Is objectification always sexual?

[PurpleBugz]

In a conversation recently about how it feels to be a woman walking in public a man said to me he doesn’t objectify women as he doesn’t say stuff like “nice tits” to them. I have deeply offended him by saying well perhaps not sexually but you treat women as baby ovens and child rearing objects not as equal human beings.

It’s got me thinking about this. Does this have a name?

I’ve learnt recently the value of the meaning of words and the importance of having words for things to be able to talk about them. The definition of objectification is: the action of degrading someone to the status of a mere object. So the definition does cover what I’m pondering but I think people always think it’s sexual when this word is used?

I guess misogyny is a word that works but it’s such an umbrella term and sexual objectification comes under that. I'm looking for a more specific term? What is the word for the male expectation on women to be caring and mothers and housekeepers?

I’d love to see discussion about this. How do others feel? I don’t reject the role of mother and I won’t say it’s not a joy. Now I have kids yes I am duty bound to fulfill this role- but my obligation is to the children not to their fathers. That to me is the difference.

Is there such a word?

Dehumanisation, perhaps but I think you're right, there must be a better word.

Chauvinism?

I would say objectification is whenever we are seen as a service provider, rather than as a human being with the right to self-determination. It doesn't matter whether the service provision that the other assumes is as a sex object or as a baby-monitor or as a diary.

Service providers are human beings with the right to self-determination - I'm not saying that waiters, for example, are lesser. It's when their humanity is ignored that they are objectified.

That's a good one actually. But again it's a word that covers a lot like misogyny does. I had to look it up as I thought it was more actions that are chauvinistic not so much an attitude. It works but to have a conversation on it I'd still have to define and list examples of what I mean

That is a really good point in service providers. It's exactly the feeling I'm trying to articulate. Being treated as less than human because of a role you have.

Slight difference is many men treat women this way not for having the role of mother but for having the potential to be a mother. And unless you have paid employment as a housekeeper it's not a role. When a man leaves his dishes on the side or towel on the floor because his it's so ingrained in him that's women's work (or not even that just he believes it's not HIS work) he doesn't even think about it.

I think we all objectify other people everyday to a certain extent. Whenever we project aspects of our own expectation, mind, desire, fear or antipathy onto others - we dehumanise them and they become mere actors in our production.

When we see someone, a stranger, on the street they become " an old man" " an unsavoury character" a beautiful woman" " a curly haired toddler" and so on.

Being treated as less than human because of a role you are assigned.

This obviously doesn't apply to everyone, but how is this any different than say, a man paying for a first date? Seeing women as 'child rearing objects' is an expectation of that woman based on your opinion as the male, and her perceived role.

Women expecting a male to pay is based on nothing but a preconceived belief that they 'deserve' it. Both sexes can rear a child, just as both can pay for dinner, etc.

it's dehumanisation and absolutely objectification

if a woman if perceived by a man as an object and he is solely focusing on her "functionality" or "purpose", while dismissing the complexity of her as a person, then yes, he is 100% objectifying her.

This obviously doesn't apply to everyone, but how is this any different than say, a man paying for a first date?
Multiple reasons. A first date is a first date. It's a single event in a relationship compared to the expectations in a lifetime of one.
It's also not as pervasive. Most women I know personally would want to split the bill. Perhaps there are exceptions, but I'd eat my hat if there is a single school or nursery out there who always automatically defaults to calling the father first when a child needs to be picked up.
One is pervasive, life long and imbedded so deeply that its invisible and the other is a once off event that is becoming increasingly uncommon.

I always struggle with the nuance of objectification and metonym amongst other words like chauvinism.

Metonymy is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Westminster for government. Hands for manual workers.

There is a philosopher who has written about objectification of others but I can't recall who it was. Sorry.

We all objectify others when we live in societies where we can't all know each other. I objectify the bus driver who is helping me get from A to B, as he or she is merely in that role to me for that length of time that I am on their bus. Equally, they probably objectify me as 'passenger'. If, however, the bus breaks down and, in time-honoured Britush tradition, we then allow ourselves to talk to each other, there's a shift. Once I know their name, how they're hoping to study archaeology and love opera & snooker (or whatever) etc etc then I stop objectifying them as 'bus driver' and I see them as a whole & rounded person.

So I'd argue that sexual objectification is a type of objectification. And I'm as capable as the next woman of sexual objectification of men. I don't believe (heterosexual) women who claim they don't objectify men. They may not be aware of it but they do it. It's not as socially permissible in women as in men, but that doesn't mean we don't do it. What else is the sudden punch of sexual attraction to a total stranger? How can you feel that and still claim not to be objectifying?

Even if you objectify the bus driver by her role, without any serendipitous interactions which then 'humanise' her, would you actually treat her as if she was not a person in her own right? If you are treating her as a fellow human being with all human rights, you are not objectifying her. You are relating to her in her chosen role. You are not assigning her a role of mindless servitude to you.

Though, nobody much wants to know the personal details of what the bus driver had for breakfast or how they are feeling today; they just expect the driver to be good at their job. An inconsiderate , surly or rude driver is just a "really bad bus driver".

It’s got me thinking about this. Does this have a name?

Sexism

70s feminism, ie Women's Liberation, was based on the fact that women are oppresses as a sex class, but the sex class of men.

Most men, despite how they think of themselves, discriminate against women because of their sex, and how men perceive the female sex.

So that can encompass objectification, stereotyping, ie being seen as a lesser person because you are of the female sex.

Kant's formulation of humanity, the second formulation of the categorical imperative, states that as an end in itself, humans are required never to treat others merely as a means to an end, but always as ends in themselves.

Everybody does it. Women suffer from it disproportionately because they are more useful than men.

It’s sometimes known in academia as “benevolent sexism”.

Objectification is viewing a person as a thing to be used as a tool of for decoration or to be written off as useless like rubbish.

So this covers prostitution, slavery, pornography, sexual abuse within intimate relationships, etc.

Objectification is a form of dehumanisation, but dehumanisation also includes ‘othering’ - seeing people as non-human, such as vermin, or a ‘plague’, or fantastical symbols or caricatures, which also deny a persons human sentience, such as a vampire, a zombie, a goddess, a nymph, or even other animals such as a broodmare.

Objectification, othering and dehumanisation can be misogynistic or not.

Misogyny is the hatred of women and it can take many forms, sometimes overt, like hatred and disgust about women’s periods, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, breasts, wombs, high-pitched voices, feminine fat-distribution, aging bodies, hip-movements, etc, or it can be slightly oblique and more like seeing women as inferior- hating women’s demands for safety, security and comfort while having a family, hating women’s caution and fearfulness, hating women’s lesser physical strength than men, hating women’s health issues - all things that perceived ‘inferior’ beings don’t deserve to ‘steal’ attention from their ‘superiors’ for.

Misogyny can also be one-step removed and not experienced with an emotion of hatred or disgust if it is simply learned and cultural, ‘the way things are’. The hatred and disgust is only felt when a woman upsets the status quo that depends on her oppression. People who ‘love’ and ‘feel no malice whatsoever’ towards women, can suddenly feel very irrationally angry and disapproving of a woman who goes against what is expected of her role. It’s latent misogyny, that most people have, even women and girls.