This is also true. If your citation doesn't actually source its info it isn't a particularly useful citation.

Christ almighty, why is it we can't have nice things? I'm locking this for the time being because our nosedive into Shitburgh has broken the speed of sound and us staffpeople need to confer to figure out how to pull up.

Dude I know you're goin' through a rough time right now and all that but seriously that's never been An Okay Thing To Do.

Just wanted to make that abundantly clear while we're hashing this thing out upstairs.

The current mod consensus is thus:
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If these cannot be followed, especially #2, we'll have to ask you to move on to other subjects.

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So, on the subject of Seil's earlier thing about intimate partner violence here is an interesting link. Kit found it and I'm still reading through it but basically it talks about the troubles with existing statistics for intimate partner violence and what some of their statistics are.

Of note...

TL;DR: The 40% statistic is likely way off, but what the actual statistic is is debateable just because we're lacking the proper tools to measure this stuff accurately and meaningfully.

I want to say I have not been following this. I quickly saw where this was going and with all the crap in my life right now I didn't want to have to defend myself.

Though I popped back in to give a very simple elaboration of a poorly written opening post heavily influenced by depression.

My only point was this. Objectification is not as simple as "men are objectifying women" its "everyone is objectifying everyone". Our culture has plenty of problems on all sides with how it views relationships and sex. I just wanted to say we shouldn't lose sight of this by making blanket statements blaming all the problems on one group while acting like another is completely innocent and never does the same.

I understand you having a lot of crap going on in your life and needing to vent, and I sympathize with that. I just don't particularly like men calling women hypocrites for being guilty of one thing and complaining about an entirely different issue. I appreciate you acknowledging the opening post was poorly written.

As I'm pretty sure I said earlier, if beauty standards got ya down, I sympathize. I really truly do. We're all subject to beauty standards, and these standards are so wrapped up in -isms they're a fucking Christmas present of garbage.

But that's still different than objectification. Women actually do contribute to objectification, too. (Objectification of women, and also objectification according to race and even trans status) But you gotta lay the blame at the one's primarily responsible. Industries run by and catering to straight men are the prime sources of this objectification. It becomes uncritically consumed by the audience, and that consumption feeds the machine that continues this system.

When women are objectified, it is done for straight men. It is done primarily (but not exclusively) by men, most of them straight. So when you talk about objectification, yes, people are going to blame men, because men are the ones responsible on both ends. The ways women contribute are a form of internalized misogyny, which is a symptom of the root problem.

As for beauty standards, I feel like while they are more strict for women, they are more even-handed in terms of gender than the issue of objectification (at least for cis folks). Still, these beauty standards benefit certain groups over others. i.e. Culture at large considers me ugly for perceived masculine traits. The only way in which that culture deems me attractive is as a fetish object for straight men.

Additionally, our beauty standards are very white centric. Where making black women more palatable to our culture at large involves lightening their skin with photoshop. Where the beauty of black people is often centered around exotifying them.

This stuff intersects, too. I'm "ugly" because I'm trans and I don't pass as cis, but as a fetish object I'm considered more attractive than many others on account of being white and skinny. So, even tho I'm trans I still benefit a lot from thin privilege and white privilege.

Which doesn't invalidate anybody feeling down about personal appearance or wanting to tear down beauty standards or being upset at people uncritically indulging beauty standards, but I think in any discussion about beauty standards this shit is important to keep in mind.

No, you lay blame on everyone contributing. Just because you are not part of the demographic you deem responsible does not make you immune to blame. If you are a woman and are being sexist, its still wrong. You are still part of the problem. Likewise just because women are the primary victims doesn't mean men cant be victims too.

I do not group people together like that. Specific men are objectifying women, not all men are responsible. Just because not all men are responsible doesn't mean there aren't men at fault.

I apply the same to women. Specific women are objectifying men, not all women are responsible. Just because not all women are responsible doesn't mean there aren't women at fault.

Now that is a good point. I meant only to imply that the objectification of men and women are different, and what most people interpret as objectification is really Sexual Objectification, which that lies primarily on women. Definitely not only men objectify, its simply not as prevalent.

Though Sexual Objectification is certainly not the only type of objectifying. People being seen as a source of income, or money, I would imagine is seen all the time. Not only do we have issues with objectification, we also have different kinds of objectifying to intermix. With this plus this being a sensitive topic for some, this can definitely lead to hurt feelings.


However, I kind of want to explore women objectifying men, simply because its a lesser known quantity. Let's take a look at someone that inspires feminism. Marilyn Monroe.

Here is what is interesting about Marilyn Monroe, a whole conversation could be started was that was she actually a feminist or was she actually just a sex object and showed what damage could be done by the male gaze. However, the people that pose that she was a feminist make an interesting proposal that we will examine.

One of the contributing reasons she was such an icon was because the life she had was one she built. She was abused as a child, lived in orphanages, and through all of that she built a life of wealth and acting, using her sexuality to be liberating and empowering. She didn't shy away from her sexuality, she embraced it and used it for herself.

So does that mean she was used and an object, or was she strong and empowered?

Let's take another look at something completely different. So, we all know about Girls Gone Wild, in which people go out, viewing young girls and encouraging them into lewd acts. There was something interesting though, as when people apart of this, both crew and the ladies involved, this was never viewed as derogatory, never actually turning girls into sex objects. They argued that this was women taking control over their own sexuality, they were the ones that decided who they were, both sexual identity and not, and chose what to do with it. This was not them being forced into sex objects, and being railed into certain roles, but instead taking charge, and choosing for a moment, for whatever personal reasons, they could be this way.

Does that mean these women were objectified, or does it mean because they chose to take charge of their own sexuality, they are in fact rising above it?

You can't have a person without some kind of sexual identity. Whether they are homosexual, extremely promiscuous, completely virgin and untouched, that is ultimately a part of who they are. A woman being in charge and choosing what she does with her sexuality is a part of her. It is not the only part, this should always be remembered, but you do just as much harm to ignore it completely as you would to define her completely from it.

I could very well see this line of thinking making women view others as objects as well. This as we stand now is certainly not the case, but if we don't consider it, could we potential be encouraging women to simply start objectifying men as a way to promote feminism? If we are, is that certainly the best way to go about it?

Well, its a thought anyway.

I guess it's more like, column A is not equal to column B in terms of volume or quantity [of objectification] but I don't think anyone really felt like the reverse didn't happen. Just that you don't often hear about women glorifying the murder of men because they couldn't get laid.

No comments from the peanut gallery please. :p