Thanks,
Jim Mirkalami

PS: I am a single dad

And since that wasn’t really a clarification (they tend to be shorter)

shorter Mickle:

saying women objectify themselves, full stop. implies that the choice is made in a vacuum and among lots of other, equally attainable options.

Within feminism, the implication is never assumed in the abstract, but often needs to be addressed in practical terms since we self-labeled feminists tend to b privileged in other ways and so don’t always bother to see how other’s choices are limited.

saying that women can’t objectify themselves, full stop. implies that either such forces are always overwhelming (making self-reflection futile) or that any choice that knowingly results in objectification negates the wrongness of objectification, either through being a paradox or the victim deserving it.

Within feminism, this implication is assumed in the abstract as well as being applied to real situations, but less so than outside feminsim.

IMHO, both these assumptions need addressing within feminism and without, but in different ways. The second assumption needs to be addressed directly because the very idea that self-objectification cannot negate it’s wrongness is not widely accepted. The first needs to be dealt with by talking about the limited choices of particular groups and the privilege of white feminism, as it’s the reality and not the hypothetical that is being rejected.

There’s a difference between saying people have limited choices and saying that they don’t have any choices at all. Whomever you were critiquing, you were stating a lot of absolutes.

And, as I said before, there’s a difference between critiquing the act and critiquing the person. In order to fight for better choices, or even make the best choice from limited options, we need to be able to critique the act. One doesn’t simply excuse women who use slurs like “slut” to refer to other women simply because culture encourages women to do so – no matter their age, race, orientation, earnings, etc.

A lot of this concern, be it from within feminism or without, over the porn culture seems to me to be nothing more than hand-wringing over supposed “good girls” gone bad. (Good girls being culturally defined as pretty white girls with money.) Few of these critiques ever focus on the real struggles of women whose only choices are sex work or starvation, and yet they are usually used to paint all women who participate in objectification with the same accusatory brush.

I disagree about the “within feminism” part, but only in terms of degrees. We’ve internalized a lot of it too, and so tend to adopt the same language and assumptions – unless we are specifically addressing the subject, which does happen, but definitely not often enough. I think that feminism is better equipped for recognizing it than mainstream culture, but that both need a lot of work. And when it comes to why women make such choices, I think feminism goes too far the other way sometimes and assumes that such choices are never made for good reasons unless they are the result of not having better choices.

No woman would need to blow her boss in order to keep her job if the culture (and her boss) didn’t treat her like an object……

True. To clarify, the reason why some of your statements bug me is because they echo some of the arguments I’ve gotten into recently on other threads about why rape should only ever be used to refer to acts that are (or should be) punishable by law. One of the interesting – and infuriating – things about sexual harassment is that if one gives in to such degrading pressure and does decide to “blow” one’s boss, the boss is often not guilty of any greater crime than harassment, despite having used threats to force sex. The fact that consent was not freely given is pretty much never recognized. (Since most people here – and there – see the logic of how that’s wrong, that isn’t my main point.)

Even more than that, the implication that one doesn’t have agency or that one doesn’t participate in one’s own objectification makes the decision to submit to sex to be a lesser choice than what it is.

In cases where it’s a sacrifice for others, pretending that one does not make the choice to consent to be treated (albeit temporarily) as an object treats the act as something other than a sacrifice. You may not see it that way, but remember that the cultural narrative is that there is no “good” reason for making such a choice. Acting is if it’s not a choice at all does no more to educate others than acting as if she had all kinds of options would. It renders the sacrifice invisible and makes her a completely powerless victim rather than a victim with only bad options. Or – as evidenced in several discussions about 300, not a victim at all.

In all cases, but especially where it’s a decision of weighing personal risk (or sacrifice for an adult rather than a child, such as in 300), it suggests that any woman who submits is not really raped. Despite having agreed to sex only because of threats, most women who submit to sex because of harassment have a weaker case, not a stronger one. This is because the cultural narrative is that rape is always the worst thing you can do to a woman (short of murder, and not always even that). It’s considered an oxymoron to say one submitted to rape (in the absence of physical force or threats). Arguing that one cannot objectify themselves (versus arguing that self-objectification is the result of external pressure) is the same sort of argument, and gives weight to the idea that one cannot submit to rape. Especially when your examples of submitting to the pressure to objectify oneself are also examples of submitting to rape.

All of which contributes to why many women who submit to rape refuse to call it rape and helps to support arguments that there are clear lines between rape and harassment/objectification, rather than it being a spectrum of behavior. After all, the idea that one cannot submit to rape is the main reason why.

(So, mostly, I’m arguing semantics, not intent. But I’m doing so because I think it’s important, not because I want to nitpick.)

I don’t see what’s wrong with admitting that “agency” is largely the purview of middle class white women, that the poorer you are, the fewer choices you actually make. When these critiques of women participating in “raunch culture” or porn culture come along, they tend to ignore women who are so economically disadvantaged that they have few alternatives to participating in their own objectification. If your choice is literally “blow some guy for a few bucks or starve to death” you don’t consider yourself to be full of agency.

As a poor woman and sometime sex worker, I find this navel-gazing (borderline slut shaming actually) over privileged white girls participation in porn culture especially alienating. A lot of this concern, be it from within feminism or without, over the porn culture seems to me to be nothing more than hand-wringing over supposed “good girls” gone bad. (Good girls being culturally defined as pretty white girls with money.) Few of these critiques ever focus on the real struggles of women whose only choices are sex work or starvation, and yet they are usually used to paint all women who participate in objectification with the same accusatory brush.

Critiquing women who participate in the culture of objectification (whether they can rightly be ascribed agency or not) really does take the focus away from the culture itself. No woman would need to blow her boss in order to keep her job if the culture (and her boss) didn’t treat her like an object, no woman would need to kiss other girls for male approval if the culture (and the men nearby) didn’t treat her and all woman like porn objects.

my comment went away in a puff of smoke.

shorter version:

Saying that women can’t objectify themselves denies women agency, ignores the fact that we are part of the patriarchy as well, and brushes aside women’s experiences. The fact that I put make-up on because of external pressure is not the only important part of the process. It’s important to remember that in order to do things like the make-up bit properly, I have to learn to make myself an object in my own eyes. It’s important to remember this because a lot of the patriarchal pressure to be an object comes to us via other women, who have learned to look at themselves as objects as well, and because the harm comes not just from how other people view us, but how we learn to value ourselves.

Plus, one can encourage dissent without blaming those who are unable to dissent.

I’m not comfortable with blaming other women because they don’t have access to other tools with which to bargain for power, or don’t have enough education of other tools. The woman who feels the need to dress sexy so she’ll get ahead at work is trying to negotiate for power, if her boss sees her as some sort of sex toy that types it isn’t her fault but his. She’s not making herself into an object, others are doing that to her.

The problem is not women who participate, the problem is a cultural narrative that says women are objects. The problem is that women ever need to participate in that narrative in order to negotiate for power.