Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!ucivax!gateway From: ag1v+@andrew.cmu.EDU ("Andrea B. Gansley-Ortiz") Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Who gets to look Message-ID: Date: 21 Nov 90 02:13:29 GMT References: <8654@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <658245246@lear.cs.duke.edu> <1990Nov11.171709.25842@arris.com> <1990Nov16.161821.17287@iti.org> <1990Nov17.155213.23767@arris.com>, <13781@june.cs.washington.edu> Lines: 50 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu What is objectifying? Is it simply the gazing upon a human being that causes them to be objectified, or is it the thought processes of the spectator that actually cause the objectifying? I look at men in a lusty manner. I enjoy it. I have never seen any of them notice that they were being watched. I doubt that they felt objectified. Were they? By my looking I am certainly not trying to degrade them. I never do catcalls as I do consider that degrading and this is not my intention. Now, by the definitions I've seen on here I was definitely degrading each man I looked at and shouldn't do it. But are they really degraded? Do they feel degraded? If not, who are we to say that they are? There are women who enjoy being looked at. Not all women do. Something that can work in the long run, but takes a lot of courage is to tell the spectator that you don't appreciate thier glances and would like them to stop. Believe me, this doesn't work all the time. Lea Fester's method of staring at a man's crotch when you know they've been looking at you and they know you're now looking at them definitely drives the point home that there are ways to make men also feel degraded. It feels good to put yourself in such a position of power that you can actually do that to another person without saying a word to them. Is that a good way to do it? I think that people have to decide that for themselves. But if you feel that you are being degraded by someone, either in their eyes or in your own, don't do nothing about it. Use Lea's method. Use mine. Use something so that whoever is doing the objectifying knows that this is how people percieve what they are doing and that they should stop. You might get laughed at using my method. But if they were objectifying you or someone else to begin with how much do you really value their opinion anyway? Something that women need to work on is not allowing those things which they consider degrading to happen to them. Any kind of small protest whether it is in your mind or to the world will help it stop. Think of it this way. If women in general don't feel degraded by being looked at by men, then they aren't being degraded. There is a difference between actions and thoughts. Usually people think before they act (hopefully). If people start changing their thought processes then other changes will come in time. Just food for thought. Andrea