Do you find this offensive?

[Besswess88]

Someone posted this in a group I am in, and I find it really offensive AIBU?!

No, I don't find it offensive, it's just a bit of silly humour.

Do you find it as offensive when men are objectified by women or is it just when it's women objectified by men?

OP YABU. I always buy the birthday cards that have these type of images on, they are dated. And as other have said there are plenty taking the piss out of men as much as women

Mind you I still love the Carry On films so maybe I have an outdated soh

Same but with me it's On The Buses I still love

Do you find it as offensive when men are objectified by women or is it just when it's women objectified by men?

That's usually explained away on MN by being OK because there isn't a "power balance" and "they aren't oppressed" so yes, that's different and fine.
Apparently

@AwaAnBileYerHeid

Yes I do.

Good old cheeky humour, love it. Too many snowflakes nowadays

Seaside postcard humour is all it is.

Seaside humour also used to include Punch and Judy.

Punch & Judy goes back to the 16th century. Not just 'seaside humour'.

I’m not offended by it but I don’t think it’s funny. Like a Jim Davidson kind of humour.

It’s not offensive. Some people might be offended by ‘saucy’ humour but does that make it offensive?

Isis, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, American cops kneeling on a black man and killing him just because he’s black they are offensive. A smutty joke isn’t offensive. Doesn’t mean you have to like it.

@iklboogeymum

Erm so that makes it ok then?

That we used to sit and watch a puppet beat the shit out of his wife?

“Oh it’s ok it’s from the 16th century poppets” where girls were married off aged 12 and other even more sinister things occurred.

It's sexist and unfunny and yes, it does objectify women, but I don't find it offensive. It would tell me a lot about a man who thought it funny - someone to avoid.

Life must be very hard when you are so easily offended

I don't find it funny but I'm not offended. There would be similar postcards about women oggling men. I don't think it's one sided. Men like boobs... It's hardly a shock. Women openly talk about liking men's bums etc

I studied these style of postcards in a module at uni. One of the criticisms of them isn’t just that they objectify the female with big boobs/bikini on etc. It’s that they mock the other lady - the foolish ‘old’ ‘ugly’ ‘frumpy’ wife for obliviously not realising that her husband is hilariously leching over younger women. The joke is on her. The ugly old woman is the butt of these jokes.

I find it amusing in the context of its time but it is inappropriate in the 21st Century. However I don't think it needs to be taken too seriously.

What does need to be taken seriously is how you feel and have been made to feel about your own breasts. That is sad. DD is possibly similarly endowed a petite young woman who measures 30FF. A really good, well fitted bra has been very helpful both on the context of comfort and appearance.

If you are a great deal larger than that a friend of mine (30 years ago now) had a reduction because she was suffering back and neck problems and constantly had weals over her shoulders due to the straps cutting.

I am sorry unkind comments have made you feel self conscious.

Well the woman appears to have took ownership of her sexuality by starting her own business as a melon seller and using her natural assets to promote her business.

Also, In the picture she’s the one that looks confident and in control, it’s the bloke that looks like a sweaty mess.
In fact in most of these postcard images it’s the women that come across as sassy and strong, the men are usually weak and feeble. Same with carry on films. I don’t see them as anything different to what has been repackaged to us as empowerment, by the majority of female pop singers around at the moment.

It would only be offensive if it had been aimed specifically at you OP. As in, if the person who posted it said something like "Does this remind you of anyone ?"

Otherwise, its tasteless seaside humour of the kind commonly available back in the day.

@gingerwhinger0

Well the woman appears to have took ownership of her sexuality by starting her own business as a melon seller and using her natural assets to promote her business. Also, In the picture she’s the one that looks confident and in control, it’s the bloke that looks like a sweaty mess. In fact in most of these postcard images it’s the women that come across as sassy and strong, the men are usually weak and feeble. Same with carry on films. I don’t see them as anything different to what has been repackaged to us as empowerment, by the majority of female pop singers around at the moment.

Yes, but that’s only the young and sexy ones. The matrons are the ‘victims’ of this humour. The power is always in the woman’s fuckability as judged by (usually creepy old) men. It’s sexist and offensive more because of the ways it treats the older undesirable women than the way it treats the sexy women - also the power is an illusion which is given by the male gaze. Once that has disappeared with age she will be powerless as the gaze will have transferred to another younger model.

@MrsKoala

I studied these style of postcards in a module at uni. One of the criticisms of them isn’t just that they objectify the female with big boobs/bikini on etc. It’s that they mock the other lady - the foolish ‘old’ ‘ugly’ ‘frumpy’ wife for obliviously not realising that her husband is hilariously leching over younger women. The joke is on her. The ugly old woman is the butt of these jokes.

Again, I think the man is the butt of the jokes, he’s being portrayed as some old letch. And the older lady could be being sarcastic.

You can read it many ways, from the older lady being naive, to the younger woman being objectified to the older man being an old letch who stands no chance. So he is the butt of the joke.

The fact is it’s just a bit of old fashioned seaside humour and doesn’t need to be over analysed.

I'm largely indifferent to these antiquated postcards, but it really is a stretch to try to read them in a feminist way.

For those who missed the link to Orwell’s essay I posted earlier, his conclusion:

In the past the mood of the comic post card could enter into the central stream of literature, and jokes barely different from McGill's could casually be uttered between the murders in Shakespeare's tragedies. That is no longer possible, and a whole category of humour, integral to our literature till 1800 or thereabouts, has dwindled down to these ill-drawn post cards, leading a barely legal existence in cheap stationers' windows. The corner of the human heart that they speak for might easily manifest itself in worse forms, and I for one should be sorry to see them vanish.
1941

It is analysed as part of the cumulative effect of images of women through time to realise why we rare where we are. None of it seems too bad individually but the constant drip drip effect is corrosive. I don’t agree about the man being the butt of the joke - certainly not in the period it was popular.

@Besswess88 - where in my post did I say it was ok? You're extrapolating more than the government with its Tier ratings. Stop trying to twist everything to fit your agenda.