
parallel of a half-silvered window, or the unblinking eye of a security
camera
does help to explain why some women will not emerge as far as the
mailbox at
the end of their garden path without first having applied makeup, or
done their
hair, or dressed presentably, or performed whatever ritual they believe
is
necessary to complete the image they present publicly, to protect
themselves
from its critical gaze. This fear is the
extension and internalisation within women of male power. The relationship that
exists between the sexes is a power relationship. Part 5: Useful or Deleterious? In
this section I ask to what extent sexual objectification has the power
to cause
harm, or conversely if there are instances in which it may have some
social
benefit. These effects may impact
differently on the subject and object as individuals, and on society
more
generally. As
far as the subject of the objectifying gaze is concerned, to
fundamentally
misappreciate one half of the species, aren't these men missing
something
rather important? I would argue that
having a limited perception is to have a limited mind.
Sexual objectification is therefore just as
harmful to men as to women – but in ways that may not be obvious or
objectionable to them. In
the previous section, I showed how for the most part, subjection of
women to
the male gaze is non-consensual, and started to discuss its deeper
effects. At this point I wish to extend
that theme with reference to two recent television programmes, and
pornography. Channel
4 produced a documentary called Skinny
Kids. It begins with the premise
that 'Every woman has something ... they don't like about themselves',
and
shows how this can create severe problems such as eating disorders or
exercise
mania not just in young women but in adolescent and pre-adolescent
girls. The family transmission of shape
and weight
concerns can even affect six year-olds, who are worried about far,
diet, and
their weight. Despite their parents'
professed horror at these obsessions, they set a formative example to
their
offspring by forever buying slimming products, eating less, and
weighing
themselves. In some households, the
dieting food Slimfast is an ordinary
grocery item. Children
are often caught in a vicious circle with no logic.
A growing twelve year-old interviewed wanted
to lose a stone (a seventh of her entire weight). Her
solution included going to the gym, which
would cause her to gain muscle mass, thus gaining weight on top of that
which
is a natural part of growth. The only
way for her to actually lose weight in this situation would be
literally to
starve herself. Children
surveyed in a primary school equated fat children with a host of
negative
characteristics (they were allegedly lazy, smelly, without friends, and
disliked by their parents), but equated thinness with all the opposite
characteristics. The children made polar
judgements that reflected adult perceptions, but with greater frankness. Anorexic
girls use magazines filled with thin celebrities as inspiration to
persevere in
not eating through pangs of hunger. A
psychologist interviewed on the subject of teen idols said: 'They're
powerful,
they're beautiful, they have lives that are apparently attainable', and
a nurse
at an eating disorder clinic observed: 'All the time we see perfection
portrayed as a size 8, our children will have to endure more and more
eating
disorders'. The
same psychologist, learning that a mother taught her daughter to apply
full
makeup (not just a bit of lipstick, but a careful layering of
foundation plus
all the trimmings) at age nine, commented that 'The boundary between
childhood
and adulthood has been eroded'. That
girl would take a torch into the cinema so that she can check her hair
to
guarantee a perfect exit to the car after the show, at which point, she
said,
'people will see me'. This level of
attention given to presenting her appearance can have no conceivable
benefit for
a primary school child, and the paranoia that motivates it is
psychologically
highly damaging. The desire to conform
to parentally-reinforced media standards of female appearance in the
very young
of course opens a new market, first for publishers, then for the
products they
portray. The chain catalogue store Curiously
absent, for the most part, from this equation is the direct influence
of men
and the male gaze. The female
preoccupation from a young age with body-image is the result of
reinforcement
by female role-models, especially parents, celebrities, and other media
images,
and heightened by competition with peers.
Teen and pre-teen girls are a growing market that is being
targeted by
its lowest common denominator – the desire to grow up, as much as to be
beautiful. All the effects described are
the result of a meeting between female values and socialisation on the
one
hand, and media values orientated towards profit on the other. Direct male reinforcement (that is, the
personal gaze as distinct from the demands of the market)
at these highly impressionable and crucial stages of child
development is not seen to be a factor. Another
Channel 4 production, Ten Years Younger,
is a makeover show in whose each instalment a woman with body-image
issues is
given a comprehensive treatment by a series of experts in plastic
surgery,
cosmetic dentistry, makeup, hairstyling, and fashion to reduce a vox
pop
assessment of her age by ten years. It
goes a long way to answering the question, why are women driven to obsess about their appearance, their
clothes, their painfully beautiful shoes?
At an age when wrinkles are natural and inevitable, why
should they
aspire with such energy to cheat these superficialities?
The show demonstrates that the fear of
negative reinforcement by men, being ignored by strangers, and being
criticised
by friends are to blame. Looking good is
a prerequisite for avoiding the unkind reactions of others. In the instalment I viewed, a naturally
ageing woman was subjected to public humiliation and the surgical
reconstruction of her face, and goaded to cultivate a different taste
in
clothes, makeup and hairstyling that she would struggle both
ideologically and
financially to maintain. Throughout this
ordeal, her boyfriend was forever on hand to tell her that she looked
'much
better than before' after each grisly step towards her eventual, if
momentary,
style nirvana. If these are the effects
of sexual objectification full-blown in a mature, rational woman, I
cannot but
conclude that it is an insidious and grossly harmful force. One
wonders, where do so many men who do not presumably pay much attention
to
beauty magazines receive their rigidly defined ideals of feminine
appearance? They are equally subject to
the images of advertising, but this does not suggest the right to make
judgements that a large number of men feel that they possess. A key difference between the sexes in the
sourcing of images is that men are far greater consumers of pornography. This industry, said Germaine Greer, '...
which has become so much a prescriber of women's behaviour, has been
developed
according to men's strange fixations and infantilisms and fetishes ...' Ideas that were once personal to the fantasy
of the individual are now accessible as the vast subgenres of an
organised,
categorised, and global pornographic industry.
The quiet little thoughts that occur to people during
periods of sexual
introspection are now writ large across millions of magazine and web
pages. Porn has become a unifying force
for male fantasy, and for the sexual demands that men make of women. This
incarnation of the commodified female image gives rise to the idea of
the
'man-made body'. It need not even be
made of woman. It may be cybernetic, or
even a man. The videogame sprite Lara
Croft and Thai transexuals have for large audiences become acceptable
substitutes for images of real women.
The problem for those real women, of course, is that they
are made of
more than polygons or makeup, and suffer if they are compared to these
male
constructs. In criticising some
feminists' definition of women's ultimate freedom only being possible
through
liberation from giving birth, Greer contends that 'The focus has always
been
"Let's see if we can do what they do inside their bodies in a petri
dish,
and then, we can maybe even get rid of them.
We can hysterectomise the lot of them.
They can all be Barbie dolls, and they'll have big tits
and small asses,
and no pubic hair, and we'll like them very much better than we do
now." Do we liberate them by
eliminating female functions? Is it
womanhood we want to be free from? And
my argument would be NO!' Women's
essential biological functions and their physical attributes that vary
greatly
between individuals are not readily packaged as the standardised,
marketable
conception of them. Their
commodification in any form is highly destructive both to the quality
of their
relationships with men and to their understanding of themselves. In
their landmark studies on the subject, Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea
Dworkin
developed theories concerning the full extent to which pornography both
depicts
and effects the subordination of women.
They observed that pornography according to their
definition always
portrays women as subjected, 'there to be violated and possessed ...
Men treat
women as who they see women as being.
Pornography constructs who that is.' (MacKinnon 1987). This problem, they argue, extends to causing
violence against women, and rape. This
might at first seem far-fetched – that a man jerking off in a crescent
of
explicit photographs is somehow being altered in a way that increases
the
likelihood that he will force himself on the next woman he sees as
being
available. But Rae Langton gives an
explanation of precisely how this is possible. She
tackles the matter by examining the issue of silencing – that a woman's
voice
might not get her message across to a man, especially in the instance
where he
is demanding sex and she is refusing it.
Langton distinguishes between three types of speech:
locution (the
action of speaking, or simply saying the words), illocution (taking a
non-verbal action BY saying particular words, such as assuming a state
of
matrimony by uttering the words 'I do'), and perlocution (causing
particular,
intended effects by one's words being understood in a particular way by
others). She outlines how pornography
may bring about both the illocutionary and perlocutionary silencing of
women,
illuminating the connection between objectification and violence. In a situation in which rape may occur, a
woman is illocutionarily silenced if the man simply doesn't comprehend
the meaning
of her word, 'No!'. According to Langton
and MacKinnon, pornography creates the impression that women always
want sex,
that they enjoy being overpowered, and that 'no' doesn't really mean
'no'. In experiments, male subjects'
ability to
recognise rape as rape was diminished by exposure to pornography. Illocutionary silencing may therefore be
brought about by pornography causing men to fail to interpret women's
protests
correctly, leading them to commit rape.
Perlocutionary silencing may occur when a man does
understand the
meaning of the word 'No!', but it does not have the intended effect on
his actions. Again, pornography may be
implicated in
creating the callous attitude that causes men to treat women with so
little
regard for their rights and feelings in such instances. But
attempts to single out pornography from its context in the commercial
media
have been criticised. Carole Vance sees
the media as often portraying women 'in a demeaning, trivializing and
sexist
manner' (1992 More Pleasure, More Danger:
A Decade After the Barnard Sexuality Conference), and reminds us
that
everything from mainstream TV and Good
Housekeeping magazine to Gone With
the Wind and the Bible share the responsibility that pornography
should
bear in unacceptably pruning male perceptions of women.
Others have even made arguments that
pornography performs a valuable function in de-sublimating male
desires, giving
them for the most part relatively harmless expression.
It is said that countries exist with
especially liberal censorship laws that apply to pornography, that
enjoy low
incidences of rape. I think this angle
would require very careful exploration before any judgements could be
reached,
not least because the conditions across the world's borders affecting
the frequency
and manner in which cases of rape are reported and recorded are
extremely
diverse. Personally,
I would say that as a species we progress not by rejecting or censoring
ideas,
but by building larger ones to envelop them.
By constructing a new ideological context for pornography,
it loses its
power to harm and degrade its audience.
By providing a regulatory framework for an industry in
which abuse is a
problem, its workers are protected. To
circumscribe what already exists is to ensure its repetition in the
future. If we continue to move forward
in our search for new understanding of our culture and ourselves, we
express
our true nature as human beings. Part 6: Eradicable or Permanent? 'All
democratic experiments, all revolutions, all demands for equality have
so far,
in every instance, stopped short of sexual equality.' (Rosalind
Miles 1988: 287) Is
the eradication of sexual objectification a realistic aim?
Can we get rid of it in the manner of racism
or sexual discrimination? There are
various problems connected with different methods by which this might
be
achieved. Any attempt at censorship of
pornography or of the media more generally suffers from being designed
and
enforced by government, and thus lacks sensitivity to the needs of
women whom
it intends it serve. Canadian legislation
intended to censor material deemed offensive to women caused not just
pornography but safe sex manuals and sociological tracts discussing
these very
issues to be impounded by law officials at the border (who as it
happens were
generally male). MacKinnon proposed a
different solution: that of legislative provision for civil liability
cases to
be brought by women who have personally been the victims of harm
brought about
by particular materials. This would
place power in the hands of victims, and would provide a real test of
the
destructive capabilities of those materials implicated.
Unfortunately, this solution also suffers
from a tendency to cause an over-reaction, this time corporate rather
than
governmental. The actual decision of
which materials should be available would always rest with the
publishing
companies, who, fearing a mass of lawsuits would pull just about
anything with
sexually explicit content from the shelves.
Such laws could be appropriated by religious
fundamentalists and other
groups whose concerns it was not their intention to serve. The
key point here is not just that new definitions are required, but that
women
should have the right to define. This
would bring about a revolution on a
Copernican scale affecting how legislation is drafted, and the
philosophy
underpinning every transaction between people in our society. The erosion of the male grip on the right of
definition cannot be instantaneous, but the fruits awaiting men are
attractive. Men's self-appointed position
at the centre
of the universe is maintained by a fear and contempt of women that
stems from
their self-enforced ignorance of them.
They seek to overcome their dread by 'physical and
intellectual mastery
over the female principle (and hence over actual women)' (Miles 1989). This puts them forever in a defensive
position. Male fantasy is the other
great area of resistance to change: it is convenient for us to overlook
reality
in order to pursue our idyll (in the manner of Humbert Humbert in
Nabokov's Lolita).
But a man in a reverie is jolted and jarred by each
contact with
reality, and this can only hasten the acceptance of a new and more
accurate
perception. The
central problem may not lie within objectification at all.
An object exists as such only in relation to
the subject that perceives it. If a
subject exists, then all other things naturally fall under its
subjective
gaze. The view that people have of each
other stems completely from the view they hold of themselves. Feminist commentators have frequently
observed that women have been excluded from history, from philosophy,
because
they were not viewed as being included as full members of the human
species. But the problem is not really
that men view women as being insignificant – it is better explained by
seeing
that men have an inflated sense of their own subjectivity, of their
importance. No amount of evidence of the
wonders of nature, or the vital role that women have played in human
history,
will persuade a certain kind of mind from seeing so much of existence
as being
somehow inferior to itself. To dissolve
the problem of a limited perception of everything and everyone else,
people
must first remove the obstacle of their own subjectivity.
Rather than wage war on objectification in
others, each should explore opportunities for their personal
de-subjectification – to weaken their own self-concept as a platform
from which
all other concepts must be viewed. The
ego stands in the way of empathy, in the way of any true understanding. Only through self-inquiry, and the assiduous
education of our children, can we hope to solve the problem of how we
destroy
that upon which we gaze. A
note of pessimism... 'If
someone had told me in 1977 that in 1997 men
would comprise over a quarter of cosmetic-surgery patients, I would
have been
astounded. I never dreamed that
'equality' would move in the direction of men worrying more
about their looks rather than women worrying less.
I first suspected that something major was
going on when the guys in my gender classes stopped yawning and passing
snide
notes when we discussed body issues, and instead began to protest when
the
women talked as though they were the only ones 'oppressed' by standards
of
beauty.' (Susan
Bordo 1999: 217-8 The Male Body) 'The
increasing pressure on men to conform to unattainable standards of
beauty is
far from a sign of progress: it is, instead, a sign that the problem
has
grown.' (Saul
2003) It
is possible to view this phenomenon in a more positive light: the
growth of
sexual objectification of men, particularly of celebrities, has at
least led to
greater equality of the problem. This
has been held up both as a proud and a shameful legacy of the
Post-Feminist
era. That
this debate exists at all is in my opinion to be viewed as a great
achievement
of the last few decades. Already, the
Feminist movement has transformed the landscape in which we communicate
with
one another. Sexual objectification is
perhaps an especially deep-rooted phenomenon, but I am confident that
our
society will progress far beyond its present acceptance of it. This will be brought about by the earnest
efforts of concerned individuals, but exactly what conditions shall
ascend in
legislation, in the media, and in everyday conversational language,
remain to
be seen. Though no end is yet in sight,
and its form cannot be assumed, I am optimistic that women, or why not
everyone, in Gerda Lerna's words, 'will simply step out under the free
sky'. 'All
truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is
violently opposed, third it is accepted as being self-evident.' (Arthur
Schopenhauer) Bibliography Books Angier,
Natalie 1999 Woman: An Intimate Geography,
Virago Press Giddens,
Anthony 1973 Capitalism and Modern Social
Theory: An Analysis of the Writing of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber,
Jones,
Philip 1993 Studying Society,
CollinsEducational Matthews,
Eric 1996 Twentieth-Century French
Philosophy, Miles,
Rosalind 1988 The Women's History of the
World, Paladin Books Pals,
Daniel L. 1996 Seven Theories of Religion,
Saul,
Jennifer 2003 Feminism: Issues &
Arguments, Television Programmes Close Up:
Germaine Greer – Close to
the Bone,
16.03.1999, BBC2, 50 mins Skinny Kids 13.01.2003,
Channel 4,
60 mins Sue Sharp on
Just Like a Girl, Halovine –
The Classic
Collection, 25 mins Ten Years
Younger 2006, Channel 4 Internet Resources Arnfred,
Signe 2002 Simone de Beauvoir in Holroyd,
Julia
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:A-TamZFJKCQJ:www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/conferencepapers/ objectification.pdf+sexual+objectification&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9
(Accessed
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Allan http://home.earthlink.net/~ahunter/VisAspectSex/lusting_1.html
(Accessed
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Krista (synopsis of de Beauvoir, Simone The
Second Sex) http://www.stumptuous.com/comps/debeauvoir.html
(Accessed
12.04.06) Wikipedia
Sexual objectification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_objectification
(Accessed 12.04.06) |