Sex, Age, and Objectification

I know I haven't written a blogpost in a long, long time, but several things happened this week that made me decide to take up the pen ... well, the keyboard ... once again.

For some reason, this has been the week for me to come across articles about sexism in all its forms in short order.

On one side, there is what could be called "traditional sexism", as maybe exemplified by this article by Ashley Judd. She talks about the kind objectification that we generally think of when people mention sexism. The sexually explicit threats and taunts. A woman says something you don't want to hear, or behaves in ways you don't want her to behave, so you use this tactic to "put her in her place". Ever wonder why the worst thing you can call a woman is ... well ... a woman (albeit, of course, a "deviant" woman or an "ugly" woman.) Or - worst of all - you could refer to her as part of the female anatomy. This, of course, could be seen as the culmination of successful objectification - you have turned her from a complete human being with wants, needs, flaws, dreams, skills, and wishes, into a body part you threaten to use as you please. Not only have you dismembered her and taken away her agency, but furthermore you have reinforced why you have the right to do - because she is, after all, just a woman, and if and when she misbehaves, you know just what to hold over her head to make her shut up.

Of course, this particular article also serves as a good starting point for thinking about the specific nature of online interactions, and the intersection between online "life" and sexual harassment. In other words, would all these people using sexualized and gendered threats and insults online feel equally comfortable saying the same words to a woman's face - and what would be less disturbing: if the answer to this question was yes, or if it was no? Has social media, and this new way of interacting with each other, propagated this kind of behavior, or are we simply seeing more unfiltered thoughts, but thoughts that have always been there and have always been widespread, even before the advent of the internet? 

From there, it is only a short step to thinking about human nature. What is it that leads us to think it is ok to treat others this way? Why do we think we can violate another human being's bodily autonomy and integrity with threats of violence, or actual violence? And where in our messed-up history have we gotten sex and violence mixed up so profoundly? How did we end up taking something like sex, which is supposed to be about respect, appreciation, pleasure, and intimacy, and have turned it into one of the nastiest weapons, one of the most common and most effective ways to violate, humiliate, and degrade another person. I know many people, especially feminist authors and scholars, have said that rape and sexual assault are not actually about sex but rather about power, and that makes sense. On the other hand, we are deliberately using sex as the means to establish this power structure - which does indicate that, as a species, there is something fundamentally wrong with us. 

Of course, you can't talk about degradation, humiliation and violence without at least acknowledging how we treat other, non-human beings. In other words, the only way to end the objectification of other humans may be ending the objectification of non-humans first. If it is ok for me to objectify a cow simply because she is a cow and I am not, who is to say that I am not going to objectify another human being by the same logic (for example, because she is female and I am not)?

In addition to all these already "rosy" thoughts, I came across an article written a few months ago about the complicated intersection between sexism and ageism. 

Everyone knows that the rules of aging are different for men and women. Think what you may about Madonna, but she is not doing anything that men of her age haven't been doing for decades - and nobody cares. Mick Jagger or Robert Redford can be "sex symbols" way past their 60s, but if a woman in her 50s presents herself as a sexual being, she gets ridiculed. Now you can argue that this is just Madonna, and that she is not the norm when it comes to middle-aged women (which is true), but in the end, that is not the point. The point is that we have a double-standard for men and women. This double-standard starts in early childhood and remains in place through young adulthood and middle-age all the way into old age. The biggest perfidy, though, is how the double standard changes over the course of our lives.

What does this mean? It means that, as a young girl, you are supposed to be well-behaved, pleasant, calm, clean and quiet. As a young woman, you are supposed to be attractive (but God forbid you actually have sex! Make men fantasize about having sex with you, but don't express desire yourself or you are a slut!), sexy, smart (but not too smart or it interferes with your attractiveness!), and once you enter middle-age, you are supposed to disappear.

What does that mean, you may wonder? It means that, as soon as your body does not (or no longer) conform to this standard of youthful beauty, because it is too "ugly", too "fat", or too "old" (see how you will always be "too" something? Too smart, too loud, too bitchy, too fat, too old, too boring, too ... fill in the blank). If you think about it, this demand for women past a certain age (what that exact age is fluctuates a bit, but seems to hover somewhere between 38 and 42) to become invisible is simply the continuation of the sexual objectification is described above. Your body, the object at someone else's disposal, is not supposed to belong to an autonomous being with wishes and desires. What could drive home the point about your worth being tied to an impossible standard of youthful beauty better than the experience of having your worth disappear overnight. We all need to be seen. It is, I would argue, one of the most fundamental needs of human beings - to be seen for who we are. What does it tell you about power structures in our society if we can take away another person's visibility for no reason other than that they have lived for more than x number of years? What could teach them about their inherent worthlessness better than ridicule as an accepted response to the expression of their own needs and desires?

If you read Robin Korth's essay that I linked to above, you may have been surprised by the cruelty and callousness with which the man she calls Dave informed her of her unacceptability as a sexual being. She, he told her, did not conform to his standard of beauty, because she was too old. He informed her what she could do to make herself look younger - and thus more desirable to him.  She writes: "He was totally oblivious to the viciousness of his words. He had turned me into an object to be dressed and positioned to provide satisfaction for his ideas of what female sexual perfection should be." This could be the textbook definition of objectification: for him, her body is an object he has the right to use for his pleasure, and if she does not make it appealing (that is to say, young) enough for him to find her acceptable, she immediately becomes invisible. 

What is, then, the logical consequence of the way we teach young women that their worth is defined by their sexual desirability and then teach them that their worth will disappear when they dare to age? I am sure you guessed it - they will try everything in their power to keep their bodies "young". Plastic surgery, body "re-contouring", breast "enhancements" ... all these are natural consequences of objectification. To add insult to injury, women who torture themselves with botox and surgeries only end up being ridiculed for it. The ultimate punishment: demean human beings for trying to conform to a standard that was impossible to reach in the first place.

So what should we take away from this? Is there some great lesson to be learned from Ashley Judd and Robin Korth? Maybe. If so, the message is that true beauty comes in many shapes, forms, sizes, and ages, and those who are superficial enough treat others this way are not worthy of your time and affection anyway. How much more satisfying and rewarding our relationships would be if we simply related to each other as individuals, truly saw others in their all their unique, glorious, flawed beauty, and treated each other with dignity, kindness, and respect.

So in the end, I think one of the root causes of all this cruelty and objectification we encounter even (or especially?) in what should be our most intimate (and thus safe) relationships has to do with who we view other people.

To put it simply, our lives have become so economized, so governed by business transactions, that we have become unable to relate to others without applying the same principles. A relationship, especially a romantic relationship, thus becomes a business deal. What can you do for me? What can I get out of this? We evaluate and we judge. Instead of trying to connect, for the sake of closeness and intimacy, we connect because we want to own, because we want to possess, because we don't want to be alone, because we want to feel validated, because we want another person to tell us we are loved and important and special. We see them as an investment, thus we basically see them as an object to be used. One of the ways this mindset materializes is through objectification, as discussed above. We - especially women - are trained to "trade" sex for affection. We are trained to not actually want sex, but to use it as a bargaining chip. Men are told that they are allowed to judge the "merchandise" they are investing in. Of course, this has been so internalized that women judge and evaluate other women in the same way. We have accepted that youthful, conventional beauty is our currency, and thus we judge our own and each other's worth based on it.

So how can we get away from this? I have no answer. I know that it took me many years to see these things. It took me many years to realize that it is ok not to want what most others seem to want. It took me many years to realize that the only relationships - may they be friendships or romantic connections or both - worth having are the ones that are based on respect, freedom, and trust. In fact, we are so conditioned to think our worth depends on being partnered that we rarely stop to examine why we should want to form close, intimate ties with someone. Is convenience and convention really a good basis? Shouldn't we try to create a life that we are simply happy to live, on our own and according to our own rules so that, when we choose to connect deeply, to share ourselves intimately, we know we are doing it out of affection and not out of fear? 

These are not easy questions to ask ourselves, and engrained behaviors are hard to shake - they are hard to see. Furthermore, who wants to admit to themselves that they are doing things simply because they have been trained to? I had a couple of long relationships back to back when I was in my early and mid-twenties, and after the last one in that string ended, I decided to do some serious soul-searching. Why was it that I thought I should be out looking for someone, when I was really quite happy on my own? Why did I feel guilty for not dreaming of marriage and children? Why did I feel like others pitied me? Did I pity myself? I realized, after much reflection and meditation, and hours spent writing down what I wanted and felt, hours spent acknowledging, maybe for the first time, some of the wishes and desires that I had kept hidden from myself, that I did not pity myself. I did not feel incomplete, but I did feel like I should be feeling these things. Messed up, I know. I decided then and there that I would never again enter a relationship out of convention or because I wanted to avoid the endless questions ("Have you found someone?") and pitying looks. I promised myself that I would only choose to share myself for the right reasons from now on - out of affection, love, and the wish to connect deeply with that particular individual. I have stuck to this rule ever since, and my life has been that much easier and my connections with others that much more fulfilling. Would a change in perspective, similar to the one I had, help us end objectification in all its forms? Probably not by itself, but it would put us on the right track - towards seeing others as individuals with gifts, flaws, desires, wishes, and traumas, and it would ensure that we see them as souls to connect with because of what we have to give, and not because of what we hope (or expect) to get.