My Problem With Gender Politics And The Double Standards Of Feminism
Male objectification isn't as damaging as its pervasive counterpart, but it can do harm.
A few years ago, at the start of a lengthy layover at Los Angeles’ LAX airport, I received an odd comment from a female employee who was directing people to their gates. As I approached the woman – a couple of decades my senior – she gave me the once-over and exclaimed “Damn you are fine!” Not satisfied that her message had gotten through, after telling me where to find my gate she added, “And you tell your girlfriend if she doesn’t want you I will take her sloppy seconds!”
At the time, I laughed it off. For me, this was just a funny story and a great excuse to demonstrate how worldly and handsome I am (I’m really only middlingly attractive and I’ve been to LA a total of once).
But lately I’ve been thinking that if the genders were reversed, the situation would be far less funny. If an older man said to a young female traveller “I’d take your boyfriend’s sloppy seconds,” it would sound invasive, predatory and possibly threatening. I wouldn’t be surprised if tears were shed and official complaints lodged.
But why is this? Why is the objectification of men taken far less seriously than the objectification of women? Why is sexual attention from males perceived as more threatening than the reverse? Is this not a double standard?
To be honest, in my opinion it kind of is. But it isn’t that simple. Mainly because the cultural context in which flirtatious transactions are carried out is weighted hugely in favour of us men.
Women exist in a continuum of objectification. The newspaper they read over breakfast contains a two-page spread displaying glistening pneumatic bodies. The magazine-stand where they pay for their petrol sports much of the same. Travelling to work or school, they may come across a billboard bearing a topless woman bestrode by a fully dressed Ellen DeGeneres lookalike (or “Justin Bieber” to his fans).
“Why is the objectification of men taken far less seriously than the objectification of women? Why is sexual attention from males perceived as more threatening than the reverse?”
Add to this exploitative TV commercials, radio banter and movies, sexism in sports, and strategically enhanced video game heroines, and female sexual objectification begins to seem pretty inescapable. It’s a rich ecosystem of smut, and every thoughtless comment contributes to it.
Men don’t have this problem. Sure, there’s Magic Mike and Twilight and the odd comment from over-friendly airport staff, but really, it’s fairly easy to tune out. Male objectification is present, but comparatively scarce.
What probably does more damage is the stereotypical roles that each gender has been assigned. In modern society, men are expected to be dominant, assertive and active. Females are (or were) expected to be compliant, nurturing and passive. This means that a sexual overture from a man is most often seen as an attempt to dominate, while the same overture from a female is more likely to be taken as an invitation to dominate her.
These perceptions are reinforced with grizzly regularity every time we turn on the news or hear a rape statistic; men are, overwhelmingly, the more sexually aggressive gender.
This is probably why a female celebrity feels comfortable objectifying a man in ways that a male celebrity would never get away with in a million years. Both perceptually and statistically, the threat of female sexual predation is not considered “realistic” enough to be taken seriously.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t present. Although an understandable reaction to centuries of misogyny, making light of female lechery renders invisible the increasing numbers of men and boys who are victims of domestic and sexual abuse. It reinforces the notion that men are inherently incapable of being violated – or worse, that such men should be made the object of fun.
Male objectification is perhaps not as damaging as its more pervasive counterpart, but it can do harm. I think it’s less a question of double standards, and more of whether it helps or hinders the struggle towards equality. Personally, I think we would be better served if we threw out the gender politics and did away with objectification altogether.
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Business major, journalism minor and sometime voice-actor, Joel Svensson pretends to be smart at La Trobe University in Melbourne.