I'm seeking some feminist consciousness-raising, and I'm hoping some LWers (Alicorn?) can help.
Specifically, I've never understood why "objectification" is wrong.
I'm a tall white American male, so sometimes it takes a bit of work for me to understand what it's like to be a member of a suppressed group. I still need regular training in avoiding sexist language, etc.
First: my background. When I was 10ish I encountered the word "feminism" for the first time. I asked my mom what the word meant.
She said, "It's the idea that women should have the same rights and privileges as men do."
And I thought, "They have a word for that?" It seemed too obvious to deserve its own word. It felt like having a special word for the idea that left-handers and right-handers should have the same rights and privileges.
So I've always thought of myself as a feminist.
Of course, some activists (the word has positive connotations to me, BTW) pushed too far, as is the case in all large movements. At some times and places (1980s academia, I think), it was common to assert that there are almost no (average) significant differences between men and women that aren't caused by enculturation, except for genitalia. That is of course false. Hormones matter, especially during development.
Such overreaches made it psychologically easier for some non-feminists to dismiss legitimate feminist demands and resist thousands of much-needed feminist advances (which are still ongoing).
Now, on this matter of objectification. I've never understood it. I've tried to get people to explain it to me before, but they were (apparently) not well-trained in rationality. I'm hoping a rationalist can explain it to me.
Here's my confusion about objectification. Depending on what you mean by "objectification," it seems to be either something that (1) is very often perfectly acceptable, or that (2) means something very narrow and is usually not being exemplified when there is an accusation of it being exemplified.
Let me explain.
Earlier, when I tried to figure out what "objectification" was and why it was wrong, the leading article on the topic seemed to be one by philosopher Martha Nussbaum. She lays out the goal of her paper like this:
I shall argue that there are at least seven distinct ways of behaving introduced by the term, none of which implies any of the others, though there are many complex connections among them. Under some specifications, objectification… is always morally problematic. Under other specifications, objectification has features that may be either good or bad, depending on the overall context… Some features of objectification… may in fact in some circumstances… be either necessary or even wonderful features of sexual life.
Using examples, she then outlines seven ways to treat a person as a thing. Rae Langton added three more in 2009, bringing the total count to 10 ways to treat a person as a thing:
- Instrumentality. The objectifier treats the object as a tool of his or her purposes.
- Denial of autonomy. The objectifier treats the object as lacking in autonomy and self-determination.
- Inertness. The objectifier treats the object as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity.
- Fungibility. The objectifier treats the object as interchangeable (a) with other objects of the same type and/or (b) with objects of other types.
- Violability. The objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.
- Ownership. The objectifier treats the object as something that is owned by another, can be bought or sold, etc.
- Denial of subjectivity. The objectifier treats the object as something whose experience and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account.
- Reduction to body: treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts.
- Reduction to appearance: treatment of a person primarily in terms of how they look.
- Silencing: the treatment of a person as if they lack the capacity to speak.
Consider a classic example of objectification from Playboy magazine: a photo of a female tennis player bending over, revealing her butt, above the caption "Why We Love Tennis."
The Playboy image exhibits at least eight features of objectification: instrumentalization, denial of autonomy, fungibility, denial of subjectivity, reduction to body, reduction to appearance, and silencing!
But, let's consider another example of objectification, what I'll call the Muddy People photo:
To us, these people are nothing but objects of our entertainment and pleasure. We have instrumentalized them. Moreover, they are fungible. It does not matter to us which people are covered in mud and looking silly. And just as with the Playboy example, this photo involves a denial of autonomy. Indeed, it is doubtful the permission to publish their photos was obtained. Moreover, we are not much interested in the feelings of these people but only their role in entertaining us as we gaze upon their mud-caked bodies – a denial of subjectivity. Often, nothing of these mud-covered people can be seen or known except their bodies – in many cases, only body parts, sticking every which way. This is the reduction to body. There is also clearly a reduction to appearance. Their mud-covered appearance is their only interest to us. In many cases, the emotions they might be having are totally obscured by the mud covering their faces. They are also, of course, silent to us.
So all the features of objectification found in the Playboy example, which we might feel is wrong somehow, are also shared by the Muddy People photo, which we probably feel is acceptable. Perhaps this suggests that our feelings are poor guides to moral truth. Or maybe what is wrong with the Playboy photo is something other than objectification.
Of course, there are disanalogies to be found. The Playboy example (especially with the caption) involved sexuality, and the Muddy People photo does not particularly do so. But if this is the line of thought that leads us to condemn Playboy but not the Muddy People photo, then we are bringing in another concept besides objectification.
For example, perhaps we want to say that Playboy‘s objectifications harm women by contributing to a culture of sexual prejudice, but the Muddy People objectifications do not cause any such harm. But then we are not appealing to this Kantian notion of "objectification." Rather, we are appealing to utilitarian principles. (Feminist philosopher Lina Papadaki makes similar objections to the notion of objectification.)
We all use each other as means to an end, or as objects of one kind or another, all the time. And we can do so while respecting their autonomy. I enjoy looking at the shapes and textures in the Muddy People photo while also respecting that the people whose bodies make up those shapes and textures are autonomous individuals of great value. But their value as individuals is not the point of the photo. The point of the photo, in this case, is that it's an interesting picture to look at. And that's okay, I think.
Good romantic partners use each other as a means to their own gratification while also respecting each others' autonomy. We use each other as sex objects, as emotion objects, as conversation objects, as knowledge objects, as carpool objects, and as other objects, all the time - while also respecting each others' autonomy and value. It's not clear to me what's wrong with that.
So if something like Nussbaum's analysis of "objectification" is what is meant by the term, then I don't see what's wrong with it. But if it means something much more narrow (what? I don't know), then I doubt it is exemplified nearly as often as people are accused of exemplifying it.
I reject Kant's epistemology, logic, and metaphysics - as I think any scientifically-informed person should. But even if you do accept all three, I still don't see what's intrinsically wrong with objectification as Nussbaum defines it.
Maybe I'm being dense. That has happened before. I'm not posting this with much confidence that objectification is a mostly useless concept. I'm posting this in pursuit of some consciousness-raising.
Understanding the problem is the first step toward fixing it. And right now I don't understand the problem. So if you have the time, please teach me.
Thanks.
Update: below, I'll keep an updated list of the most useful articles I've found so far.
- Meteuophoric, Does SI make everyone look like swimsuit models?
- Shakesville, Feminism 101
- Feminism 101 Blog, FAQ Roundup
I recommend the movie "Filming Desire" for what I found to be a very interesting and nuanced feminist analysis of objectification, and what happens when women try to represent sex for ourselves rather than buying into how the dominant culture represents sex (i.e., how men with stereotypical desires represent sex).
Here is an edited version of a comment I recently wrote on my own post "Ethical Pick-Up Artistry" [ http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/03/23/ethical-pick-up-artistry/ ], which I think is tangentially relevant:
I don’t really like the idea that men’s sexuality is generally more focused on stereotypically “hot” women, and that it’s some kind of inherent difference -- beyond cultural influences -- that it's more unusual/more difficult for men to be attracted to non-conventionally attractive women than to conventionally attractive ones, as opposed to the way attraction works for most het women. But it could be true, and if it is then I don’t feel comfortable shaming men for that. (It seems like gay men frequently exhibit similar attraction patterns to straight men, in terms of being considerably more attracted to younger partners and more, shall we say, sculpted partners. I seem to recall reading somewhere that lesbians have written critiques of ageism in gay men’s attraction patterns.)
There’s evidence for sexual fluidity but there’s no evidence for being able to consciously change sexuality. Maybe changing culture can change sexuality. There’s no evidence for this and I’m extremely reluctant to police art, porn, whatever based on a weak hypothesis, especially if the goal is to police sexuality even more than it is already policed. All the anecdotes (and sexuality scholars) I’ve encountered have said that sexual fluidity appears to happen in a way we can’t control and don’t understand. The ex-gay movement shows us that even people who are very motivated to abandon homosexuality simply cannot meet with success, and will become disillusioned witnesses against the programs that tried. What good is shame for influencing such a force?
But is it such a problem that attraction patterns are like this? Well, it sucks for conventionally unattractive women in particular. I have a lot of sympathy for this (as my frequently-noted fears of aging show). On the other hand, a lot of things about sexual attraction just aren’t fair, and if we start insisting that people are obligated to have sex with people they’re not attracted to, that’s not right either.
I think the real, and important, problem comes in when people (especially women) who are attractive are given more social power in other areas: more likely to be promoted, more likely to be seen as competent, etc (studies show that blonde hair is most universally attractive to men and that blondes make more money on average than other women). Some famous misogynist, I can’t remember which one, is on record as saying that feminism is about giving unattractive women more power in society (even leaving aside its massive misread on feminism, this statement assumes that unattractive women don’t deserve any power in society, which is obviously fucked up).
People aren’t very good at watching their biases in general, and so when I say that men generally suck at watching out for how biased they get about attractive women, I’m not trying to say something specific about men. It may be that women are less biased by conventionally attractive men because our hormones just work differently. It may also be that attractive men would be able to get ahead through their attractiveness more if women had the same amount of overall power in society as men. Regardless, it seems like the focus should be on de-biasing people to think that attractive people are better at things that have nothing to do with attraction, rather than on attempting to change men's attraction patterns.
edit: goddam formatting doesn't work with complex posts. PM me if you're interested in reading this in full...
For those who don't know, the above user is a rising star in feminist, men's rights, and that kind of circles. Or well, I've heard of him/her, and was surpised to see the name. So I'm stopping to comment.
I'd like to address some claims made about sexual fluidity that I find concerning.
Conversion therapy is stigmatised by scientific communities
Conversion therapy is primarily conducted by secular partners of religious organisations that were form