Sexual objectification & 'self-respect'

[More Fire for the People]

A lot of American public intellectuals and artists from all across the political spectrum criticise society in general and hip-hop in particular for the sexual objectification of women.

Artists like Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige talk about how women need to gain 'self-respect' by denying 'humilitation' in sexuality and by avoiding promiscious sex or even advocating abstinence.

Cornel West considers this a kind of nihilism hailing from imperialist attitudes - objectification of peoples abroad strengthens the objectification of women at home.

Yet none of these people actually state what sexual objectification is and what's wrong with it. Wiki says '[s]exual objectification is, in some circumstances, the fetishistic act of regarding a person as an object for erotic purposes.' So people see other people in a seductive manner in a way that stimulates sexual attraction. The critics of the sexual objectification of women seem to think that the step forward is a step backward to a society that only allows sexuality within the confines of marriage and behind closed doors.

In my opinion, the step forward would be a society that embraces human sexuality between consenting persons — the creation of people as sexual subjects: openess about sexuality, tolerance and acceptance of 'alternative' sexual behaviours, and sex-as-a-dialogue.

Opinions? Comments?

[TC]

I agree. The notion that 'male gaze' and lust "sexually objectify", as in, degrade and humiliate, women, is extraordinarily reactionary and insulting to heterosexual women as it presumes they have no sexual agency.

This is an example of where people claiming to be "feminists" are in fact working against the gains of the women's liberation movement and for a paternalist treatment of women. Its classic social conservatism re-branded for a left-leaning audience; an ultimate betrayal of the genuine feminist agenda of gender equality.


Being able to express oneself as a sexual and desirable being is empowering not degrading, it makes someone more of a full person not more of an object, and this is ultimately what the anti-sex female identitarians are working against along with their evangelical and islamist allies.

[YSR]

I agree with both of you, but with one addendum. I think it's important to note that in our society, women and men are judged differently and there exist different socially-constructed power relations between them. Men are given power over women (economic, social) which plays itself out in sexual situations.

So I'd like to problematize your denunciation of "anti-sex female identitarians." While surely the Andrea Dworkins of the world are playing into the hands of cultural conservatives, we can't just let the feminist project be one of sexual libertarianism ie Camille Paglia. Acknowledging the sexual agency of women is important to advancing the cause of equality. But throwing away the fact that there are gendered power relations in society simply because the radical feminists think that as well is a bit of the "baby with the bathwater" perspective. We should be fighting to eliminate those power relations, but refusing to acknowledge that they exist veers close to a "blame the victim" kind of feminism (particularly in regards to rape).

Not that I'm accusing anyone here of holding that type of perspective, but it's one that I've run into and I think it's not well thought through.

[BobKKKindle$]

Being able to express oneself as a sexual and desirable being is empowering not degrading, it makes someone more of a full person not more of an object, and this is ultimately what the anti-sex female identitarians are working against along with their evangelical and islamist allies.

Don't you agree, though, that the idea of conscious sexual expression and vitalism is only empowering and non-alienating if it is something that is done voluntarily and not in connection with any economic transaction? Marx recognized that Capitalism tends to turn every form of human activity into a commodity, and this is certainly the case with Sex. The characterisation of Women as sexual objects through and as a result of stripping as a form of wage-labour, for example, would generally be understood to be coercive because it arises from a need to secure an income with which to survive - although other women do apparently choose to strip dance or do similar forms of 'bodily expression' simply as an end unto itself; as something that is creative and empowering.

I can somewhat understand criticism of the sexual objectification of Women, even if one does not take into account how it relates to Capitalism, because in objectifying women in this manner there exists a danger that people will come to percieve women as nothing more than Sex objects; they will not recognize other important elements of their personality and personal identity.

[TC]

I think it's important to note that in our society, women and men are judged differently and there exist different socially-constructed power relations between them.

I think its extremely reductionistic to speak of ‘women’ and ‘men’ in general in terms of power relations, because different individual women and different individual men occupy different positions with regard to socio-economic power in society.

For instance, while I believe that female teenagers under the age of majority are typically judged differently than male teenagers when it comes to issues around sex and personal autonomy, (teenagers being an extremely disempowered socio-econcomic group thoroughly subjected to patriarchal family constraints), does not then follow that male and female unmarried middle aged tenured academics are judged differently around issues of sex and personal autonomy or that they have different power relations between them.

This is because sexism like all other forms of institutional social discrimination is rooted in the material relationship to the economy not gender or race... discrimination on the basis of gender and race can only take place when underlying material power differentials exist, and these exist on the basis of class (not the crude general sense of the term, but class as in the precise economic relationship, something that two people of an identical job description might not share identically) divisions disproportionately along gender and race lines.


Men are given power over women (economic, social) which plays itself out in sexual situations.

No they aren’t. Particular men are giving power over particular women due to the financial dependent status of children on fathers and wives on husbands, that is the socio-economic institution of patriarchy as it exists in capitalist economies...men in general are not given power over women in general, that’s a mystical claim that imposes the category of ‘men’ and ‘women’ metaphysically with disregard to the actual power dynamics that exist in class divided society.


So I'd like to problematize your denunciation of "anti-sex female identitarians."

LOL I don’t think you’re using the term “problematize” correctly but you get brownie points for trying to use technical sociology/culture theory language.


While surely the Andrea Dworkins of the world are playing into the hands of cultural conservatives,

No, they are the cultural conservatives.


we can't just let the feminist project be one of sexual libertarianism ie Camille Paglia.

The feminist project is the same as the communist project: human emancipation. This means maximizing personal social liberty. Anything else is contrary to both feminism and communism.


Acknowledging the sexual agency of women is important to advancing the cause of equality.

You seem confused. In societies where genders are equal or virtually equal, such as a western university campus or Havana, women are free to exercise their sexual agency unimpeded. In societies like Catherine McKinnon’s fantasy dystopia or Kandahar where men are vastly more power than women, women are prevented fro exercising their sexual agency, are made to dress ‘modestly’ or cover themselves up so that their sexuality isn’t for themselves to express publicly with as many men as they like but reserved as merely reproductive objects; and like all unequal power relations this is reinforced with an ideological position, specifically that male-female sexual relations consist of a predatory male and a passive female who takes little or no sexual pleasure and feels ‘degraded’ and therefore has to be protected from male sexuality as she is presumed to have none of her own.

In countries like America which have both strong patriarchal institutions and large numbers of socio-economically independent women, there is a tension between the reactionary ideology of the islamists, evangelicals, and “radical ‘feminists’” who wish to deny female sexual agency in order to turn back the clock on feminist progress, and the progressive social ideology of left-liberals, Marxists and socialist and pro-sex feminists who want to consolidate and expand existing social gains.


But throwing away the fact that there are gendered power relations in society simply because the radical feminists think that as well is a bit of the "baby with the bathwater" perspective.

No one is “throwing away” that fact. Read the title of the thread okay, the subject is not “gendered power relations”, the subject is “sexual objectification & ‘self-repect’”, a mythical terminology used to repress women sexually that has nothing to do with gendered power relations.

Marxists understand that social power comes from two interchangeable things: money and force. So called “sexual objectification” doesn’t involve either, what it involves is embarrassing anti-sex female identitarians reminding them that women are sexual beings and seen as such, just like men have always been. (kind of an awful thing to be reminded of, in fact, if you hate men)


We should be fighting to eliminate those power relations, but refusing to acknowledge that they exist

You can’t fight against something that you have no material analysis of.

Simply because something pisses you off does not mean that its exercising power over you in any way, and claiming that ‘power relations’ exist in places they don’t, isn’t “fighting” them, its undermining the real struggle for social equality by misdirecting people away from it.

Telling a group of women that the reason they’re socially weaker than men isn’t because they’re doing more unpaid domestic labour and less paid work than their husbands, but because men like porn and look at them sexually, is a bit like telling a bunch of German workers than the reason they’re socially weaker than their employers isn’t because their employers pay them money than they produce, but because some of their employers are greedy Jews. In both instances, legitimate complaints by a group experiencing social alienation are misdirected by people claiming to be “feminists” or “socialists” into a reactionary agenda that undermines the social aspirations of the very groups they claim to be advancing. That’s what reactionaries do.


veers close to a "blame the victim" kind of feminism (particularly in regards to rape).

There’s no such thing as a “blame the victim” kind of feminism, rather there’s a kind of feminism that invents victimization when none exists, and since you brought it up, that also happens particularly in regards to rape (specifically in trying to broaden the definition of ‘rape’ to include various types of consensual sex, or sometimes all consensual sex, or dismiss simple consent as meaningful...as a consequence you actually have people thinking they were or might have been “raped” when they in fact were not, which is both a dangerous weakening of the term and concept of ‘rape’ and undermines the responsibility and therefore agency of the people being made to think that way).

Getting people to try to internalize a concept of themselves as a victim is a great way to disempower them and misdirect their feelings of alienation.

Its been a very long time since anyone really blamed actual rape victims, and rape and expanding the definition of rape has since become a favourite topic for female identitarians to obsess about; which if you think about it, makes perfect sense: focusing on rape allows them to demonize male sexuality as predatory and make women feel collectively like inherent victims.

[TC]

Don't you agree, though, that the idea of conscious sexual expression and vitalism is only empowering and non-alienating if it is something that is done voluntarily and not in connection with any economic transaction?

Thats a totally different and unrelated point though.

The concept of "sexual objectification" is the assertion that merely by considering a particular woman sexually, men degrade women in general.

Porn actors themselves maybe engaged in alienated activity, just like all employees under capitalism but that doesn't mean that their customers participate in sexual objectification.


Marx recognized that Capitalism tends to turn every form of human activity into a commodity, and this is certainly the case with Sex.

Actually its not and Marx and Engels said exactly the opposite in the case of sex. For Marx and Engels, capitalism actually breaks down the property relations aspects of sex which are dominate in feudalism.


The characterisation of Women as sexual objects through and as a result of stripping as a form of wage-labour, for example, would generally be understood to be coercive because it arises from a need to secure an income with which to survive - although other women do apparently choose to strip dance or do similar forms of 'bodily expression' simply as an end unto itself; as something that is creative and empowering.

No one disputes that stripping as a form of wage labour is alienating just as every other wage labour is alienating, but the anti-sex radical feminists would not claim that stipping is just like any other wage labour so thats not whats at issue here. The question is whether its degrading to other women, whether it objectifies women in general as a gender, whether unpaid women who merely choose to dress in a way that men think is sexy are demonstrating a lack of "self respect". This is clearly not the case, and it is unrelated to your point.


because in objectifying women in this manner there exists a danger that people will come to percieve women as nothing more than Sex objects; they will not recognize other important elements of their personality and personal identity.

I disagree, i think thats a sexist assumption that is supremely demeaning to both men and women.