Why don't women objectify men the same way?

[Annie11111]

Male models make nothing compared to women in the industry, almost no one can name a famous male model, about the same thing for porn stars, cam whoring and everything else that's related to lust and looks. Male nude mags are a tiny industry compared to women's and they mainly cater to gay men. Wasn't Connery named sexiest man alive when he was 65 or something? Can you imagine a woman achieving that? Not to mention the biggest male superstars (Clooney, Pitt, Depp, Downey jr and so on) are all around 50 or pushing it. No woman around 50 would have that kind of ''star power''. When Scar Jo and Jessica Alba get to 50 barely any guy would pity fuck them. I have lived in 4 countries and the news pretty much always have a ''silver fox'' male anchors and an attractive female side kick who is 15-25 years his junior.

ABland

Logically your argument makes sense. I'm not sure I see it in animals. In most mammals the males fight to establish who is the strongest and they then breed with as many fertile females as they can. The females only seem to breed with the strongest male. I think deer are a good example of this. In elephants the males seem to no part in bringing up the babies.

It's not quite that simple in humans. But I do remember a scene outside of a Yates pub once that did seem depressingly similar to this. To be honest I think the deer had more dignity, and probably intelligence, then most of this group of "humans".

I think women are socialised to see men as full human beings and that's why they don't objectify them to the same extent.

Men are socialised to see women first and foremost as potential fucks or at least eye-candy (which is why so many men can't see the point of women they don't fancy being around) so it's much easier for them to forget that women are human and objectify us.

ABland but the effort men make in the process (5cc of protein) means that a 99% failure rate is not an issue, human women make such a significantly larger effort.
Humans are also unique in requiring parental input for years post birth, whilst with most animals it requires only a few months.

To be able to really objectfy someone - to look at a person as an useful object instead of a person you need to either: Be a sociopath, or simply someone from a group of people that can look down on the Other and lesser and do not have to care about their humanity.

AICM, I agree that is not true. It is certainly someone speaking, but it isn't evolution.

I generally agree with Melissa. I do objectify men. I can name famous male models - Jeremy Young is very pretty and popular at the moment.

And society is increasingly objectifying younger men, not to the extent it objectifies women, but a lot more than it used to. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

"Humans are also unique in requiring parental input for years post birth, whilst with most animals it requires only a few months."

Agree with this, which is why I don't think elephants etc are a direct comparison.

Anyway, we're straying somewhat from the main point - objectification, of the page 3 variety, seems more likely to be a response to socialisation than evolution, as it's not possible to impregnate a newspaper page.

My point was men can see a woman/picture of a woman and get a sexual response because they do not care whether she is any use as a mother, but may be if she is young/fertile etc.
Women need to see a man as a person who will support her as well as be a good physical specimen, so just the picture does not provide the full information for a sexual response.

Ok so by talking objectification we're talking just sexual objectification here? If not then there is the capacity and precedent for either gender to objectify one another. Women have been objectified for many things other than sex, like for example as little more than domestic appliances.

As for men, yes I think we have been objectified as providers historically although less so these days dependant on economic band, and is possibly an instance of male privilege being increased as a result of feminism as there is less onus for a man to be the only breadwinner. We have also been objectified in the most extreme sense in times of war as little more than meat for the grinding gears of the war machine.

Worth noting that currently (in my country at least) there is no conscription, you can realistically expect most partners to contribute economically to the household. I am hard pressed to think of a better time historically to be man.

Why then do we struggle as a society to reach parity between the genders? Going back to sexual objectification for a moment I am hard pressed to even equate objectification of men by women as even a remotely bad thing, which may sound counter intuitive but bear with me a moment. When women objectify a man sexually as far as I can see it is never coupled with a sense of entitlement and ownership. After all I would argue it is perfectly normal and natural to find people attractive initially according to ones orientation. I would be interested to consider the homosexual community as what are the usual dynamics when women are attracted to women or men are attracted to men?

AICM, I'm not sure how true that is. Because infants are dependent for a long time and because mothers have reduced calorie gathering capacity to a greater or lesser extent after birth, plus increased calorie need for breast feeding, some investment in supporting the offspring gives more success in gene perpetuation.

Hmmm. Human menopause allows grandsire support for infants. Human female interest in infants remains keen even after menopause, maintaining a drive to nurture even unrelated offspring. A huge deal, unique, a big re-arrangement of energy that allows other evolutionary behaviours to act in parallel because it counterbalances what you talk about.

Serial monogamy with infidelity behaviours are apparent in both genders, with infidelity static in men regardless of age age but bell-curve patterned for women, peaking to be equal with men in their 30's. Could be that creates an ideal timetable for reproduction that supports loyalty driven infant investment in the 20's while maximising possibility of reproduction in the 30's- closer to the grandsire menopause window for offspring support.

There us a thread going about attractive men in chat. Thats just who you want to shag why on earth would you care if they support you

I have never looked at a man and thought can he support me not even my own dh as he doesnt work.. I see men every day I would have sex with and I havent a clue who they are/what they do. I dont think they are objects but Im human.

I think its also rarer to admit you are driven by lust if you are a woman. When I met dh instantly I wanted him physically we spent all night snogging.I told all my friends he was the fittest man I had ever met and I couldnt stop looking at him. We literally used to meet up for 3/4 hours a night just to look at each other and kiss.That very first week we decided to get married!! Been married over a decade now.

It was all based on looks when we decided to get married I suppose I had seen him a total of 3 times when the marriage was arranged.

Has it got anything to do with the male gaze, versus the female gaze?

Much has been written about the male gaze, but to be honest, I don't know very much about the female gaze at all. Does it even exist....?

Women, generally speaking, conform to the male gaze. Gay men also conform (generally speaking) to the male gaze.

Men don't conform to it (short, perfunctory head hair, make-up not used to enhance features, no need to remove body hair, comfortable (if well presented) clothes and shoes; they work with what God gave them) and many lesbians (generally speaking) don't either.

The male gaze seems to demand a very aesthetically accessible, and pleasing, image.

The female gaze, if indeed it exists, does not, so much. Talk to many women - and this thread seems to back it up - and they will say that it was only after they got to know their partners that they really became attracted to them. Or, someone they didn't have feelings for either way, deepened into something significant, when the person's personality came to the fore. So attraction for women (generally speaking) is often about more than just physical appearance.

How much of this is innate, and how much of it is socialised though, I don't know. But maybe objectification of those they find sexually attractive is a natural consequence of the male gaze, whereas that outcome doesn't happen when attraction is based on more than just physical appearance.

Would love to learn more about the female gaze, if anyone is aware of anything out there.

I wonder how many that arent attracted to men on looks grew up in traditional families so need men more to support them.

Is it possible that that disparity of presentation causes an imbalance? I mean after all if a greater of percentage of women work on their appearance men can afford to be choosier, but the percentage of men who work on their looks being comparatively so small women have little choice but make compromises?

I think there is conflating here of what men and women find attractive and the people they have a realistic chance of getting into a relationship with.

Obviously the type of man that most women find attractive they have almost no chance of actually dating, so they make dating decisions on other grounds.

Of course a lot of men make very little effort to appear attractive to women, and that presumably is to do with inequality.

X post wirh Dervel.

Dervel, I am a man in my 40's. I have no idea how old you are, but I'd agree with your comments re my generation and general appearance upkeep. My teenage son's generation, however, is a different kettle of fish. Ten different kinds of shower gel, twenty shampoos and enough hair products to sink a battleship. Then there is the gym, the grooming of body hair - when was the last time anyone saw a young bloke with a hairy chest? - and two hours preparation time before venturing out.

In my day, we lived in a hole in t'road! But tell the kids today, and they won't bloody believe ye

Even on Mumsnet we have seen plenty of Objectification. Whole threads on Benedict C and I remember a thread about the Terry Wogan bulge. If you go to a male strip review they are sold out every weekend be it hen parties, birthday parties, divorce parties (the last one I went to). We claim it is only the men who objectify but the number of my friends who have pictures of topless firemen on their facebook pages is larger than a small handful. We claim we see it as funny or just getting our back on our hubbies but I do wonder just how true that sort of statement is.

Pretty much verbatim what Curwen said, the amount of personal upkeep my daughters circle of male friends put into themselves is mind numbing. In my generation an old fashioned father might have felt inclined to tell a young suitor (like I was then) to pull his socks up and comb his hair. I would never say that myself, even if I thought it, thats my daughters province to judge. Not that I could anyway, even if I wanted too, compared to young men these days I look like the tramp.

I think the reason is historical. Historically, women have been denied property rights that (some) men have enjoyed. Historically, it's been regarded as legitimate for (some) men to acquire property, or to aim to do so, and women have been treated as part of this property. Therefore, (some) men have been encouraged to feel entitled culturally, and sometimes legally, to 'collect' women as property - as wives, concubines, mistresses, prostitutes, etc.
This has created cultures where men could openly compare and contrast women's bodies in ways similar to ways in which people might examine and evaluate other forms of property (land, livestock, foodstuffs, clothing, etc.), and accordingly, the physical qualities of women have sometimes been seen to denote the status of those women's keepers (husband, pimp, punter, etc.).

Historically, women haven't enjoyed this 'privilege' in the same way that men have. Where women haven't enjoyed full property ownership rights, there hasn't been the opportunity for them to show off or compare their property in the same way (some) men could do. Nor have there been cultures and industries built up around women doing this in the same way that men who were wealthy enough could do (e.g. arts, pornography, related adornment, etc.).

And since, in these sorts of cultural and legal climates (i.e. where generally women didn't enjoy full property rights), many women provided for themselves by association with property owning men - (many of whom would have been no oil paintings!), it wouldn't have been practical or expedient for such women to express sexual interest in, say, the local farmhand, builders, etc., whose physical characteristics might have been far more attractive then those of the 'provider'. (Not that a load of male anxiety about the possibility of women's attraction to 'forbidden' males, usually from less economically privileged social groups hasn't existed. Consider white man's anxiety about the sexual prowess of African male slaves, etc.)

So, the idea that 'most' men are intrinsically attracted to women on the basis of particular physical traits developed, but the same presumption didn't apply regarding women's attraction to men - well maybe its possibility was acknowledged (see slave e.g. above), but it was a source of anxiety (or sometimes niche pornography), rather then generally and widely celebrated in the same way that 'the male gaze' and cultures, industries, philosophies, etc. based around the objectification of women were.... Women were seen simply to require a provider.

The idea's since been supported with reference to science (as posters have pointed out above) - e.g. the basis that men's reproductive capacity lasts longer than women's, therefore it's natural for older men to ogle younger women, but unnatural for older women to express sexual desire, that men are entitled to many female sexual partners, etc., etc....

Haven't RTFT but isn't that like asking why didn't black people enslave white people back in the day? Extreme analogy sure but, it's about who has the power in society at the time.

Nice post Mango.

Mango this fear of women being sexually attracted to forbidden males was, I believe, the big thing that led to the banning of Lady Chatterly's Lover. It made too many men's hair stand on end, the thought that their womenfolk (wives and daughters) could actually lust after a bit of rough, such as the gardener (just as many would themselves have been doing, in carrying on with maids, nannies etc). Promoting women as the more moral, more monogamous, better behaved sex suits a lot of men.

During the obscenity trial it was actually worded 'would you want your wives, your maids to read this'. In other words, don't let women know about this!