Should Women Give Up the Power That Comes with Being Objectified?

I am happy to read an article like this because it&#x27;s very rare to see a woman admitting that many (but not all) women actually exploit sexism to their own advantage, and that she did too, on some occasions.<p>I think this is one good way towards progress in this sense.

&gt;And if you think this isn’t accurate, just think about how a rich, single, old, but ugly man would fare far better romantically than a rich, single, old, but ugly woman.<p>And speaking of the whole article more generally - Isn&#x27;t all of this because of basic evolutionary psychology, and intuitively fairly obvious? Roughly speaking men seek beauty wrt neoteny and fertility, whereas women are more forgiving about appearances so long as men have status and can provide for a family. This isn&#x27;t a new phenomenon, and even pervades many cultural mythologies.

I&#x27;ll come at this from a different angle. In my 20s up until my mid 30s, I was a part time fitness instructor and surrounded by other fitness enthusiasts. We, both male and female <i>loved</i> the attention we got. We would run races with our shirts off (guys) and the women would run with clothes showing off their midriffs and post the pictures to Facebook. We would all go out in a group wearing things that we knew showed off our bodies.<p>We thought we worked hard for it, why not show it off?<p>When I went to interview for classes, I made it my mission to wear something that would show off all the time I spent in the gym and I know I got classes based on the fact that I didn&#x27;t &quot;look and act like a typical fitness instructor&quot; - I was muscular, young, and came across more like a drill seargent than Richard Simmons.<p>I&#x27;ve met plenty of women and quite a few men who like the attention.<p>Even though I&#x27;m nowhere near in shape I was back then, when wearing regular professional clothes, I still have people asking me about my workout regimen. I never once hated the attention.

As I was reading the beginning of this article to my wife, she said that it might be a problem for a percentage of women who are nice looking, but might not be as true for more ordinary looking ones (not to mention the perhaps less gifted)<p>As I find her beautiful, she&#x27;s very shy and don&#x27;t have the same point of view on herself, so doesn&#x27;t see her as a potentially objectified person. I guess there&#x27;s a part, maybe not that little, of women who feel the same.

While I am happy about the new women’s movement which allows every member of the society to acknowledge the fact that equality still has not been achieved in many aspects of life, my main concern has been how the common narratives puts 100 % of the burden and request for behavioural change collectively on men. This text does a good job pointing out how collectively, women have and often still are endorsing the type of culture which then leads to unwelcome and problematic behaviour of some men. It indeed would be strange if women wouldn’t be subject to the same dynamics of evolutionary &amp; cultural programming as men.<p>As far as I see it, everyone has to change, improve &amp; question their biases so that a culture is created in which men feel neither safe nor the need to become predators and harrasers.

They know the power that comes with doing this yet men never cry foul or sexist when they observe this. Feminists will react wholly different.

According to this reasearch, <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;assets.csom.umn.edu&#x2F;assets&#x2F;71503.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;assets.csom.umn.edu&#x2F;assets&#x2F;71503.pdf</a> it goes far beyond &quot;objectification&quot;. (Access to) sex is a commodity that women naturally posses, and men want.

The article makes some interesting points. I disagree with the notion that men are always easily fooled though. I&#x27;m usually aware when someone is flirting with me, but not truly interested.

Flagged because it doesn&#x27;t fit the HN WAW narrative?

&quot;Why have women never tried to manipulate me?&quot;