The Internet's 'Misogyny Problem' - real or imagined?

[Timsup2nothin]

Disagreed; that should be "a lack of interest in their other attributes".

Objectification, at its simplest, is taking a person, ignoring the vast majority of what make them a person, and focusing only to what they contribute "aesthetically" to your life. It's the same as you'd treat a painting, or a work of art. Not as a person, but as an object whose sole purpose is to be looked at (and admired)

In that light, holding someone in contempt, while bad, isn't nearly as bad as not caring one bit about them beyond the physical appearance. If you think someone is a stupid jerk, then at least you have an opinion on them as a person; you care what they're like as a person, beyond their physical appearance. If, on the other hand you couldn't care less about personality and intelligence, because all that you care about is what they look like, then you are reducing them to the rank of an object.

I objectify all kinds of people. Not that I 'don't care' what they are like as a person, just that I have no way of knowing so it makes no difference.

Clint Eastwood. Like his movies, though most of them seem to be written from the 'what would the Clint Eastwood persona be like if he was a <fill in blank> so I can't really say if he can actually act. What kind of person is he? Beats me.

Nick Foles. Quarterback of my favorite football team. Do I know the first thing about him as a person? Well, no.

Miss whatever month. Do I really read the little blubs about her favorite food or where she thinks would be a romantic place for a date? Does anyone? Is any of it really even something she said herself? Do skin mags even put that stuff in there any more? Are there even skin mags any more, or are they a casualty of the internet era?

GWBush. I've met two people who have actually been in the same room with him and say that he is 'forcibly likeable' to the point that you just can't help but be totally feeling like best old buddies from the second he says hello. I personally can't say one thing about him as a person, but have very fixed opinions about him as an 'object' occupying the presidency.

List endless list. The world contains far more objects than people.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I should add that if you want to say that women are judged too often and too harshly on the sexual attractiveness of their appearance, then I'm with you all the way. It doesn't follow, however, that judging women on the sexual attractiveness of their appearance is inherently misogynistic or, indeed, wrong for any other reason. Context is everything.

 

[Traitorfish]

Disagreed; that should be "a lack of interest in their other attributes".

Objectification, at its simplest, is taking a person, ignoring the vast majority of what make them a person, and focusing only to what they contribute "aesthetically" to your life. It's the same as you'd treat a painting, or a work of art. Not as a person, but as an object whose sole purpose is to be looked at (and admired).

I'm not sure this is true. My understanding is that objectification requires that other attributes are not merely set aside, but actually repressed, a gaze which reduces the other to these attributes and nothing more, which denies not only the immediate relevance but the existence of these other attributes. If I refer to "that person over there, with the blue shirt", I am temporarily reducing someone to a single characteristic, a blue shirt, but I am not denying the complexity of their person, I'm merely leaving it unspoken. An objecting gaze requires that other characteristics are repressed, that the person is reduced in my gaze to an object of utility, and I don't think that we can infer such a gaze from the fact that it is directed towards a picture of a woman with a nice figure.

It's worth remembering, the concept of "objectification" as employed in popular discourse goes back to the existential phenomenologists, who weren't so much concerned with virtue as they were with society and how people relate to each other. Sartre discusses objectification with the example of a waiter in a coffee shop: we reduce the waiter from a complex person to a coffee-delivery mechanism, an act of objectification. We don't simply ignore his other characteristics, as we would a person on the street, we repress them: we don't want to know if he's anxious or depressed or sick or even, really, if he's happy or relieved, and would find the revelation of these realities to be uncomfortable, even distressing, we just want a deferential smile as he brings us our drink. Likewise his manager regards him as such, and his employer, and even his co-workers, he is surrounded by people who do not reflect his humanity back to him, because they are not regarding him as human. And what makes this troubling for Sartre is that our objectifying gaze is realised by an institution, the coffee shop, and by an entire social order, captialism, which oblige the waiter to accept this reduction, to reduce himself to the role of coffee-delivery mechanism. (In practice, people are quite capable of breaking down these boundaries, but they're not really supposed to, the system isn't set up with that sort of transgression in mind. Certain kinds of transgression, such as the camaraderie of workers asserting common humanity against management, are actually seen to threaten the system.) And this realisation is not simply an elaboration upon but crucial to the initial objectification gaze, because it's the possibility (and, often, inevitability) of this realisation that transforms the objectifying gaze from pathological to typical, from the gaze of a sociopath to the gaze of a normal person going about their business, and that's makes it a social issue rather than a problem of merely personal conduct.

De Beauvoir built upon this concept of objectification to discuss sexual objectification, the reduction of women to objects of sexual utility. The sexually objectifying gaze doesn't merely apprecating the sexual utility of a body while setting aside the other characteristics of its owner - de Beauvoir was herself bisexual, after all- but rejecting the existence or at least significance of those other characteristics. And as for Sartre, this becomes troubling not simply because of the gaze, the gaze does not in itself mean anything more than "this one guy, he's a jerk", but the realisation of this gaze through a sexist society. Sexual objectification isn't just a matter of impure thoughts (and that's what the popular definition tends to reduce it to, Chrsitian sexual guilt for a secular age), but reproducing a society and an understanding of society which obliges women to set aside their own personhood to satisfy male expectations of sexual utility. And I'm not sure that this what we're engaged on, in our admittedly less-than-consisently-classy threads, that we're actively reproducing a social order which reduces women to objects of sexual utility. If anything, a lot of the posts there read more as girlfriend-fantasies, all the selfies and celebrity crushes, and while there's a lot problematic with some of those tropes, a lot that can and has been said about the way men create idealised partners (and that it may even take the form of an unusually sophisticated act of objectification, the construction of the woman as an object of emotional utility that requires the appearance of complex personhood), it's really another issue, and one that doesn't require the women being presented to be scantily-clad or made-up or even, necessarily, particularly attractive, all of which seem to be assumptions underlying the allegations of objectification made so far.

It's a lot to lay at our feet, basically, is what I'm saying in my typically long-winded, over-intellectualised style.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's a lot to lay at our feet, basically, is what I'm saying in my typically long-winded, over-intellectualised style.

If I may say so, you outdid even yourself with this one.

 

[Evie]

TL;DR (no, actually I did read)

I'll concede that of course, there are situations where a person may be temporarily reduced to physical characteristics without any objectification implied (such as describing them for easier recognition). Perhaps my choice of term wasn't best, but it doesn't seem to me we're that far apart. The core point is the reduction of a person to their physical characteristics. It's not contempt for their other characteristics, just a decision to treat them as if they didn't *have* any other characteristics. And objectified woman is neither smart nor stupid; neither nice nor a jerk as far as the people doing the objectification are concerned. She's just a body.

In that light I stand by thinking of the various forms of "babe" threads as objectification. These women are most decidedly being reduced to purely physical attributes to be admired without any interest whatsoever in anything beyond the nice body to look at. There is no interest, no viewing them as a person. They're just pretty-looking things whose pictures we share in those thread.

That does not mean EVERY post in the thread is guilty of objectification. I haven't read the whole thread, so I wouldn't make that claim. But the existence of the thread itself, even if used in non-objectifying way by some posters, is part of objectification.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

TL;DR (no, actually I did read)

I'll concede that of course, there are situations where a person may be temporarily reduced to physical characteristics without any objectification implied (such as describing them for easier recognition). Perhaps my choice of term wasn't best, but it doesn't seem to me we're that far apart. The core point is the reduction of a person to their physical characteristics. It's not contempt for their other characteristics, just a decision to treat them as if they didn't *have* any other characteristics. And objectified woman is neither smart nor stupid; neither nice nor a jerk as far as the people doing the objectification are concerned. She's just a body.

In that light I stand by thinking of the various forms of "babe" threads as objectification. These women are most decidedly being reduced to purely physical attributes to be admired without any interest whatsoever in anything beyond the nice body to look at. There is no interest, no viewing them as a person. They're just pretty-looking things whose pictures we share in those thread.

I'd say we are just sharing pretty pictures that happen to be pictures of women. I'm not 'disinterested' in them as people. I would be more than happy to have them over for a 'get to know you' event, and not in hopes of getting them undressed...just because I'm always interested in getting to know people.

But the fact is that I recognize that is about as likely as a meteor punching a hole in my roof just in time for lightning to strike me through it...so from a practical standpoint and through no fault on anyone's part those pictures are nothing but pictures and I'm okay with that. I don't see any reason for anyone to not be okay with that. I can look at a picture of a great wave and know that there is no comparison to surfing too...it's just a picture.

 

[luiz]

TL;DR (no, actually I did read)

I'll concede that of course, there are situations where a person may be temporarily reduced to physical characteristics without any objectification implied (such as describing them for easier recognition). Perhaps my choice of term wasn't best, but it doesn't seem to me we're that far apart. The core point is the reduction of a person to their physical characteristics. It's not contempt for their other characteristics, just a decision to treat them as if they didn't *have* any other characteristics. And objectified woman is neither smart nor stupid; neither nice nor a jerk as far as the people doing the objectification are concerned. She's just a body.

In that light I stand by thinking of the various forms of "babe" threads as objectification. These women are most decidedly being reduced to purely physical attributes to be admired without any interest whatsoever in anything beyond the nice body to look at. There is no interest, no viewing them as a person. They're just pretty-looking things whose pictures we share in those thread.

That does not mean EVERY post in the thread is guilty of objectification. I haven't read the whole thread, so I wouldn't make that claim. But the existence of the thread itself, even if used in non-objectifying way by some posters, is part of objectification.

While they may be objectification, they're not mysogenistic. The exact same is done to men. Objectification and misogenysm are not the same thing.

 

[Winston Hughes]

@Traitorfish

The problem of over-intellectualisation in that post is not yours, but that of the people you're referencing. As is so often the case with that type of self-styled intellectual, they make some small but valid and important points about how people view one another, but then run a whole lot further into unsubstantiated waffle. Sartre in particular is quite brilliant when he keeps it simple, and sets his sights on very limited advancements of understanding (which, after all, is how every important advance is achieved), but churns out reams of self-gratifying gibberish when he starts to build up a head of steam.

 

[brennan]

I would be very surprised to hear that their reason was because of the tendency of the female OT regulars (all one of us; there used to be more, but they're more like 'barely occasional' now, rather than regular) to dismiss them as unworthy of being taken seriously ("You can't be a man! Men don't play Civ! Men don't play computer games! Men don't watch/read science fiction! Why do you think you have a valid opinion on men's fashions - mind your own business!").

Ah,. yes, and my 'attitude' in rejecting the validity of arguments from personal experience is typical of people who say 'women don't play computer games' is it?

Let's face it, while you have called me 'typical' the alleged offence has nothing whatsoever in common with any of the above.

Take a look. Note the circled username. Compare that to the version you keep posting. It's not that hard to spell; most others here can do it...It's a simple thing called "courtesy."

1) It's a simple thing called 'trying really hard to be offended'. 2) Some irony - or possibly hypocrisy - in the little dig about my ability to spell there.

At least one poster on this thread has capitalised the B in Brennan. How offended am I?

I and others here pointed out that you are being rude and dismissive about my posts. Senethro stated that you, a man, are being dismissive of a woman's posts in a thread about misogyny. Nobody actually called you a misogynist.

I'll admit to being a bit sarky, but 'rude and dismissive' is a clear exaggeration and both hypocritical and hilarious coming as it does from someone with red font all over their posts.

It's just a coincidence that the word misogynist in relation to people who disagree with you appeared right after you replied to me is it?

I'm repeating myself because your rebuttal consists of a demonstration of your failure to understand a simple analogy

Right, yeah, citing that there were poor Romans in Rome clearly shows that white men in the UK are a privileged class.

Pre-emptively dismissing as anecdotes is most certainly a crack.

This is a ridiculous assertion. Anecdotes are widely regarded as unacceptable in a quality discussion.

Yo, before I even think about lifting a finger for a guy who looks at the House of Commons and doesn't see sexism, what kind of evidence would you accept?

Gee, if people were engaging honestly here, they might have wondered about this very same question when I posted it myself about ten pages back:

... the debate seems to fetature an awful lot of 'here's a gender divide, therefore there is sexism', which strikes me as affirming the consequent. There's no effort going into demonstrating that the divide is indeed caused by sexism or racism.

In which case it can be clearly seen that shark attacks are the result of misandry amongst the global shark population. Or will people suddenly see the titanic flaw in such reasoning?

There are at least two competing hypotheses here: That any gender divide is caused primarily by sexism; and that gender divides, whilst historically the result of institutionally sexist policies and societies, are rapidly becoming less pronounced with the result that there are other primary causes for the gender divides that we see, such as the over-representation of men in various professions at high levels, which could result from excess competitiveness and assertiveness in males over females.

The real question is how we would use the evidence to determine which of these hypotheses (and others) is the best explanation for what we see in society.

Allow me to invite people to post on topic.

 

[Senethro]

Ah,. yes, and my 'attitude' in rejecting the validity of arguments from personal experience is typical of people who say 'women don't play computer games' is it?

I'll admit to being a bit sarky, but 'rude and dismissive' is a clear exaggeration and both hypocritical and hilarious coming as it does from someone with red font all over their posts.

Right, yeah, citing that there were poor Romans in Rome clearly shows that white men in the UK are a privileged class.

"but 'rude and dismissive' is a clear exaggeration and both hypocritical and hilarious"

Well that didn't take long.

This is a ridiculous assertion. Anecdotes are widely regarded as unacceptable in a quality discussion.

I didn't dispute that (though I might), but the original context was about how the issues in these threads are abstract and removed to the majority of participants. And then at the suggestion of hearing points of view from other people who are actually in the firing line for misogyny you seem to have this kneejerk sarcasm spasm.

Look you should just cop to the lesser charge of being very tone deaf, because trying to logic your way out of very deliberate and possibly targetted sarcasm looks really guilty.

Gee, if people were engaging honestly here, they might have wondered about this very same question when I posted it myself about ten pages back:

Allow me to invite people to post on topic.

Really desperate to drop the zings.

Srsly tho, gender gap itself is enough for me which is why I asked what would be acceptable to you.

 

[Farm Boy]

It's a lot to lay at our feet, basically

Well sure. It is. But don't we lay more than Christian sexual guilt for a secular discussion(I laughed out loud at this one actually) at our own feet all the time? Many guys just like to look at women they find desirable. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with this as its own thing. But expressions of this might contribute to a culture that is more objectifying than it should be. Innocent enough on its own, run through the capitalist filter of marketing and the free and open nature of image boards this desire for content gets one scantily clad images of women with one's sports, one's cars, one's video game discussion boards, and so forth. Images of nearly naked women of high socionormative desirability are just something that comes bonus with many social and economic interactions. Over enough years and repetitions it can seem like one's due, maybe just a bit. And that would be insidious for both men and women alike if there is any truth to it at all. I do know I miss the cheerleaders at Bears games. How much of that is anything I need to stew about internally and how much of that is low baseline interest in football is somewhat up for grabs.

 

[aelf]

Politeness has nothing to do with it. What matters here is addressing the issues from some position other than an assumption that 'the other' is an object of contempt.

Oh, it's just a tangential point. I'm just saying that on the scale of the moderates ('mods', if you like), politeness and civility are more important than right or wrong. The polite apologist for slavery is better than the raving radical feminist.

You're wrong. You're free to think wrong things too though.

You said yourself that your opinion is at least partly based on "the incredibly hostile tone that showed little to no tolerance for any dissent with his proclamations", as if that had anything to do with whether he has a valid point.

See my comment above about moderates and their priorities.

 

[brennan]

I didn't dispute that (though I might), but the original context was about how the issues in these threads are abstract and removed to the majority of participants.

Yes, because no one on this internet site has any knowledge of what goes on on the internet.

I'll admit to being a bit sarky

...trying to logic your way out of very deliberate and possibly targetted sarcasm looks really guilty.

Admits sarcasm, is accused of denying sarcasm.

On what do you base the allegation of 'targetted sarcasm'? Am I not sarcastic to anyone else? Is this just a cheap and entirely baseless attempt at character assassination? Why yes, yes it is.

Srsly tho, gender gap itself is enough for me which is why I asked what would be acceptable to you.

So the gender gap in shark attacks reveals sexism?

It's obvious that gender gaps can have origins other than sexism, which is why I find your position impossible to justify.

In a society in which institutionalised sexism has been completely annihilated in the last century, in which there major news sources have sections dedicated to 'women's issues' and regularly decry anything remotely smelling of sexism, in which feminist publications become best-sellers and feminist causes make the front page of newspapers with overwhelming public support and input from world leaders I am asked to take it as red that sexism is still a major factor in life? I find this hard to swallow, not only that but I find it perverse that in 'Everyday Feminism' after the progress of the last century some imbecile can tell poeple that 'sexism has become normalised'. WTH? Normalised? Are we living in a different reality?

What would lead me to think that sexism is still a major player? That we have better examples of it than the alleged trolling of Anita Sarkeesian for one. That the girls I grew up with hadn't had the exact same choices as me at 16 and 18. That we wouldn't have to resort to 'affirmative action' to get more women into professions where they just don't seem to want to be.

Please note that i'm not saying definitively that i'm right here, but I see a lot of factors that undermine the hypothesis that sexism is the root of every gender divide. We know that male and female brains, not just bodies, are physically differentiated; that men do show up as more assertive in many scenarios; we know that no matter how much affirmative action and encouragement is given there are some occupations that we just can't seem to get women to take an interest - and vice versa.

 

[aelf]

Right, yeah, citing that there were poor Romans in Rome clearly shows that white men in the UK are a privileged class.

Finally you got it, though in a crude form. Took you long enough.

 

[Senethro]

Yes, because no one on this internet site has any knowledge of what goes on on the internet.

first hand experience is valuable and i'd like to hear it

Admits sarcasm, is accused of denying sarcasm.

On what do you base the allegation of 'targetted sarcasm'? Am I not sarcastic to anyone else? Is this just a cheap and entirely baseless attempt at character assassination? Why yes, yes it is.

baseless except for what you wrote

So the gender gap in shark attacks reveals sexism?

this is silly and you know its silly

gender gap is convincing to me because i have a bunch of base assumptions regarding women which is why i asked what evidence youd be willing to consider

In a society in which institutionalised sexism has been completely annihilated in the last century,

an amazing claim, if you know this to be true why are you asking me for the evidence and not presenting your own

in which there major news sources have sections dedicated to 'women's issues' and regularly decry anything remotely smelling of sexism, in which feminist publications become best-sellers and feminist causes make the front page of newspapers with overwhelming public support and input from world leaders I am asked to take it as red that sexism is still a major factor in life? I find this hard to swallow, not only that but I find it perverse that in 'Everyday Feminism' after the progress of the last century some imbecile can tell poeple that 'sexism has become normalised'. WTH? Normalised? Are we living in a different reality?

calling people who disagree with you imbeciles doesn't make you seem worth spending time on

really cant tell if you are just looking for opportunities to be sarcastic or are actually interested

What would lead me to think that sexism is still a major player? That we have better examples of it than the alleged trolling of Anita Sarkeesian for one. That the girls I grew up with hadn't had the exact same choices as me at 16 and 18. That we wouldn't have to resort to 'affirmative action' to get more women into professions where they just don't seem to want to be.

is there evidence for this claim either

Please note that i'm not saying definitively that i'm right here, but I see a lot of factors that undermine the hypothesis that sexism is the root of every gender divide. We know that male and female brains, not just bodies, are physically differentiated; that men do show up as more assertive in many scenarios; we know that no matter how much affirmative action and encouragement is given there are some occupations that we just can't seem to get women to take an interest - and vice versa.

i really dislike biological explanations as theres always some evo-psych justifications from an undergrad behind them

out of interest can you point to a developed/near developed nation in which institutional sexism unambiguously occurs

 

[BenitoChavez]

In a society in which institutionalised sexism has been completely annihilated in the last century, in which there major news sources have sections dedicated to 'women's issues' and regularly decry anything remotely smelling of sexism, in which feminist publications become best-sellers and feminist causes make the front page of newspapers with overwhelming public support and input from world leaders I am asked to take it as red that sexism is still a major factor in life? I find this hard to swallow, not only that but I find it perverse that in 'Everyday Feminism' after the progress of the last century some imbecile can tell poeple that 'sexism has become normalised'. WTH? Normalised? Are we living in a different reality?

Sexism can be all but eliminated on the institutional/societal level but still be exist, or even be common on an individual scale.

Case in point: Apparently United States Senators think its ok to tell a female Senator not to slim down too much because he likes “my girls chubby.”

 

[Manfred Belheim]

You said yourself that your opinion is at least partly based on "the incredibly hostile tone that showed little to no tolerance for any dissent with his proclamations", as if that had anything to do with whether he has a valid point.

In what Thesaurus is "entirely" considered to be a synonym for "partly"? Also, without going back to check, I'm reasonably sure I made it clear that I thought the hostility was just the icing on the cake. Also, it might not have had anything to do with whether HE had a valid point, but it was entirely relevant to my own point which was about how he clearly wasn't accepting of any other definition of the word. I try to say things that I find to be relevant to what I'm saying myself, not to what some other people are saying in other posts. I find things are just clearer that way.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yes, because no one on this internet site has any knowledge of what goes on on the internet.

Assuming that statement was sarcastic, it's rather at odds with your stance on anecdotal evidence isn't it?

 

[aelf]

In what Thesaurus is "entirely" considered to be a synonym for "partly"? Also, without going back to check, I'm reasonably sure I made it clear that I thought the hostility was just the icing on the cake. Also, it might not have had anything to do with whether HE had a valid point, but it was entirely relevant to my own point which was about how he clearly wasn't accepting of any other definition of the word. I try to say things that I find to be relevant to what I'm saying myself, not to what some other people are saying in other posts. I find things are just clearer that way.

Because he never said anything that acknowledged that anything other than his own definition was accepted, widely or otherwise, at all. Nor did he preface anything with "I think", or "as I understand it". Add to that the incredibly hostile tone that showed little to no tolerance for any dissent with his proclamations and voila... I think you're reading a whole level of tolerance, reasonableness and logic into his posts that was actually entirely absent from them.

I said "at least partly". Didn't you see? I mean, looking at what you posted, you marshaled no evidence whatsoever to make your points, instead relying on the same unsound reasoning as people who say "They never said anything to denounce terrorists, so they must be terrorist sympathisers!" So my best guess for your motivation for saying these things is 'butthurt'.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Edit: Forget it.