Skip to main content

Diigo Home
Home/ XD3102 - Gender Studies/ Group items tagged Objectification

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Weiye Loh

The Naked Muse « Quiet Riot Girl - 0 views

quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/...the-naked-muse

Objectification Metrosexuality Gender Stereotype Gender Equality

shared by Weiye Loh on 22 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • ‘As a female poet, I have noticed over the years that male poets are often described in terms of being the romantic hero, dark, handsome, wild, notoriously philandering and accompanied by beautiful (young) female muses to “inspire” his creativity; the same “rule” does not apply to women. So, what if one is a female creator? If desire, and the object of desire and beauty are creative catalysts, then why do we not see that same poetic stereotype?
  • Instead, the woman poet tends to just have the “mad” bit stuck to her rather than bad or dangerous to know!
  • Weiye Loh on 22 Feb 12
     
    in these metrosexy times, whilst men are the objects of many a picture, it is probably worth examining this subject matter closely. Because metrosexual imagery is often very  bland and samey. To be considered 'objects of desire' men have to have big tits and nice hair and svelt figures - oh, pretty much like women then.

    And, even in the 21st century, there are still not enough women working as photographers and film directors, making the images of men and women and people who identify as neither, that saturate our culture.
Weiye Loh

John Berger 'Ways of Seeing' (1972) « Ruth Thompson's Artist Teacher M A Blog - 0 views

artistresearcher.wordpress.com/...ohn-berger-ways-of-seeing-1972

Objectification Gaze Gender Equality Gender Stereotype

shared by Weiye Loh on 12 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated. To aquire some control over this process, women must contain it and interiorize it. That part of a woman’s self which is the surveyor treats the part which is surveyed so as to demonstarte to others how her whole self would like to be treated. And this exemplary treatment of herself by herself constitutes her presence. Every woman’s presence regulates what is and is not ‘permissible’ within her presense. Every one of her actions – whatever its direct purpose or motivation – is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated. If a woman throws a glass on the floor, this is an example of how she treats her own emotions of anger and so of how she would wish it to be treated by others. If a man does the same, his action is only read as an expression of his anger. If a woman makes a good joke this is an example of how she treats the joker in herself and accordingly of how she as a joker-women would like to be treated by others. Only a man can make a good joke for its own sake.
  • Weiye Loh on 12 Nov 11
     
    men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of women in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object - and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.'
Weiye Loh

NY Mag Notices How Tarty Men Have Become | marksimpson.com - 0 views

www.marksimpson.com/...ices-how-tarty-men-have-become

Objectification Gender Equality Gender Stereotype

shared by Weiye Loh on 15 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • ‘Objectification’ is also of course the hallmark of metrosexuality – men’s desire to be desired is necessarily the desire to be ‘objectified’. Though I have to say I think the ‘O’ word clunky and outmoded. ‘Tarty’ trips and skips off the tongue better.

  • The image below is the jacket of the original Cassell edition of M.I., now out of print, sporting a classic 1950s Athletic Model Guild still. I chose it partly because it was a tad ‘overdetermined’ and camp – particularly the Grecian codpiece and the pedestal/butt-plug – and partly as an illustration of the kind of ‘objectification’ of the male that happened underground and illicitly in the past.

    In contrast to today’s corporate kind, conducted on billboards and at the multiplex.

Weiye Loh

Are We Living in the Golden Age of Male Objectification? -- Vulture - 0 views

nymag.com/...e_living_in_the_golden_ag.html

Objectification Gender Stereotype Gender Equality Hollywood

shared by Weiye Loh on 15 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • As revolutions go, the movie industry learning to exploit their male movie stars is more a matter of fairness than real upheaval. It's not like women are suddenly not being objectified; now it's just objectification for all. But if the upshot is a slight widening of the traditional Hollywood gaze, a recognition that all sorts of audiences are looking for tawdry thrills at the movies — not to mention, more movies about male strippers with hearts, and asses, of gold — how is that not progress?
  • Weiye Loh on 15 Sep 11
     
    For decades, while film and television have gotten progressively racier, the objects of the camera's increasingly lurid gaze had largely been women. The reasons for this are so unofficially official they're like unwritten laws, habits that have been codified into "common sense" even if they don't make much sense: Hollywood's a boys' club and male audiences want sex and violence, while women want hearts and flowers. So women are lusted after by the cameras, while audiences looking for a little bit of dude to ogle had to be content with tame rom-coms, subtext, and the dreaded Comedy Penis (see: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Observe and Report, Bruno etc.).

    But no more! The Summer of 2011 officially became the summer that the male gaze was reflected back at itself - and with enthusiasm! In the summer's superhero movies, a supremely buff body became part of what made these heroes so super. The Captain America trailer had Dominic Cooper doing the old look-over-the-top-of-my-sunglasses move to get a load of the newly pumped up Chris Evans. In Thor, Kat Dennings's audience-surrogate character spends half the movie talking about how nutso everything is and the other half pointing out that this blond god from the heavens is massively pumped. Fourteen years ago, America lost it when Batman's costume included rubber nipples. Now we've got a Spider-Man whose costume lifts and separates.
Weiye Loh

Are We Living in a Golden Age of Male Objectification? « str8bro - 0 views

str8bro.net/...en-age-of-male-objectification

Objectification Gender Stereotype Gender Equality

shared by Weiye Loh on 15 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • An interesting article by Joe Reid in New York Times Magazine addresses this question.
  • It’s worth noting that Susan Bordo made this exact argument over a decade ago in her book that includes the influential essay, “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body” (read some excerpts). 
  • Bordo’s resistance to the term “objectification,” since she argues that erotic images are themselves always imbued with a subjectivity, a capacity to actively engage and enthrall (or disgust) us.  That is, the man or woman in the picture is not simply a static object we look at, but a person with a set of motives and interests, someone who also looks back at us.
  • ...3 more annotations...

  • Reid privileges the female spectator to the almost exclusive neglect of the male.  For example, he makes no mention of the role that gay male spectatorship has played in the development of this Golden Age, a point that Bordo brings to the forefront of her argument.

    It’s not only women who are looking at these images.  And men are not only posing for them because women enjoy it.

  • Men have not only become more comfortable being on display, they have also become accustomed to consuming and enjoying images of other men, in a way that is similar to women’s time-honored consumption and enjoyment of images of other women.

    It is on this level, of subjectivity and ways of spectating, rather than in the range of objectified images, that we experience the most truly radical transformations in masculinity today.

  • I’ve always had a bit of an issue with Bordo’s lack of discussion around heterosexual male spectatorship where images of the male body are concerned
Weiye Loh

New Metro Patriarch « Quiet Riot Girl - 0 views

quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/...new-metro-patriarch

Objectification Gender Equality Gender Stereotype

shared by Weiye Loh on 14 Sep 11 - No Cached

  • I don’t know about you, but it isn’t really my idea of emancipation to learn to be ‘poised, worldly, well-spoken and multi-talented’.

    The clever, metrosexy thing about this idea is that it really just copies the Heffner Playboy empire, but adds in a language and an imagery that suits the postmodern, post-feminist, post-everything world we live in.

  • And, just as Hugh is king of his castle ( a little bit deflated since his bride to be walked out on him), so will Hans be. This is all about Hans. And Hans making money.  Of course, if it was really metrosexy, the mansion would not be full of dames at all, but of dudes. My idea of a metrosexy utopia/dystopia, is a mansion full of fit buff boys, being ‘empowered’ by their freedom to be on display and adored as true ‘gentlemen’.

    But even in the Metrosexy 21st century, some old fashioned ideas remain. One of them is that when it comes to sex work, because that is what this is, women constitute the majority of the labour force. Because the ‘demand’ for sexual services still comes from men overall. And men who pay for sex with men, still have to do so in far more shadowy corners than the Hans Hansen Mansion.

  • Weiye Loh on 14 Sep 11
     
    'For decades, The Playboy Mansion has been a playground For Men where Playmates have entertained millions of guests with their bunny costumes, a genius concept perfectly executed by a once young and vivacious idealist. However, that once young man, along with his rabbit tricks, are now old, decrepit and stale. It is time for a new mansion, a new playground where women set the standard. The Hans F Hansen Mansion will be a place of Elegance and Mystery, where guests will reach a level of thorough entertainment not only through it's intoxicating atmosphere, but also by the exotically beautiful, multitalented, and worldly Hans F Hansen Dames. Isn't it time for change? We say YES.. It Is.'

    The Hans F Hansen Mansion aims to provide an environment where women can be empowered, sexy and adored by… er…gentlemen. You know, like Spearmint Rhino, that famous 'gentleman's club' that the feminists love so much.
Weiye Loh

What Do Men Want? | marksimpson.com - 0 views

www.marksimpson.com/...what-do-men-want

Gender Stereotype Gender Equality Heterosexuality Sexism Objectification

shared by Weiye Loh on 27 Aug 11 - No Cached

  • I read with interest this YouGov survey published this week which provides some confirming data on the fashionability of face fuzz and its accessorization by males today: ‘stubble’ is reportedly the most popular form of facial hair today – especially with 18-24 year olds (51% say they have facial hair and 80% of those describe it as ‘stubble’). Stubble of course being the most easily adopted and discarded form of facial hair.

    But the survey – called ‘Let’s Face It’ — is much less interesting for what it reports than for what it doesn’t. What it’s not facing. At all. The assumptions behind it and the way that compulsory heterosexuality is used to deprive all men of a voice, even about their own bodies.

  • The first assumption of course is that the date a male is looking for is necessarily with a woman.
  • The second, and closely-related assumption, is that men’s affinity for facial hair is naturally to be measured entirely in terms of what women want:
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The survey asks men whether they have facial  — and chest — hair, and what kind. (And a third assumption is that women don’t have facial hair….) But only asks women the questions: ‘Do you prefer the appearance of a man with or without a beard?’, and ‘Do you prefer the appearance of a man with or without chest hair?’
  • Men are objects here, and not in a good way. They are not allowed subjective feelings about facial or chest hair, their own or anyone else’s. They merely have it or they don’t. What they might want is of no interest. Women are the only ones allowed to want.
  • I don’t mention this to score gayist points and invoke ‘homophobia’. Or to diss the importance of women to most men. I mention it to illustrate how (hetero)sexist assumptions are used to shut men up. All of them. And maintain the reassuring pretense that even in a world where young men have become brazenly narcissistic and ‘passive’ – desiring to be desired – and where women are now allowed and indeed encouraged to have active preferences about men’s physical appearance, that it’s still all about good old heterosexuality.
Weiye Loh

Wealthy, Handsome, Strong, Packing Endless Hard-Ons: The Impossible Ideals Men Are Expe... - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...deals_men_are_expected_to_meet

Masculinity Gender Stereotype Gender Equality Objectification Body Image

shared by Weiye Loh on 22 Jun 11 - No Cached

  • But here's the good news.

    "Impossible" is, in many ways, a better cultural ideal to have than "really, really difficult."

    Because it's a whole lot easier to ignore.

  • The day I realized that the cultural ideal of femininity was, quite literally, unattainable? The day I realized that women are supposed to be sexy and chaste, undemanding and seeking commitment, meek delicate flowers and strong backbones of the family? The day I realized that if you're tall you're supposed to look shorter, and if you're short you're supposed to look taller, and if you're fat you're supposed to look thinner, and if you're thin you're supposed to look more voluptuous, and that whatever body type you had you were supposed to make it look different? The day I realized that every woman is insecure about her looks... including the ones we're supposed to idolize? The day I realized that, no matter what I did, no matter how hard I worked, I would always, always, always be a failure as a woman?

    That was the day I quit worrying about it.

  • According to journalist Peta Bee in the Express UK (the article was originally published in the Sunday Times [London], but they put it behind a paywall), in order to make their bodies more photogenic and more in keeping with the masculine "fitness" ideal, top male fitness models routinely put themselves through an extreme regimen in the days and weeks before a photo shoot. Not a regimen of intense exercise and rigorously healthy diet, mind you... but a regimen that involves starvation, dehydration, excessive consumption of alcohol and sugar right before a shoot, and more.

    This routine is entirely unrelated to any concept of "fitness." In fact, it leaves the models in a state of serious hypoglycemia: dizzy, exhausted, disoriented, and (ironically) unable to exercise, and indeed barely able to walk. But the routine makes their muscles look big, and tightens their skin to make their muscles "pop" on camera. And even then, the magazines use lighting tricks, posture tricks, flat-out deceptions, even Photoshop, to exaggerate this illusion of masculinity even further.

  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The image being sold is clearly not one of "fitness" -- i.e. athletic ability and physical health. The image being sold is an exaggerated, idealized, impossible extreme of hyper-masculinity.
  • the illusion being sold by the fitness magazines is that this hyper-masculinity is attainable.

  • It's not surprising that, among men, reported rates of anorexia nervosa, anorexia athletica, and other forms of disordered eating and body dysmorphia are on the rise.

    And we're not just talking about physical ideals of masculinity. We're talking about cultural ideals. Sexual ideals. Economic ideals. Emotional ideals.

  • Sexuality educator Dr. Charlie Glickman has written a great deal (and teaches workshops) about male gender expectations, and what he calls "the performance of masculinity." And a two-part series he recently wrote crystallized this idea for me. He was talking about the "box" of masculinity --- the ideas we have in American culture about what a "real man" is and does. You know: strong, competitive, dominant, wealthy, good at fixing machinery, lots of sexual partners enjoys sports, big dick that gets hard on demand. You know the drill.

    And he pointed out that many of these ideas aren't just rigid or limiting. They actually conflict with each other. As Glickman put it, "Some of the items in the box are contradictory. You can't be a mechanic and a CEO. I've talked with men who are convinced they're not Real Men because they aren't rich and I've talked with men who are convinced they aren't Real Men because they don’t work with their hands."

Weiye Loh

Wealthy, Handsome, Strong, Packing Endless Hard-Ons: The Impossible Ideals Men Are Expe... - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...deals_men_are_expected_to_meet

Masculinity Gender Stereotype Gender Equality Objectification Body Image

shared by Weiye Loh on 22 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • According to journalist Peta Bee in the Express UK (the article was originally published in the Sunday Times [London], but they put it behind a paywall), in order to make their bodies more photogenic and more in keeping with the masculine "fitness" ideal, top male fitness models routinely put themselves through an extreme regimen in the days and weeks before a photo shoot. Not a regimen of intense exercise and rigorously healthy diet, mind you... but a regimen that involves starvation, dehydration, excessive consumption of alcohol and sugar right before a shoot, and more.
  • This routine is entirely unrelated to any concept of "fitness." In fact, it leaves the models in a state of serious hypoglycemia: dizzy, exhausted, disoriented, and (ironically) unable to exercise, and indeed barely able to walk. But the routine makes their muscles look big, and tightens their skin to make their muscles "pop" on camera. And even then, the magazines use lighting tricks, posture tricks, flat-out deceptions, even Photoshop, to exaggerate this illusion of masculinity even further.
  • The image being sold is clearly not one of "fitness" -- i.e. athletic ability and physical health. The image being sold is an exaggerated, idealized, impossible extreme of hyper-masculinity.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • the illusion being sold by the fitness magazines is that this hyper-masculinity is attainable.
  • Weiye Loh on 22 Jun 11
     
    You've almost certainly heard feminist rants about impossible cultural ideals of femininity: how standards of femininity are so narrow and rigid they're literally unattainable; how, to avoid being seen as unfeminine, women are expected to navigate an increasingly narrow window between slut and prude, between capable and docile, between moral enforcer and empathetic helpmeet. 

    Here's what you may not know: It works that way for men as well.

    A recent article about male fitness models has made me vividly conscious of how the expectations of masculinity aren't just rigid or narrow. They are impossible. They are, quite literally, unattainable.
Weiye Loh

Women Do Sporno « Quiet Riot Girl - 0 views

quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/...women-do-sporno

Objectification Gender Equality Gender Stereotype Sporno

shared by Weiye Loh on 13 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • women’s ‘sporno’ is presented, sold and critiqued so differently from men’s. The Times newspaper England printed a very moralising article about the Playboy shoot, suggesting the women were distracting from their duties as sportswomen by posing for ‘raunchy’ photos. The article made no mention of the endless stream of photos we see of men sports stars with their kit off. It is almost as if nobody wants to acknowledge that objectified men are …. sex objects. But women are assumed to be sex objects, even before they have taken their kit off or posed in front of a camera.
  • feminism displays this paradox as much as anyone else. On one hand organisations such as OBJECT are organising demos outside London’d new Playboy club, and fighting ‘sex object culture’. On the other hand, feminists ask why it is ok to feature men with naked torsos on magazines sold in newsagents, but not women?

  • http://www.caughtoffside.com/2011/06/10/germany-womens-world-cup-team-pose-for-playboy-video/

Weiye Loh

Metro or Bi? Digging Deeper into Modern Masculinity - 0 views

rachelrabbitwhite.com/deeper-into-modern-masculinity

Metrosexuality Postmodernism Gender Stereotype Objectification Desire Design Capitalism

shared by Weiye Loh on 06 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • t wherever I look there are discussions about ‘‘the objectification of women’s bodies” or “sexual violence against women and girls” or “pornography and women”. It has reached a point where I have to ask, without irony, “what about the men?”
  • it’s not as though men just became narcissistic. Simpson says it’’s clear that men had a capacity for sensuality and vanity – a desire to be desired – but for most of history it has been closeted. Men were to be warriors or laborers or empire builders. They weren’t meant to be beautiful. The Victorians codified a sexual division that decreed women were beauty and men were action. But now that men have been encouraged to get in touch with their vanity and sensuality it seems there’s no stopping it!

  • Metrosexuality differs from other incarnations of male self-love, in that it’s reliant on consumer capitalism. In other words, if you want to look hot: buy more stuff. But that narcissism, ever-apparent for the metro-man who needs mirrors like Narcissus needs the pool, is not necessarily a negative, argues Simpson.

    “The rise of male behaviors, practices and tastes characterised as metrosexual are made possible in large part by the decline of stigma attached to male homosexuality. While this stigma made life difficult for homosexual men, it also had an instructive, not to say repressive, effect on all men.” In contrast metrosexuality means masculinity is no longer black and white, “no longer always heterosexual and never homosexual or always active never passive, always desiring never desired, always looking never looked at,” says Simpson.

  • Weiye Loh on 06 Jun 11
     
    "Contrary to what you have been told, metrosexuality is not about flip-flops and facials, 'man-bags' or 'manscara'. Or about men becoming 'girlie' or 'gay'" says Mark Simpson, the man who coined the word "metrosexual". "It's about men becoming everything. Quite simply, metrosexuality is men's "desire to be desired". Men in contemporary society are now able to admit to wanting to be beautiful and to be appreciated as "objects of desire" in a way that was previously reserved for women."
Weiye Loh

Balderdash: Women's self-objectification - 0 views

gssq.blogspot.com/...mens-self-objectification.html

Objectification Feminism

shared by Weiye Loh on 04 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Self-objectification is an integral part of female heterosexuality. Whether it be shopping for underwear or dancing at a club, most of us get a thrill at the thought of being desired by men. Taking it a step further, how many of us have fantasised about being strippers or whores?...

    The notion that a sexualised woman is degrading to women derives from the assumption that she is being sexualised by men, for men...

    In recent years, women have begun to reclaim their sexualisation. From women making their own porn films to the growing number of feminist strippers who freely admit they get a kick out of displaying their bodies, we are slowly beginning to show that sexualisation can be just as fun and empowering for the ones being watched as for the ones watching. We are even beginning to reclaim sexist insults... Anti-porn advocates'... cries of ‘degrading to women’ are merely adding to the common assumption that any woman who enjoys the male gaze must be either a victim or a slut...
  • While this is a refreshing change from much of feminism (for example, questioning that objectification is always a bad thing), the logic here seems to be that it is okay for women to objectify other women, or for women to objectify themselves, but not for men to do so (or to act on the implications of such objectification).
1 - 13 of 13
Showing 20▼ items per page
Move to top