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Lumifer 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: [deleted] 05 December 2014 03:01:22AM 1 point [-]

The problem isn't objectification of women, it's a lack of non-objectified female characters.

The types of objectification are different, as you touch on. Men are not sexually objectified as often. When they are, they are shown in a position of power or self-direction, with women in contrasting positions of passiveness and submissiveness. This is most visible in advertising because it's the place where men are portrayed as specifically male rather than as people (with the assumption that all people worth knowing about or portraying must be men).

Your example of random mooks? They're there to shoot and die and follow orders. You can replace them with robots or ambulatory plants or aliens with no discernable gender. Calvin Klein ads? The men are there to be masculine.

Men are allowed to be short or tall, fat or thin, strong or weak. They can have long noses and bulbous noses and button noses and earlobes that hang down. Women have several molds they can fit -- they can be crones or grandmothers, or they can be minor variants of generic white sexy woman at different ages, between fifteen and thirty.

Even when women are portrayed as skilled, intelligent people with their own backstories and interests, you'd be hard pressed to find one that isn't portrayed in a way to make sexual objectification easy, even if it makes no sense with their story. Amita from Far Cry 4, for instance, is one of two leaders of a terrorist group fighting against an oppressive dictatorship. You'd expect that she'd have scars. You'd expect she'd be too busy to maintain long hair. You'd expect muscles. You'd expect powerful body language. You wouldn't exactly expect her to have turquoise earrings, wear eyeliner, have immaculately plucked eyebrows, have skin as smooth as marble, and wear a pouty / concerned expression half the time.

The huge problem is that women's perceived value can never exceed the ease with which they can be objectified.

Comment author: Lumifer 05 December 2014 05:14:37AM *  3 points [-]

with women in contrasting positions of passiveness and submissiveness

That may be a cached impression. I doubt my viewing habits are typical, but a competent heroine who kicks ass is rather typical in contemporary movies, I think.

Men are not sexually objectified as often. .. This is most visible in advertising because it's the place where men are portrayed as specifically male rather than as people

You contradict yourself. Your second sentence basically says that men are sexually objectified.

Besides, a great deal of advertising is dedicated to portraying women as.. .specifically feminine :-)

The huge problem is that women's perceived value can never exceed the ease with which they can be objectified.

Says who?