Sunday, May 06, 2007  "Objectifying yourself" is an oxymoron  An
AlterNet article (via) about the feminist politics of stripping
starts with these seven words: If a woman chooses to objectify
herself... And I have to object immediately. If to be
objectified is for a human body to be stripped of its humanity
and treated like any other object in space, I don't know how we
can speak of a woman objectifying herself. One may submit to or
encourage their own objectification, but they cannot make
themself into a simple object (except perhaps by suicide or
unconsciousness). It is only the observer, the objectifier, who
has the power to deny the reality of the human being that
animates a human body.  1 comment:  Anonymous said...  Right.
That's what makes self objectification so bad. It means that a
woman takes on the male gaze and sees herself first and foremost
as an object for sex and centers her life around trying to meet
the expectations of that self-imposed male gaze. For example,
self-objectification leads to e