Is it wrong to objectify men?

[Athrawes]

I suspect it is.
I made a "funny" comment to a female colleague about the attractiveness of father's at parent teacher interviews - just a throw away line for a laugh whilst waiting.
If I was a man saying that about the yummy mummies it would be very wrong. So I guess it's as wrong to do it in reverse?

A white woman trying to claim monopoly on the experience of being racially discriminated against might be reminded that POC face racism much more. A woman trying to claim monopoly on the experience of being objectified might be reminded that men face it too.

Your first example is exactly what's happened on this thread. Noone is claiming a monopoly on being objectified (horrible thought).

Someone posted a thread about objectification of men using an example that doesn't appear to be objectification. Posters are reminding OP that women face objectification much more.

Not sure I agree with this either. I think most white women are more privileged than MOC, especially middle class women who are usually backed by a white male
Power is not the same as privilege. White women having power from a white man is borrowed power, not her power.
Regardless of ethnicity, a man has power over a woman because he's physically stronger than her. That's not an earned "privilege" the man has - just a fact and is how men can objectify women, especially when we are alone. Fighting back is dangerous for women and unpleasant predatory men know this.
As pp says, all men have that potential and it's easy to cross the line.

Actually, that's wrong, it's not easy to cross the line. It doesnt take much in an argument or whatever to remind a woman how easy it would be for the line to be crossed. That puts women in a position of vulnerability.

I’m not saying moc have more power than a whites woman- I’m saying she has a certain amount of power due to her skin colour, he does due to his sex class giving him that power. Neither cancels out the other. So a white woman having power over a moc in the work place can still be raped by him or objectified by him and she can still discriminate against him based on his skin colour. Both have very real impacts.

And again, what gay men (or straight men if talking about violence not just objectification) do to other men is men’s problem not women’s.

@insideandout3

The minimizing comes from you and the OP when you both offer intentionally vague Bad Woman stories.

I guess we're supposed to say a secretary (an "experienced senior secretary" not one of those powerless receptionist nobodies) getting an inappropriate going away gift for a male colleague is just as bad as...rape?...pornography?...strip clubs?

If the gift was a monogrammed dildo you would have said so.

If "pawed them at office dos" meant she grabbed their crotches or forced kisses on them, you would have said so.

Like the OP, you need to stay vague about the details or else the comparison of men's routine sexual objectification to your tasteless Slutty Secretary would reveal just how much more dire and dangerous the consequences of sexual objectification are for women.

I have not given you intentionally vague Bad Woman Stories. I can give you more if you like but you won't believe them so what is the point? Or you will trivialise them.

Pawing - yes she was hands on regularly- hands on shoulder, arms round shoulder in the office and crotch grabbing and kissing at parties. Did that really need to be spelled out? What do think "pawing" meant? If I'd said it was a man doing the pawing you would not have asked for clarification.

One incident, which finally led to HR taking action, involved a physical assault at an office party involving tearing clothing.

Another was being at the flat of a trainee whom people thought might be gay but who wasn't out. He was drunk and she attempted to have sex with him. As he told me she said "she could turn him"

The minimisation is all on your side because you simply refuse to accept women can and do behave badly; or if they do, it's not as bad as men. On top of that apply the favourite minimisation and ridiculous class analysis which completely ignores and minimises the effect on individuals.

The leaving gifts this horrible woman bought for male trainees, and set up a public unwrapping for were always sex toys. Her intention was to humiliation. Again did it really need to be spelled out what the humiliating gifts were?

She got away with it for so long because she was in a position of power over these young men. I've no idea what your comment about "receptionist nobodies" is supposed to add (other than displaying your own ignorance about how important a good receptionist is. I don't think I've ever come across anyone describing them as "nobodies")

She also got away with it because of people like you- "it's just a laugh/ just fun/ it's not really bad if woman/ women don't harass men/ men like the attention."

Ah, DidoLamenting, now you're giving too much information. No one would really share this much embarrassing information. Do you see how this works? (insert applicable sarcasm smiley here).

@Gronky

Ah, DidoLamenting, now you're giving too much information. No one would really share this much embarrassing information. Do you see how this works? (insert applicable sarcasm smiley here).

Oh indeed . I'm sure that will be the response from insideandout3 How could I possibly know all of this?

The idea that I worked in the same department as this awful woman for years and saw how she behaved ; that the gay trainee was one of my closest friends and told me about it when he finally came out will no doubt be unbelievable to her.

I've found that if someone doesn't believe you then their given reasons are usually window dressing (unless they're pointing out specific inconsistencies in your story). 'Leading a horse to water' and so forth.

The point of talking about objectification of men by other men is that

On threads on Fwr about things like DV, serious sex offences, and this on objectification

The threads always start talking about female victims and someone always comes and says women do it too, to men.

TBF this thread skipped the first part!

The point that men are more likely to be victimised by other men than by women is always worth making.

If the main perpetrators are male then the focus should be there. Women do it too is usually shorthand for stop talking about this.

A reminder that on this thread, no one has said it's ok to sexually harass men. (Which is what this is about really. If one man at work says to another man at work she's good looking, well I'm sure that happens. What is unpleasant is when these comments are said loudly with no thought for the people around eg talking about going to lapdancing clubs in the middle of an open plan office).

areminder that on this thread, no one has said it's ok to sexually harass men

One poster has seriously downplayed it and has hinted the example I gave isn't believable.

Apologies

A reminder that no one on this thread has said it is ok to sexually harass men although one poster has downplayed it.

Got any thoughts on the rest of my post?

Dido, I believe the secretary is real, you can know that's true by how I asked you multiple times if you felt the secretary was "predatory" to the young men in the office. Get off the cross, I believe the secretary is real.

What I don't believe is that her actions were received by men or onlookers the same as when sexually predatory men target women, or that the consequences for the victims are exactly the same for men as for women. I also have doubts about your curious refusal to engage with your own objection to the distinctions between "objectified" and "predatory" because the details of those distinctions reveals the many differences between sexually harassing men who target women and sexually harassing women who target men.

And again, to be clear, I believe those women exist. You can see them in the British Crime Survey numbers where women were 2% of sexual offence perpetrators and men were 98% perpetrators of sexual offences. This disparity is confirmed in PlanDeRaccordement's article.

Earlier in this thread I reposted 26 examples of how feminists acknowledge and have empathy for that the rarity of male victims of female sexual harassment. You look foolish blaming feminists for causing sexual harassment on the premise that we don't acknowledge men can be victims of sexual harassment, it's a patently false accusation.

I'm sponsoring a contest, the person who provides the best explanation (decided by me) for why the OP hasn't revealed what they actually said gets a prize.

I have seen (usually middle aged) women behave in inappropriate ways to good looking young men in the office, plenty of times. With some of the chaps looking uncomfortable and I can't imagine many particularly enjoyed it.

So no it's not on either way and I do think that it's hypocritical for women to do this.

The dynamic is still different. Saying that is not the same as condoning it, or minimising the discomfort those young men felt.

inside I think dido was talking about me.
It doesn't matter whether or not the secretary is real. She is in the minority, although very unpleasant.
Women are routinely objectified by men, it is easy to find examples, it's easy to show that it is commonplace.

But anyway, as with all these threads. Let's agree men are routinely objectified. What are men doing to combat that? Why is it feminists job to do that?

@Athrawes

I suspect it is. I made a "funny" comment to a female colleague about the attractiveness of father's at parent teacher interviews - just a throw away line for a laugh whilst waiting. If I was a man saying that about the yummy mummies it would be very wrong. So I guess it's as wrong to do it in reverse?

Would it be 'very wrong' if two male colleagues, between themselves, commented on the attractiveness of a woman? I don't think it would - provided of course the woman in question didn't hear it, or that it wasn't part of 'banter' which female colleagues had to listen to.

So equally, I don't think what you yourself describe as a 'throw-away' comment about an attractive man, made between two colleagues, is objectionable.We all notice hot people and there's nothing wrong in casually pointing this out. Leering at him or making comments about him in male company would be however.

The op very clearly says "fathers" pleural, rather than singular, so she didn't make a comment about one particular man that she found attractive (which personally I still think is wrong) but about a group of men. How is that not objectifying?

Secondly, it reads as though op was there in a professional capacity so apart from anything else I think making comments about physical appearance to be unprofessional at least.

Thirdly, people saying that even in instances where women are in a position of power over men the men still hold more advantage due to male privilge, what does that mean? In the context of work, if a more senior woman sexually harasses a junior man how does male privilge protect him?

How is that not objectifying?
Because objectifying is not finding another human being attractive and commenting on it.
Definition of objectification is treating people like tools or toys, as if they had no feelings, opinions, or rights of their own
dictionary.cambridge.org/amp/english/objectification

Saying "gosh he's attractive/hot" about a man is not objectifying him. Regularly saying it about a lot of different men is still not objectification.

The fact is that it's wrong for anyone to objectify anyone else. It's obviously true that women do it to men too. It's obviously untrue that it's not as bad or somehow doesn't matter as much when women do it to men/boys, or that men aren't bothered by it when it happens to them. Of course they are: it's humiliating and awful to be dehumanised and treated as an object.

It's also a fact that it's way, way less common for women to be the perpetrator. When men/boys are victims, it's statistically way more likely for them to be the victim of a male. Therefore it makes sense that feminists are unlikely to take up the issue on men's behalf, except inasmuch as we have a common cause. However, most of us would still extend empathy and caring to the victims, and condemn that objectifying behaviour unequivocally no matter the sex of the perpetrator.

Trying to frame it in terms of identity politics just seems to make everything unnecessarily complicated. I don't think it's that complicated at all: treat others as you'd wish to be treated yourself.

insideI think dido was talking about me

No I wasn't. I was talking to inside who has changed her tune dramatically with her backtrack which blatantly contradicts her earlier posts.

Bit of an aside but I'm still stunned at insides' ignorant comment about "receptionist nobodies". It says a lot about her and none of it good. No doubt inside will claim that's what bosses /employers think of receptionists - it really isn't it merely shows her biases and prejudices.

@Athrawes

I suspect it is. I made a "funny" comment to a female colleague about the attractiveness of father's at parent teacher interviews - just a throw away line for a laugh whilst waiting. If I was a man saying that about the yummy mummies it would be very wrong. So I guess it's as wrong to do it in reverse?

It’s just as wrong I suppose, if you believe it’s wrong at all. I see nothing wrong with privately commentating on someone’s attractiveness mind you. But if it’s wrong to do it to women (I personally don’t think it is though) then yes, it is wrong to do it to men. But why do you think it is wrong? You made a comment to your friend about someone, it’s not like you went up to the people in question and said something potentially hurtful or offensive to them.

You look foolish blaming feminists for causing sexual harassment on the premise that we don't acknowledge men can be victims of sexual harassment, it's a patently false accusation

What on earth are you on about? I did not "blame feminists" - that is pure invention on your part. I blamed people like you - not feminists in general- people like you who seek to trivialise it.

Your backtracking that you now believe what I said coming hot on the heels of your earlier postcdemanding specific examples of "pawing" and the specific offensive gifts is breathtaking.

Why is it feminists job to do that

Who has said it is? It's up to individual women, regardless of whether they call themselves feminists to consider their behaviour. Certain feminists might of course care to consider their own prejudices but that is a different matter.

Bit of an aside but I'm still stunned at insides' ignorant comment about "receptionist nobodies".
Oh for goodness sake. She was very clearly talking about the power dynamic and saying that your receptionist is a "nobody" compared to many of the men who objectify women, like Harvey Weinstein.
I can see why you are offended but its pretty clear inside didn't mean it how you interpreted it. Which she clarified and you are now saying is "backtracking".

I can see why you are offended but its pretty clearinsidedidn't mean it how you interpreted it. Which she clarified and you are now saying is "backtracking"

Her backtracking is her now claiming that she does believe my "anecdote" when she implied earlier that it wasn’t true.

Her comment about receptionists has nothing to do with the "power dynamic" in any real life office. It merely shows her ignorance.