(hat tip to 2ndnin)
A week ago, Shakesville had a very interesting post about the invisibility of certain women in sexual harassment:
It is a conversation I’ve had before with trans women, with fat cis women, women with noticeable physical disabilities, and with a women who has severe craniofacial deformities—the “I don’t want to be treated like a piece of meat or an object or a possession, but because Visible Women are treated like pieces of meat and objects and possessions, the fact that I’m not makes me feel like I’m not even a woman” conversation…
Because being harassed is a routine part of the Visible Woman’s experience. And as long as women’s value is determined by objectification, to not be objectified is to feel unvalued, even if to not be objectified is what you want.
This, of course, is not a commentary on women—objectified or not, feminist or not. This is a commentary on the Patriarchy, and how unfathomably fucked-up it is that a failure to be treated poorly—not in exchange for being treated well, but as an alternative to not being acknowledged at all—has the capacity to make women feel worthless.
And then I started thinking about one other group that rarely gets sexually harassed: men.
Melissa McEwan’s analysis (and I say this as someone with the greatest respect and admiration for Liss) is missing something. It’s not about Visible vs. Invisible Womanhood. It’s about Beauty vs. Not Beauty.
Our culture has exactly one archetype of beauty: cisgendered, able-bodied, slender– and female. Unless you’re George Clooney or Brad Pitt (neither of which I find particularly attractive anyway), the idea of a man being physically desired is sometimes laughable, sometimes terrifying, and mostly impossible. Straight men’s ideas of what straight women find attractive range from the desexualizing (making her laugh?) to the depressing (money? jerks?) and almost never include forearms, even though forearms are clearly the sexiest thing ever. Â
And that makes me think of this comic:
The funny part is that it’s easy to imagine this comic with any of the people Liss mentioned in it, assuming that it was a particularly assholish member of that gender, of course. All of the people– fat women and trans women, disabled women and men– are the Invisible People.
In essence, our culture gives people two shitty lots.
You can be a sex object. People will harass you, quite a lot, which is sometimes annoying and often scary; if you get raped, especially if it’s a date rape, your chance of being taken seriously decreases. Even more often, people will hit on you, which is one of those things that sounds like a great deal until the sixth or seventh time someone takes your polite “thank you” to their “you’re beautiful” as an invitation to spend the entire time you’re waiting for the bus trying to get into your pants. Â
Or you can be invisible, with sexual desire for you a subject of humor, because clearly it is so absurd that anyone would ever want to fuck a trans person or a fat woman or a man. Your body image lowers; you lose a sense of self-esteem. You start wishing to be sexually harassed, because at least it means you’re desirable at all.
And the worst part is that you don’t get to pick which group you’re in. A shy twelve-year-old with D cup breasts will get hit on by men three times her age and called a slut behind her back. An outgoing, sexual fat woman who is fully capable of politely rejecting people who hit on her will get relegated to the “eww! fatty fucker! gross!” side of the aisle.
This sucks. Culture, stop doing that.
Reading through a lot of these posts I think the problem is that you think everyone is “equal” (which for you seems to mean “the same”). They are not. Men and women experience sexual desire differently, for solid explainable reasons not related to historical accident or “patriarchy”. It’s biology. The difference extends beyond sexual desire to many other aspects of life. Sticking to blaming a lack of equality would be like blaming protons for not being like electrons. They are what they are, opinion of what they are doesn’t change what they are. This applies to nearly all your posts,… Read more »
Invisibility is the single largest problem facing people today.
@2ndin, I think I’m confused now, maybe because I’m confused about the meaning of “sexy”. I think your point is that there aren’t many ways of displaying men’s bodies that everybody will read as sexualised. I agree with that. I thought that you meant there was no way of displaying men’s bodies that would make a wide range of people feel attraction, or that would justify feelings of attraction. (Can feelings of attraction be justified? Moving right along…) A lot of people are not sexually attracted to cleavage, including me, but will still recognise the sexual intent behind cleavage pictures,… Read more »
Rae, that’s the point I was trying to make – a bare midriff (not topless) is not a good indicator of sexualisation on a man, nor is a bared rear end while these are good indicators for sexualisation on a woman. Finding anything reliable to sexualise men seems a lot more difficult in most western cultures, I suppose a bare-ripped torso or muscles are normally fairly good but these all go towards ‘positive’ sexualisation while an average woman is sexualised for a bare midriff.
“What is harassment and what is non-threatening compliments seem to correlate very well with social status and general desirability.”
Dr. A, I don’t think that’s what either the kitchenchemist or Rae are saying. I think the manner matters more than the performer, at by them.
@2ndin, while I agree with the general point you’re making, i have to disagree with most of this: Large cleavage, displayed rear end, bare midriff, not a sexy look on a guy typically. I’ll spot you “large cleavage”, but the other two items are definitely sexy. (Not every instance of them is sexy, but that’s true of women too.) @thekitchenchemist I don’t think anyone wants to be harassed on the street. What they want is to receive sexual attention in non threatening ways – and maybe they think being called at by strangers will give this to them, but it… Read more »
@thekitchenchemist
What is harassment and what is non-threatening compliments seem to correlate very well with social status and general desirability.
“I don’t think anyone wants to be harassed on the street. What they want is to receive sexual attention in non threatening ways – and maybe they think being called at by strangers will give this to them, but it probably wont. If I was never harassed ever again I assure you that I wouldn’t miss it. But if no one ever smiled at me, flirted with me, or indicated that they find me attractive – yeah, of course I would miss that. They just aren’t the same thing. Hear hear! That difference gets run over and mashed into the… Read more »
I thought “Melissa/Shakesville” sounded familiar. She’s that transphobic woman who spewed her cissexism all over the place then refused to own up. Sort of funny she brings them up to make her point here (trans people can be useful sometimes! 8 D)… but I digress. I am not sure if I agree with the point of this article or the other… in this article it requires the man in the last panel to be sincere in his expression which, considering the difference between harassment and a compliment, I guess I find a bit hard to believe. I find it hard… Read more »
I actually really hate being told to “smile.” If you think about it is kind of sinister – why should I smile? Smile for YOU? It goes back to the idea that women are supposed to always be happy and pleasing. Women are always supposed to be agreeable and kind. That is the kind of thinking that makes women powerless, because in order to have any sort of power you also need to be able to throw a fit and get things done. It’s the kind of thinking that takes away women’s humanity, because in order to be human you… Read more »
Clarence
I don’t think Mellisa’s attractivness is very relevant for the discussion. However I still remember her discussing that all men should know that women all ways want to be left alone in public and that men should never approach women. So when they get exactly that. Women are left alone, then that is somehow something we should suddenly feel sorry about, because that is invalidation as a woman. All the while at the same time, these people have no problem dishing out that unattractive men have no right to feel that women are shallow and that this is wrong.
Men aren’t really supposed to talk about their invisibility.
I seem to remember the introductory post to this blog stating that it wasn’t an issue and the men’s movement being ridiculed for sometimes talking about it.
Question – Shakesville is a hot bed of misandry, why is masculism being being conflated with it?
Dr Anonymous:
You get exactly what you deserve: If you are a MAN.
If you are a woman you are victimized probably by someone like yourself who doesn’t recognize all his privileges.
That’s how things are and have been for nearly 5 years at Shakesville.
While I would ordinarily not say something like this but because I have absolutely no respect for Mellisa McEwan whatsoever as either a feminist OR a human being I will say she probably doesn’t get hit on very much.
I have now read through most of the comments on that shakesville thread. I don’t know what feeling is the strongest in me. The will to throw up on the double standards, or just plain schadenfreude at how horrible they feel now that the shoe is on the other foot. I still remember discussing things like how it feels watching your friend frenching in public, when you have never even had a kiss on the chin. Then it was all about how everyone gets exactly what they deserve and that I had no right to feel sad or jealous because… Read more »
Barry, I know you wrote the male privilege checklist so your statements about men not being sexualised in the same way comes across as quite odd. If men aren’t sexualised in the same way why do so many comparisons to female sexualisation come up in the checklist? Similarly you brush aside the experiences of non-typically attractive men as being minor issues (when from the shakesville thread not being harassed can make people feel worse than being harassed). From the checklist: 29. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore. 5. I am far less… Read more »
And regarding the piece over on shakesville.
It seems she is upset when women are catcalled, then they want to be left alone. When they aren’t catcalled they feel invisible. I ask, is it too much to ask that the movement makes up it’s mind? Besides, Melissa and her former accomplice Maud haven’t exactly been the most understanding when it comes to male feelings of total unattractiveness.
Barry, I really like the cartoon. I question your perspective on the post, because I think “well, women like to look at male movie stars” still leaves regular, everyday guys out of the equation. All too often women will talk about George Clooney, Brad Pitt etc. as if he were the only guy we’d bother overtly checking out. I’ve heard a lot of women gush over guys they’ll never meet way more than they talk about their actual boyfriends or crushes. Other commenters have noted that women probably often feel it’s somewhat risky to give a compliment to the wrong… Read more »
I protest about standards of beauty. Yes, the fashion industry sells us one image. But look at the porn industry instead, the industry that by it’s very nature deals in what turns people on, and you will see a plethora of different kinds of women. Big boobs, no boobs, big behinds, small behinds, dominant women, submissive women, younger women, older women and so on.
I’m not sure I agree with your post; men aren’t seen as sexual the way women are, but neither are men seen as not sexually attractive. George Clooney and Brad Pitt exist, after all, and just because you don’t find them hot doesn’t mean that they aren’t sexualized.
There’s also a big difference in the lived experience of being “attractive” and “unattractive” men, and your argument seems to pretend that difference either doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter.
Thanks for including my comic strip! I’m a fan of this blog, so it was nice (if surprising) to see it here.
If anyone would like to see the art bigger, you can follow this link.
Damn, when I think about it, I feel so invisible.
@Jim and Paul
Yeah, I forgot, the 20 somethings. For the most part they have more disposable income than me so of course the world wants them more. 😉
Forearms can be nice, but it’s the long hair that really gets me… I can posit a couple of reasons why women don’t as often give men they find attractive the same kind of attention on the street as (whether jerk or sincere) men give to women they find attractive. First, there is some mainstream rule that women aren’t supposed to initiate romantic encounters–even if saying “you look nice” isn’t necessarily trying to initiate anything at all. Although the more I think about that, the more I think that’s silly, because although I have a few (still single, funnily) female… Read more »
Ozy, I normally agree with a lot of what you write, and I do agree with some of this post, but something is off for me. I completely understand that our culture de-sexualizes the elderly people, fat people, trans people, but I do not think that as a culture, we desexualize men. Maybe I’m just hanging out on some weird places on the internet or have a weird social group, but I’ve seen and heard tons of comments about the sexual attractiveness of various men, whether it’s a character on a television show (“I would totally fuck Tony from skins/Stabler… Read more »