You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Objectification of women’ tag.
How profitable an industry is seems to be related to how regulated said industry is. Consider the length of time necessary to regulate tobacco and disseminate the information that, yes indeed, smoking is bad for your health.
Pornography, also bad for your health and your relationships, is in the same category and for the most part is left to its own devices. The damage caused to society by pornography is enormous and will only get worse if nothing is done.
“Those who claim that pornography is simply “fantasy” with no bearing on reality will have a hard time explaining the prevalence of pubic hair removal among young women in Western cultures; the dramatic increase in the demand for labiaplasty; or the fact that anal sex has increasingly become part of the heterosexual repertoire, despite both young men and women expecting it to be painful and unpleasant for the woman. It is singularly unconvincing to argue that pornography is not influencing current sexual norms, and that those sexual norms do not primarily involve the objectification and violation of women’s bodies.” – Julia Long
The pornification of our culture is happening right now, and as Ms.Long says, it happens to be revolving around the objectification and violation of women’s bodies which bodes ill for all of society.
I do love the heroic proclamations of anti-feminists and others boldly stating there is no need for feminism, or that we’re now in a post-feminists society, or worse they are an “egalitarian” *eye roll*. Yeah… soo… anyhow lets look at the evolution of costumes for women. See if you can spot the any troublesome trend as women graduate from “child” to “object I want to put my dick into.”
Woo. Can’t you just feel the equality oozing from the above selections. I know I can if I squint a little and get a partial lobotomy…
Extra bonus Sexy Halloween Costumes over at Your Social Constructs Are Showing.
Ah, the familiar strains of the equalist argument blithly denying the power gradients and class structure present in society. It warms my heart when this old chestnut get brought out displaying the deep level of ignorance and self-importance of the dude that is usually mansplaining it to me.
But hey-hey, hyperskeptics lets look at some evidence…
Google Searches for Sexy Alcohol Ads
Sexy Alcohol
Google Search for Sexy Deodorant
Google Search for Sexy Clothes
Google Search for Sexy Car Ad
Google Search for Sexy Burger Ad
Well daaaaaaamn son, it looks like there might be a slight difference in the level of objectification between women and men.
Easy pickings today as the comic book genre is not exactly a bastion of feminism. That being said, it just behooves me not to share the head slapping stupidity of the people who designed an open contest to see if they have “the chops” to join the DC team. Let’s just let the vile bags of douche speak for themselves:
Harley Quinn. One page. Published work. Breaking into comics was never this fun. ;)
— Jim & Dan
Here’s how to enter:
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Read the rules & regulations listed below to confirm that you are eligible to enter DC Entertainment’s Open Talent Search and agree to the terms and conditions.
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Read the following script page and give us your original artistic interpretation of what those four panels should look like on a single page:
PAGE 15
4 panels
PANEL 1
Harley is on top of a building, holding a large DETACHED cellphone tower in her hands as lightning is striking just about everywhere except her tower. She is looking at us like she cannot believe what she is doing. Beside herself. Not happy.PANEL 2
Harley is sitting in an alligator pond, on a little island with a suit of raw chicken on, rolling her eyes like once again, she cannot believe where she has found herself. We see the alligators ignoring her.PANEL 3
Harley is sitting in an open whale mouth, tickling the inside of the whale’s mouth with a feather. She is ecstatic and happy, like this is the most fun ever.PANEL 4
Harley sitting naked in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before the inevitable death. Her expression is one of “oh well, guess that’s it for me” and she has resigned herself to the moment that is going to happen.
Ah. Naked-happy with suicide is a okay – Let’s pause a second and set our phasers to “juxtaposition” and take a look at this snippet from the Atlantic Wire.
“Batwoman may be a superhero, but her powers apparently don’t extend to being able to marry someone of the same sex. The heroine, a Jewish lesbian, was denied a same-sex marriage by the execs of DC Comics, leading to a resignation of two Batwoman authors.
“We’re both heartbroken over leaving, but we feel strongly that you all deserve stories that push the character and the series forward. We can’t reliably do our best work if our plans are scrapped at the last minute, so we’re stepping aside,” wrote Batwoman co-authors J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman on their website late Wednesday night, explaining that DC Comics had squashed many of their editorial choices and “most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate [Batwoman] and Maggie actually getting married.”
In addition, Williams tweeted:
@andykhouri Not wanting to be inflammatory, only factual- We fought to get them engaged, but were told emphatically no marriage can result.
— J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) September 5, 2013″
Okay, so to summarize.
No problems!
But this, is not.
Women wanting to affirm their love? This shite is toxic and obviously not fit for publication.
Yah. So the abhorrent usual of objectification, degradation and violence against women is green lighted with an open invite for artists to “join the team” no less.
But…
A same sex marriage? Obviously completely off the fucking chain and gets shut down by DC in a heartbeat.
A double of patriarchal bullshite, with a heaping side of misogyny seems to be DC’s answer to the problem of rape culture in society, because pushing against toxic societal norms an artistic medium is hard.
Extra bonus fail for DC – September is Suicide Prevention month…
“It is because society tells us that women are objects, not subjects, that when society is presented with a case of male violence or sexual abuse, everyone looks at it from his point of view: “Oh, he must have been provoked to have done that,” “He was a nice man who just snapped,” “He must have been confused by her signals,” “Maybe he’s been falsely accused, how terrible to have to go to jail for that.” With every victim-blaming, rape / violence apologist comment, society reveals through whose eyes it looks, and the answer is invariably the man’s. It is because society tells us that women are objects, not subjects, that even good men, when speaking out against violence against women, tell other men to imagine her as “somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter, or somebody’s sister,” it never occurring to them that maybe, just maybe, a woman is also “somebody”.
It is frightening to consider just how deeply entrenched objectification of women really goes. We must certainly combat sexual objectification, but the battle will not end there. Women are objectified in more profound ways than we realise, and we must tear down every entwined shred of the patriarchy, in order to achieve our modest goal of being recognized and treated as human beings.
”
— Source: The Objectification of Women – It Goes Much Further Than Sexy Pictures
That whole male-gaze/female objectification thing is soooooo out to lunch.
Go to the Tumblr to see the rest.
Women judged on their looks? Objectification? It just does not happen in our society. Really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BO413zRmbk&feature=player_embedded
*sigh*
Thank you to Sociological Images for the find.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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