Why do feminists support the objectification of women by defending the public display of their sexual features

Question

Would the objectification of women even be possible, were it not for the voluntary participation of women in the sexually visual gratification of men? You can blame men all you want to, but it is the women who are wearing the clothes and engaging in the behaviors which reward men for the objectification of women. And when it comes to this, there are very few virgins among you. Just take a look in the mirror. Now go ahead and whine! Is this one case where anti-feminist women have more self-respect than feminist women? Cat fight!!!!

Shingoshi Dao

Am I going to be knocked up and seeing stars???

Does the provocative way many mothers dress, inspire their preteen girls NOT to engage in premarital sex?

Can men engage in the visual objectification of women, without women providing them the means to do so? Women like to claim they can read men's minds. So what, are we to fancifully think men have X-ray vision too?? If women could read men's minds so well, don't you think women would have the sense to know how connected their attire is to how men gratify themselves visually?

How many (pre)teenage girls who DON'T dress provocatively, are likely to engage in premarital sex?

I HAVE YET TO SEE A SINGLE EXPLANATION!!!
Most of what I do see, is that I had no right asking the question.

SEX SELLS, as it pertains to the attire of women, because women buy it. If women did not literally BUY into the myth that beauty is sex and sex is beauty, there would be no sex to sell. Men may be responsible for the marketing of sex and sexual imagery, but it's the women who are actually dressing themselves with what they agree with as the definition of women.

Men are far too practical with the distribution of their assets, to invest in markets that don't exist. WOMEN are that market. Men aren't demanding women to dress as women do. Women dress as they choose. And the choice is and always has been to use seduction as the power to acquire the attention of men. If women truly had a better power than sex, shouldn't or wouldn't it be apparent in the manner they dressed? So instead, what we have here are women convincing themselves they bear no culpability in how men have been trained by women to perceive them. How truly mature is that?

Just remember all of the justifications you see here and elsewhere, while you're holding your teenage daughter's child in your arms, trying to rock it off to sleep. Maybe you can even sing one of the latest erotic Britney Spears songs as a lullaby.

What's provocative you ask? Go see this question, and see for yourself. But then, you really already knew what it was.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071103203901AAKrGL6&cp=2

Is having choices without responsibility, the greatest concern of feminist women?

THE MAJORITY OF MEN, aren't going into women's clothing stores to find the most revealing outfits the men can find, to go home and tell women, "WEAR THIS, OR I WON'T HAVE SEX WITH YOU!!!

Bluestareyed: Thank you for the education. No sarcasm at all intended!! That really does pose an entirely different perspective on this. If we take that to the extreme reverse, I wonder if women in Brazil and France (nude beaches) are treated with greater respect than woman who are compulsively and restrictively dressed? I am not kidding here. I am seriously questioning my own logic here. If women in the most restrictive cultures are treated with the worst respect, are women in the most liberal cultures treated with the greatest respect? Maybe this is something we can all drop our weapons over, and collectively search for real evidence of what actually happens here.

I'm not as inflexible as I might seem.

Answer 1

This is one of my problem areas with feminism it has/does encourage a lack of modesty and morals from women---young girls are being taught that if they don't dress and behave like tramps then they are "oppressed" I'm sorry but that's BS! Girls and women can have modesty and NOT dress or act like tramps and still not be oppressed, in fact all that time and effort spent getting that "hooker" look could be spent instead on getting a good education, learning to cook, ect. Have you ever tried to buy clothes for a 5 or 6 year old girl? It's near imposable to get outfits that don't make her look like a hooker in training.

Answer 2

Clearly gender is a much larger, well defined division in society than politics, religion and profession are. And unlike those others it is not a division decided by choice. You can choose a political stance with the full knowledge and acceptance that those political objectifications exists. You can choose to be a socialist knowing that some people will view you as an anti-american communist bent on state control. You can't choose to be a women. Are you suggesting that only men are tackling issues of professional, religious and political objectification and that women aren't? Men don't object to sexual objectification because it doesn't reduce their power in society, it enhances it.

Answer 3

Just regarding the first part of the question (before the comments).

It is true that feminists of past eras fought hard against the sexual exploitation of women and children, and their 'objectification', and many feminists would still view these issues as major concerns.

However, there are other forces at work than a particular 'party line'.

In the first instance, there are many women who describe themselves as feminists who work in the sex industry. Their arguments are that the application of feminist principles has liberated their work from being oppressive to being liberating. They support pornography and sexual 'display' by women as long as it is the result of informed consent and legitimate choice.

Additionally, as the gains made by feminism have changed the social landscape, so did people's perception of the role of women within society. The notion that women need to be virginal and modest to achieve social approval is one area where this is very obvious.

Of course, many people, male and female, continue to support this idea for variousreasons, but there are as many ~ perhaps more ~ who no longer regard these attributes as important for a woman to be respected. The argument here is that regardless of one's private behaviour, every individual is entitled to respect as a human person.

In this sense, young women making a choice to dress in ways which may have once been considered provocative have been informed by feminist theories of equity in behaviour and outcome ~ the old 'we are all essentially equal as people regardless of our differences' argument.

This is not something 'feminists' or 'feminism' per se has any real control over. Once an idea is in the world, it is open to use, intrerpretation and even mis-use, by anyone for any purpose.

While I personally don't believe that signing on as a prostitute or wearing a plunging neckline is sufficient to establish one's feminist credentials, I am also of a generation where such arguments were approached differently. And, I can understand the arguments that are presented.

For example, I find it impossible to refute the logic that regardless of what person 'a' wears, person 'b' has no right to assault them. If that were NOT true, men with comb-overs would be regularly beaten in the public streets.

Also, I have the opinion of men that they are entirely capable of being fully responsible for their behaviour, and that they choose to misbehave and are not driven to it by nature, genetics or 'instinct'. To believe otherwise would be to say that men are too dangerous to walk free in the world, so we'd better lock them all away, which is patently ridiculous.

Of course, it's also impossible to downplay the effect of the image makers of media and advertising on the behaviour of all people exposed to them, an effect which undercuts many philosophies and ideals as well as feminist ones.

OK, gotta go ... will try to respond further a little later ...

Cheers :-)

Answer 4

There's nothing wrong on a human body, no matter if stunningly gorgeous or simply the regular body of a regular Jane (or Joe). The matter is when the body is turned into a form of currency, something to be sold or used to achieve, to get, at the cost of the soul who's actually controlling such body.
Ok, you're a man, I'm a man. We can stay hours here blaming women because they accept such system, but aren't we actually the ones who actually tell women that they have to be always pretty and stylish, aren't we the ones that between seeing an anchorwoman talking about politics and women awareness and Paris Hilton lipsyncing and shaking her booty actually keep seeing her?
Aren't we the boys telling young girl that if only they wore less, they talked less, they walked on higher heels and with shorter skirts, we could love them more?
Aren't we the ones calling names the ones who refuse such system, and pushing into fame and money the ones who accept to sell their bodies?

Yes, ultimately the choice is for women. But actually we gave them a hell of choice.

Answer 5

Very good point; this needed to be said. As a lifelong feminist, I've never understood how the objectification of women is supposed to empower us. Any feminist I've seen in defense of pornography and porn's influence on pop culture and clothing seems to think that it is consistent with our values because women VOLUNTARILY dress like porn stars.
People absurdly seem to equate women's baring it all with female sexual empowerment. If honest sexuality in all its forms was being marketed, that would be different. But for modern women- bank presidents and CEO's- to totter around on high heels and short-skirted business suits displaying their breast implants is the very definition of absurd hypocrisy. Modern women have bought into the absurd idea that pushing it up, sucking it in, painting it on, etc. is something they should do FOR THEMSELVES ("because they're worth it!") when in reality this is a marketing tool used to make billions while simultansouly drawing attention away from women's voices and opinions and instead placing it on their looks.

It's interesting to note, though, that states of dress have always been indicatoions of the power structure. For instance, black house slaves would serve dinner fully naked to the fully-dressed master and his guests.

Answer 6

I think the more women covered up, the more they would be expected to cover up. I shouldn't have to wear a burka because men can't control their own emotions. The fact of women having to wear burkas implies they're property also. Only allowed to be seen by their husbands.

Answer 7

honestly? that objectification has little to do with what you are wearing. I have been leered at and catcalled in the states when I was wearing baggy jeans and a huge t-shirt. I looked like I was wearing a huge sack and I still got treated in this manner. Here in Jordan, it also does not matter. even the women wearing the niqab (face veil) get catcalled here.
I have spoken to Iranian women about this subject as well. As Im sure you know, in that country women are forced by law to wear a huge black cloak called a chardor because otherwise they are too sexually tempting to men. According to the author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" who I have spoken to, the sexual harrasment on the street actually got worse when the forced covering started.

the logic you are using here leads very quickly to abdicating men of any responsibility for their actions towards women. It is the same logic used to enforce veiling in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

edit: if you like I can send you my list of sources on the subject of clothing choices within Muslim communities. Im writing my thesis on it.

Answer 8

What do you mean by dressing provocatively? Different cultures have different ideas about provocative wear. I don't know about you but I would rather see women be able to choose what they want to wear even if it's too provocative for my tastes than have to wear what they do in parts of the Middle East and Afghanistan. In those areas, women have to cover everything, including their faces. They can be whipped for showing a wrist or an ankle. I don't want to see women being forced to dress like that because of the idea that men are animals and can't control themselves. Those clothes are hot and heavy and the women literally faint or vomit from not being able to breathe fresh air. That's because they have to breathe through mesh coverings over their faces.

Answer 9

Can we 86 the puritanism?

For God's sake, I don't want to live in a world where it's bad for women to show a little skin. Liking it doesn't mean that I only think of women as sex objects.

Answer 10

Are you saying that women who dress provocatively deserve to be objectified? I'm not so sure I would go that far. (That's like saying a woman who wears a miniskirt deserves it if she gets raped.) Some of those women have insecurities, and some do it because they think that's how their "supposed to look" according to what they see in the media. (Have you ever taken a stroll through a women's clothing section in a department store?) Some are young girls who's immaturity may be a precipitating factor in the reason why they do this. To lump all women who "dress provocatively" into one category and then demean them all is a rather distasteful act in itself. It's very judgmental. And to say that anti-feminist women "don't dress provocatively" is also a mistake. Women who lack self-respect lack it for many reasons, some of which really aren't their own fault. Nor may they be completely aware of it. It's not justifiable for you to judge them all so harshly.

EDIT: As far as your "pre-marital" sex question goes, I doubt that the mother's clothing choices are going to be the deciding factor for whether or not her daughter has pre-marital sex. There's a lot more that goes in to making a choice like that. Once again you are passing judgment rather quickly. It sounds like you are saying that a daughter is going to engage in pre-marital sex because what...her mother is a "slut" (there's your judgment) because she wears provocative clothing? And if the mother is a "slut" (not saying she is, that's what you are implying though), then the daughter is automatically going to be one as well? That's quite an assumptive leap you're making. And it leaves a lot of room for error.

EDIT: It also sounds like you are blaming women for men's objectification of women. Where's the responsibility truly lie? And, yes, a woman can be objectified without "showing off her assets." Happens all the time. I'm sure you must realize this, but let me remind you: women's "assets" stick out regardless of what they wear. Even if we all walked around in garbage bags, some things would still be "apparent", and there will still be people who objectify. Not all men objectify women. But those who do will find ways to do it, and make up all sorts of excuses/justifications for behavior that they know is wrong. Stop giving those kinds of people reason to think that what they are doing is "a.o.k." and that it's someone else's fault.