This is a comment by wellokaythen on the Comment of the Day: “Society wants dads to ‘step up’, but they are literally stomped down when they do.”
“I haven’t worked out the terms just yet, but I would make a distinction between ‘mild’ objectification and ‘severe’ objectification. (That makes it sound like acne or something. I welcome suggestions for better terms.)
“Mild, run-of-the-mill objectification is simply noticing physical features and letting that influence your thoughts about that person in any way. It is not incompatible with seeing that person as a human being or treating that person with basic respect. It could just be a matter of not knowing anything about a person besides what they look like, because you know that person by sight before anything else. You may even begin to make some tentative predictions about what the person is like based on appearance, but you’re not committed to those predictions.
“Severe, total objectification is totally reducing that person to only constituent parts. That person is just a body, divorced of all personality or intellect or individual identity. You make absolute assumptions based on that person’s body. They are not really human but just a collection of individual parts that exist solely for your pleasure or disgust.
“I don’t think the mild version is a problem, and it is to some degree unavoidable anyway. You can find examples of the sever kind in many places, but it is not the same.
“It’s comparable to ‘greed.’ It’s a question of degree. Seeking individual economic interest, like going back to school in order to get a higher paying job, is actually commendable. Seeking individual economic interest by screwing over other people with fraud and theft is unacceptable.
“To those who want to destroy all objectification root and branch, I have to ask you to model what that would look like. What would it look like to be attracted to someone on sight without there being any objectification whatsoever?”
More Comments of the Day
Photo credit: Flickr / SebastianDooris
Objectification isn’t just about sex or pleasure, either. Businesses objectify employees. Militaries objectify soldiers. Olympic athletes probably objectify themselves.
At some point or another it might be necessary (or it might please us to think it’s necessary) to leave not just your individuality, but your very humanity, behind and act as an instrument of will. Your company’s will, your country’s will, your own will.
I think that’s an admired character trait in many societies, and I think it’s particularly prized in men.
It must take an awful lot of mental energy to constantly worry about what other people are thinking.
Objectification is as much about what is not being seen as what is being seen. It’s not so much about noticing a man’s or woman’s hot body or bank account balance as being blind to his or her mind and soul and, in really severe cases, basic human rights. It’s about the relative amount of focus on the physical vs. the person inside. An example of objectification from my life: years ago I used to be able to trust male friends, but several times had a guy end the friendship when he realized I wasn’t interested in sleeping with him.… Read more »
This.
Yeah, Jen. I think this is the side of the ‘friend zone’ argument that people don’t always understand. A man might feel used, led on, betrayed, and feel like he wasted his time if the sexual part doesn’t work out with a woman. One the other hand, the woman feels these exact same things because she trusted that the friendship was real and invested time and energy into it too. Friendship is important to a lot of people. He led her on as a friend and hurt her too…she likely didn’t realize that he was only faking that to get… Read more »
Most men can appreciate that the woman parts in question also exist to do duty for the woman they are part of.
Now allow me to turn the tables.
“Severe objectification occurs when a woman sees a man as a sperm donor and as the source of ample spending money she need not earn or account for. She also sees his job as her key to a position of high prestige in their community.”
A comment of the day FROM a comment of the day?
This is madness!!!!