Lsp 200 - Objectification of Women and Gender Inequality

Tatiana Virvaroi

May 28, 2011

LSP 200

Objectification of women and gender inequality

One characteristic that many disciplines taught in schools have in common is that humankind has developed in a patriarchal setting that created two different prototypes: male and female. As the relationship of inequality grew between genders, modern societies attempted to correct the balance by putting in place policies of nondiscrimination based on sex, gender, sexual orientation and so forth. It takes more than recognition of the gender inequality issue to be able to overcome the set of power relations that are aimed at raising one as man and the other as woman. Women will continue to exist as submissive and inferior beings to men, as long as their normal condition in society is understood as the property of men. In this essay I will take up the issue of objectification of women in patriarchal society settings. Furthermore, I will argue that objectification of women illustrates the mechanisms of gender inequality and helps perpetuate it.

One might argue that the biological differences between sexes are such that women should be in the subordinate position in relation to men. According to the myths and metaphors circulated in our culture, women are weak, need to be protected or lack the power to make rational decisions because they let their emotions get in the way. Women are deemed superficial and fail to conquer certain developmental milestones because they direct their efforts into perfecting looks or fulfilling meaningless domestic duties. Science has even gone so far as to explain the differences between the behaviors of different genders as a result of the anatomical structure of the brain. Don't we influence the brain development through learning and education? Is being a woman a biological condition or is it a learned behavior imposed by our patriarchal society's standards? From this perspective, Catharine MacKinnon (1982) argues that although social mechanisms imply that "women's bodily differences from men must account for their subordination to men" (p.526), women only become women through a long process of self transformation which is "independent of biology and an ideology that attributes them to nature" (p.529). If one is born to be something and the other is born to become something else, automatically the first takes the advantage over the second. Men are born to naturally be rational beings that don't lose control of their emotions, born to lead, control and protect. On the other hand, women's purpose is to take a secondary role, and become whatever they are needed or wanted to be.

An understanding of the biological differences between men and women might enable us to see how gender inequality comes into existence. One difference is the exterior physical attributes. Women have been labeled as the beautiful sex and expected to live as such. If we look through the history of humanity, being beautiful was a sacrifice that all women had to make to some extent. The question is: who sets the beauty standards and who decides whether or not a woman lives up to those standards? For example, women in the Ming Dynasty of ancient China were going through a painful process of foot binding, a practice which still exists in isolated places. The idea was that the smaller the foot of the woman, ideally no longer than three inches, the more desirable she would be in finding a husband. Although it was seen as feminine and sexy to some (male), the outcome was that women impaired their ability to stand on their feet, walk or perform any physical work. As much as women would suffer to be beautiful, I would say that the self-mutilation and self-inflicted disability of foot binding carry the whole business too far, according to our humanity's standards. Yet, nearly a millennium later women subject themselves to the same mutilation procedures. It might not seem to be the same suffering with the use of modern anesthesia, but what do we think of liposuction, breast implants, plastic surgery and even tattooing? Just as foot binding is representative of the social and gender inequalities in Ancient China, so do plastic surgeries of the modern world proves that inequality of genders still exists. Moreover, men reduce the existence of women to objects that are being appraised based on their physical appearances. Men evaluate and set the standards, and women comply and allow themselves to be the objects of admiration and observation. By doing so, women not only consciously participate in the division of genders but help perpetuate their objectification.

Men not only objectify women because of their physical looks, but because physical attractiveness presupposes sexual desirability. As a result, women come to develop a sexual identity for the satisfaction of men. According to Catharine MacKinnon, women are tools that exist in order to serve men's sexual needs. In the same way that observable beauty is objectified and evaluated from an outside male perspective, sexuality becomes the social prerogative based on which women are attributed a certain degree of usefulness in this male-dominated social setting. In this light, women come to be evaluated in terms of "their capacity as "workers", a term that seldom includes women's distinctive work: housework, sexual service, childbearing" (MacKinnon, 1982, p.522). An object can only exist as long as it serves its function; otherwise we get rid of it. In the same manner, women's existence is socially accepted and maximized in terms of the usefulness that brings for the subject's (males) purposes.

Focusing on sexual services as the physical intimate relationship between women and men, I will have to disagree with some claims MacKinnon makes. She states that consensual sex does not exist and that all sex is rape. Just because the hard penetrates the soft, or as MacKinnon (1982) asserts, "softness means pregnability by something hard" (p.530), or because a woman has the ability to grow a baby in her womb and give birth, this is not sufficient to explain sexual objectification of women. The sexual act itself, conception and birth could indeed be attributed to the biological differences between male and female. The issue at hand is not whether or not "man fucks woman" (MacKinnon, 1982, p.241) in its literal meaning, but rather how men come to understand, define and ultimately abuse women's sexuality. If we dig beyond the exaggeration, I believe that what MacKinnon states is that submissiveness of women is so deeply embedded in our society and universally accepted that "few women are in position to refuse unwanted sexual initiatives" (p.532). This statement