Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 10:55:04 +1000 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Catherine Driscoll <catherine.driscoll at adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Giggly Guys (was Re: SI Swimsuit issue: Holy Cow!) In-Reply-To: <l03130300b318e484bcde@[137.92.41.119]> References: <v04011707b318c7e37d9b@[128.146.5.16]>
<3.0.3.32.19990319101352.006cef68 at pop.mindspring.com>
<36F1A81A.CFA at concentric.net>
<3.0.3.32.19990318134619.0075783c at pop.mindspring.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Rob Schaap writes:
>Is the portrayal of half-naked, or buck-naked, women all that sexist? It's
>commodification, sure. It's probably objectification, too (although it
>ain't that simple - a naked woman generates an altogether chemical response
>from us if we're sharing a pool or a sauna with her than if she were to
>display herself with what we take to be an intention to arouse us. Same
>with pictures - I gotta be imagining someone trying to turn me on if I'm to
>slobber appropriately - so a picture does it only after mediation by my
>sordid imagination - an imagination overly populated by wanton wenches
>perhaps, but wenches with agency/intentions before all other things at
>least - their T&A ain't explosive until the gazer lights the fuse by
>imagining a willing person around it all). Sure, the intention is
>purchased in this instance - but that's our lot, innit? And we do all know
>it's purchased - so I don't rate arguments that boys are being misled into
>expecting from, and hence imposing upon, the girls in their world such
>behaviour and intentions.
>
>I mean, any worker is subject to commodification and objectification, right?
>
>The sexism would come in if a limitation were set on the possible roles in
>which women are represented, and if that limitation were more severe than
>that set on men, no? And do we respond to that by excluding one more
>representative possibility?
1. There is no possibility of any magazine with SI's circulation (or in fact even less, but that's not the point) displaying male bodies in the way female bodies are displayed here.
2. SI is marketed directly to and predominantly sells to men.
3. The implications of 1 and 2 do not stop at the edge of consuming SI or even magazines in general.
Therefore, without any other quibbling, this is a continuing issue for feminism and attests to a set of obstacles to women having diverse social positions and relations available to them.
>It occurs to me that Anglo-Saxon feminisms take this stuff more seriously
>than do their continental European counterparts, anyway.
And I'll thank you not to call me a Saxon.
Catherine