[lbo-talk] Contemporary forms of female self-objectification

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Sat Sep 17 10:08:14 PDT 2005


On Sat, 17 Sep 2005, Marvin Gandall wrote:


> My wife brought the item to my attention. A much more muted and benign form
> of self-objectification is the tendency of many progressive feminists to wear
> lipstick, perfume, and dye their hair. Now I will quickly put on my helmet,
> because whenever Walker (yes, her first name) and I have chided left-wing
> women friends about this, the brickbats have quickly rained down on us. But
> in cyberspace, I feel safer, and it is an interesting question, no? And maybe
> one to pose to Ms. Levy.

Yeah, this is interesting: what is, in practical terms, the difference between Carmen Electra and my tastefully adorned colleagues in the English department? I guess I draw the opposite conclusion, though: if most women adorn themselves to be an object of admiration or desire, is there a problem? (I'm not sure what Marvin is advocating here: we all wear unisex gray Mao jumpsuits?)

Moreover, the implicit dichotomy between the objectified woman and the man doing the objectification is misleading: men too are increasingly objectified, and dress and act to appeal to others. (--Seen a Bowflex ad lately?) Just as we have breast augmentation in women, we have baldness "treatment" in men. Just as we have Paris Hilton getting fame from overt sexuality, we have Snoop Dog.

There's a strange Victorian undercurrent here: it's more or less assumed that women do not sexually objectify men, and men do not dress or act to provoke that objectification. Without taking women's capacity for sexual objectification of men into account, it's pretty fucking hard to account for the fame of Brad Pitt, isn't it? (--And my wife is quite the construction worker about, of all meatheads, the Rock: "cut me off a hunk of that!")

I agree that it's not symmetrical--for instance, women still spend more time on personal appearance than men do, according to daily self-reports. However, given the obvious profits produced by "image making" commodities like surgery, exercise equipment, diet programs, fashionable clothing, jewelry, etc., I think it's pretty predictable that both men and women will become increasingly "objectified" in a capitalist society as they purchase and are enticed to purchase these commodities.

Miles



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