Feminism

[Problem Machine]

Yeah, but in many cases that's manufactured -- I mean, if you tell people enough times that something is sexy, they'll believe you, and to a certain extent this is something that happens naturally with every culture where it creates standards of attractiveness that may or may not align with how the actual people living within that culture feel. I'm not really claiming that people don't find that stuff sexy, rather that they aren't defensive about it because they find it sexy(whether they do or don't) but because it's a cultural signifier that they've become comfortable with.

 

I think the people that do find sexualization really sexy engage with it in much the same way people with, say, a fetish for latex boots do: As an object, feel and sight and taste, rather than as a person, history and character and ambition. Objectification. I wrote some stuff related to this, objectification in games, a couple of weeks ago, and I think it turned out pretty alright.

[Ninety-Three]

Honestly, the idea of men stepping in to chastise women on internalized misogyny makes my teeth fucking itch because there's no way you're not still kinda complicit in the culture that creates it. It's ideally best left to other women to talk to, since it's essentially an intra-community issue. 

 

I strongly disagree with this. Even accepting the notion that all men are automatically complicit in a way women aren't (I disagree, but it feels like way too big a can of worms to open here), I dislike the idea that only those who are without sexism can call someone on it. Can Man A not call Man B on B's sexism because A too is sexist? And if he can, then why can't he call Woman B on it?

[Apple Cider]

Internalized misogyny comes from women internalizing messages about their gender by a sexist society. Chastising women for internalizing harmful messages about themselves is not the place where I think men should step in. Are women able to promote sexist ideas? Yes. But I don't feel like men can really "step away" far enough to wag their fingers at women for believing harmful shit about their gender without looking like giant assholes. Men talking to other men about sexism is a good idea, but that's because there's definitely ways you can work on critiquing and improving your behavior and thinking but a man stepping in to basically tell a woman to stop being affected by sexist messages about their own gender is fucking shitty. 

 

Disagree if you want but that's how I see it.

[Ninety-Three]

Internalized misogyny comes from women internalizing messages about their gender by a sexist society. Chastising women for internalizing harmful messages about themselves is not the place where I think men should step in.

 

But if all men are complicit in the culture that creates sexism, surely that's because of something they've internalized. So the internalized part can't be the issue here. If a man can tell another man "Hey, stop being affected by sexist messages about women", I don't see why the gender of his audience should determine whether or not it's okay.

 

I understand that your point is "Stop being affected by messages about a group of other people" is different from "Stop being affected by messages about a group that includes yourself", but I don't begin to understand why the former is okay and the latter isn't, or why (in the case of a female speaker) "Stop being affected by messages about a group that includes yourself and me" is okay again.

[Bjorn]

The line for me is my relationship to the woman in question.  If it is someone who is at the casual friendship level, I'm not going to engage in that.  But if it's the women in my life who I'm the closest to (my daughter, my partner, friends I've had for a decade or more), then yes, I'm going to engage in a conversation with them.  But in all those cases, these are people that we've talked for hundreds of hours about all sorts of things.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Apple Cider, are you particularly emphasising the idea that men chastise women? I do worry about trying to put out my opinion in a way that's overly assertive, condescending or chastising. Often I just don't, and try to work through my own response and think about what it entails. But do you think a man highlighting a woman's sexism to her without the problematic tone would be an acceptable response? Or do you think it's too rare a real life occurrence to be part of the consideration?

[Apple Cider]

I personally feel like it's not men's place at all to tell women how to deal with internalized misogyny, but whatever. I don't tell black people how to deal with internalized racism because it's a product of a system I still benefit from. 

This is feels like a sticking point with a lot of you so I'm not going to push it further. 

[Gormongous]

I personally feel like it's not men's place at all to tell women how to deal with internalized misogyny, but whatever. I don't tell black people how to deal with internalized racism because it's a product of a system I still benefit from.

This is feels like a sticking point with a lot of you so I'm not going to push it further.

I mean, I'm not going to tell a woman how to live in a sexist society, but if she said something awful about herself or about another woman, I'm going to say that that's fucked up, as succintly as possible, because I don't want my silence to be validation for her beliefs. I almost always leave it there, unless she and I are close, like Bjorn said.

[sclpls]

Also, this is an inane statement, but it really bums me out to live in a culture where even a small percentage of women feel they have to denigrate and repudiate their own gender to be recognized as people. In my teens, I would have been really enthusiastic to meet a girl who said that she liked T&A just as much as a guy, but now it is the furthest thing from who I am.

 

This is slightly different, but last weekend I saw a documentary about the DC punk scene called "Salad Days". I mostly wouldn't recommend it, but it did have one interesting moment where they were interviewing one of the members of Fire Party (who were all women), and she was talking about they went to all these efforts to downplay their gender because they didn't want to get stuck with the label of being a "girl band" (and this was in the 80s, and it is sad to think how that is still an issue for women trying to play in bands now), and how she had a hard time wrapping her head around Bikini Kill when they arrived on the scene and Kathleen Hanna would get up on stage with the word "SLUT"  written across her body, and you know just had a much more confrontational approach to their gender and how they were being perceived. Anyway, just an interesting example of how women in different contexts approach sexism in different ways.

[Merus]

Well, I guess there was a reason for my difficulty in bringing up internalised misogyny without sounding like an asshole.

 

I think the point here, guys, is that after the discussion she is still going to be in a place of unequal power, and now her coping strategy is wrong too. The pressures that encouraged her to throw other women under the bus still exist, and she's clearly not inclined to see them as unfair.

 

It's sort of how it grates when wealthy people tell poor, unemployed people that if they just got a job/worked harder, they'd be less poor. In a sense that might be true, but it's ignoring structural problems that the rich person would rather not think about.

[castorp]

On his tumblr Raphael Bob-Waksberg talks about 'Gender in Comedy'. I think it's a good read.

Kinda internetold, sorry if it's been linked here before.

[Griddlelol]

Can someone explain to me the difference between objectification and eroticization? 

They're obviously linked, but how can you tell when one is occurring and the other is not?

[Gormongous]

Can someone explain to me the difference between objectification and eroticization? 

They're obviously linked, but how can you tell when one is occurring and the other is not?

 

I'm sure I'll get preempted at some point in this discussion, but my understanding is this: "objectification" is the reduction or outright denial of the agency of a person or group, in order to justify control, abuse, or disregard of said person or group, while "eroticization" is the introduction or reinterpretation of sexual characteristics for a person or group, ostensibly in order to titillate or exploit, but usually ultimately to justify control, abuse, or disregard. I might be entirely wrong, but I see it as the difference between reducing a woman to some kind of sex worker versus reducing her to some kind of doll, in that one doesn't imply the other but both sides of the Möbius strip tend to join up at some point along the way. 

[Deadpan]

Both of which are different from but still confused with idealization. Here's a good article on all that.

[jenben]

Objectification is to treat a woman, or parts of a woman, like an object, and is often used in consumerism/advertising--a naked pair of legs advertising a cologne, a body draped over a car, etc. It can and is also used, as Gormongous said, to justify abuse and dismissal. There is little or no concept of personhood in objectification. Men can absolutely be objectified, but it's nowhere near as common as it is for women. Miss Representation is a documentary that gives a lot of coverage to this idea, and it's available to stream on Netflix!

 

Eroticization I don't hear too much about--sexualization, I do. Think that's more to do with the habit entertainment has of writing women where one of their most obvious traits (or only trait) is sexiness, sexual desirability, etc.

 

Actually, the article Deadpan linked above looks like it summarizes everything really neatly!

[Griddlelol]

The link kind of reinforced what I already knew. I guess my next question is why is eroticisation (or sexualisation) necessarily bad? I understand why objectification is - that's obvious. I just don't really understand why sexualisation is often regarded as bad as objectification, while one is stripping a person of themself, and the other is giving that person an extra quality or characteristic.

[Merus]

How many female characters are attractive but not then sexualised? There aren't a lot.

[jenben]

Yeah, it's rare that a female character is attractive and not at least partially defined by her sexuality. Sexualization is also usually not for the sexualized character's benefit--we're not seeing the interior of this character, exploring why sex is an important thing for her, staying with her as her choices drive the story forward. Her sexualization is for the audience's titillation, or to create an objective for another (male, narrative-driving) character. Which I guess leads back to objectification!

[Griddlelol]

So it's the fraction of sexualised to non-sexualised that's the problem for fictional characters? That makes sense. 

 

I wasn't really framing my question for works of fiction only, more in the broad context of how women are treated, but maybe that's missing the point of the issue.

[Apple Cider]

To sexualize someone (whether fictional or not) is a choice on the part of the viewer, not the person who actually should have control on that sexualization. It is adding sexual nuance without the permission of the person involved, or a fictional character who is your creation anyways, for the point of the audience. 

[Griddlelol]

I thought sexualisation also includes a choice of the person. If someone dresses provocatively, surely they're sexualising themself?

Whereas, sure someone could objectify themself, but it's a deliberate disempowerment and pretty uncommon, unlike sexualising oneself which is much more common. 

[Apple Cider]

No, it does not. It is specifically on the part of the viewer, not the person involved, and specifically relates to how women are portrayed (real-ly or fictionally) in media. 

[Griddlelol]

 specifically relates to how women are portrayed (real-ly or fictionally) in media. 

 

Looks like I'm missing this point in my understanding of the word, which is probably why I'm confused. 

 

So what is the difference, and what is it called when someone deliberately makes themself sexually attractive? When I go on a date, I try to make myself as sexually attractive as possible - to make the other person see me as a desirable sexual person. Is that not self-sexualisation? 

[Apple Cider]

No, because sexualization is specifically a term relating to how you present a person (or group of people) who are not you. In media. Think: movies, TV, advertising, games, books, etc. It's a specific method of styling, editing, contextualization that presents the woman for a very specific audience/interpretation. The way women are portrayed is often very different from how men are portrayed because they are not designed to be seen as anything other than sexual objects vs. full human beings with a full human experience.

 

You dressing up sexy is you dressing up sexy.

 

EXAMPLES:

 

Women in advertising being shown with no faces/heads/being thrown some place

Girl children being used in advertising posing in a manner that's very adult, with skimpy clothes

The "butt/boobs" pose in comic books

[Gwardinen]

That's contrary to the definition in the article linked by Deadpan, for the record. That does say that one can sexualise oneself, but one cannot objectify oneself, which honestly makes more sense to me.

 

For example, if a person were having pictures taken of them, and decided at one point to strike a pose which is sexually implicit, the resulting image is sexualised, no?