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pnrjulius comments on A Rationalist's Account of Objectification? - Less Wrong Discussion

43 Post author: lukeprog 19 March 2011 11:10PM

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Comment author: pnrjulius 05 July 2012 01:41:41AM -2 points [-]

Upvoted because it's a well-sourced and coherent argument.

Which is not to say that I agree with the conclusion. Okay, so there may be this effect of women being identified with their bodies.

But here's the thing: WE ARE OUR BODIES. We should be identifying with them, and if we're not, that's actually a very serious defect in our thinking (probably the defect that leads to such nonsense as dualism and religion).

Now, I guess you could say that maybe women are taught to care too much about physical appearance or something like that (they should care about other things as well, like intelligence, kindness, etc.). But a lot of feminists seem to be arguing that we should not care about how our bodies look at all, which is blatantly absurd.

Indeed, one thing that I know I have done wrong in my life and that other people have done to me to hurt me is to ignore my body. I have a tendency to think in terms of my mind and body being separate things, like my body is just a house my mind lives in. And then other people tend to treat me as some kind of asexual being that has transcended bodily form. The result is a very screwed-up body image and a lot of sexual frustration. On the definition you just gave, I am apparently under-objectified.