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sometimes I wonder how many men who make such arguments (”but I don’t think that way - I see women as people!”) ever stop to consider that it’s the very fact that they cannot feel how helpless and objectified such images show women (or, at least, that woman) to be that scares us so much.

How can you look at her, put youself in her shoes, and not feel like an object? It’s a question that strongly suggests that the answer is not so much “because not everyone would be feel like an object in that position” but rather “because someone is having trouble with the whole empathy thing in the first place.”

And (sigh) I really should know better than to try to respond to this - but it’s this normal, healthy worry that makes any logic minded feminist wonder about the average man’s propensity towards rape (given culture - not biology). It’s really not that we think most men consiously hate us and are deliberately lying when you say “but I see women as people!” It’s not that we hate you, either. It’s that we sometimes see a disconnect between your actions (ability to empathise) and your words - but you don’t - and so we also have to wonder what other times we may be using the same words to mean different things.

We don’t generally worry that you might think it’s ok to hold a knife to a woman’s throat and force her to have sex. We worry about how much manipulation you think is ok when it comes to trying to get sex, how willing you are to believe your buddies and disbelieve us when it comes to sexual assault, and most important of all - are you just listening for a “yes” (or, more often the absence of a “no”), or are you actually considering what we want and all the nuances that always entails and working with us to communicate such things? Are you treating us as a person because you are nice and want to be a good person and that’s what good people do, or are you treating us as a person because you actually see us as one?

It’s not that we question your desire to be good, it’s that we question your ability to do good when other things suggest your internal moral compass is a bit off. Through no or very little fault of your own, usually, but still a bit off, nonetheless.

As people are saying, it’s not by itself, enough. But it is an important part of the equation.

Making they eyes prominent can, depending on how it’s done, make it clear that the person you are looking at is looking right back at you.

Quite often people (usually women) who are shown as sex objects are shown to not really be looking at anything at all, or at the very least definitely not looking at you - giving it a voyeristic quality and putting the power in the hands of the person who is doing the gazing. Such as in the cover from the post. While none of the characters are looking at you, the viewer, the woman in foreground is looking off to the side in such an awkward way that most people would probably conclude that such a person was deliberately avoiding their gaze if they met them in real life. Avoiding the gaze of another is a position that is very, very submissive. Oddly enough, the only character who is looking at the viewer is the only other woman in the picture - one that is too far back to make real eye contact. Which helps to reinforce the idea that their focus is all on you - but that they know their place.

While it’s not a universal fix, making sure that the person being gazed at is also gazing as well means that one of the many ways that women are shown to be submissive - avoiding the gaze of their betters - will be likely avoided.

Unfortunately, one can - and many often do - nullify this by doing all kids of distracting things with the way women are gazing that end up still making them look submissive - tilting their head to the side, putting their hands near their face, tilting their head down as if they are trying to avoid your gaze, etc. But that’s another rant.

Thank you - I never could quite articulate why Hooters pissed me off so much.

(Thank your wife for me too.)

I mean, no one expects me to be ok with going to a strip bar. (Well, outside of workplaces that would be subject to prosecuton under sexual harrassment laws anyway.) But people refer to Hooters as if it’s all a big joke - and I rather suspect they would think I’m just a humorless feminist for refusing to go there.

While I certainly am a feminist - and the humorless is open to debate - I don’t want to go to Hooters for the same reason I have no desire to read Playboy: I DON’T WANT TO. That’s pretty much it. And yet Hooters tries to have it both ways. Hey! - we’re all about the boobs! - but we don’t actually show them naked so we’re still family friendly!

Bullshit.

don’t see a blank slate on which I can write my desires, and I don’t see the bad-ass behind her as my only obstacle to screwing her.”>
I do.

And I’m female, and I’m not even that interested in women.

Part of it may be that that’s a really uncomfortable pose, and one that you can’t really do much from except get grabbed. Her hands are barely visible, her back is awkwardly bent, her legs are splayed on the ground–she can’t act. She can’t use a weapon (and she doesn’t have one). She can’t invoke anything, because if she makes a dramatic fantasy sorceress gesture that hip angle and backbend will guarantee she’ll fall on her face. There’s no interest or emotion in her face, no indication that she might actually *use* wiles or overheard secrets, so there’s no point in hearing what she might have to say.

That woman is set up so that she can’t do anything of note (and, I will note, can’t run away–*you* try scrambling to your feet from that position). She cannot act or move in any way worth considering. Meanwhile, she is front and center, so the viewer will perceive her and form an opinion of her.

She is to be thought about, but there is no way it matters what or if she thinks.

That’s a pretty good definition of an object.

I love it so much because (gasp) I’M NOT A MAN. And while I have spent many hours as a writer, wife, girfriend, daughter and sister trying to get into the heads of men (hopefully with some success), there are still things will probably never occur to me simply because I’m only speculating.

Which means that I have to wait around for some intelligent man to get off his ass, think about it and then tell me what he thinks. This is still a rare enough occurrence that it totally blisses me out when it happens. (When it’s my husband doing it of course, it’s fricking NIRVANA.;-) Your comments about what does and doesn’t go through your head as you stare at the Available Sex Object on the cover contained some genuinely new information that I must chew over! So I do hope you continue…