![]() To this extent, a double standard might be thought tolerable. Consequently, the objectification of men is much less likely to result in sexual violence. Prevailing physical, political and economic power inequalities are such that in practice a man’s agency is much less likely than a woman’s to be overridden. If we only think in terms of the first form of objectification, and the consumption of “eye candy”, we are likely to conclude that the sexual objectification of men is a relatively trivial matter. So, what of the objectification of men, and the existence of an apparent double standard? It is subtly ideological rather than brutally coercive. Objectification in this sense works by colonising women’s identities. Women are invited to play along with the roles allotted to them, consenting to, and even enthusiastically embracing, treatment that is in reality exploitative. In this case, rather than reducing women to the status of mere resources, the objectifying content has the effect of scripting their behaviour – tacitly promoting norms and stereotypes of conduct geared to the sexual gratification of men. In the second, women’s agency is not ignored but actively recruited for oppressive purposes. ![]() By implicitly denying women’s agency, they appear to legitimise coercive behaviour and in extreme cases sexual violence. Such portrayals encourage more general exploitative attitudes towards women. In the first, eroticised depictions of female bodies present women as mere resources – nothing more than “eye candy” for male sexual gratification. Sexual objectification typically takes one of two forms. So what are the concerns really all about? Where chemistry is present, it will naturally provoke an audience response and, in this case, blanket puritanical condemnation is misplaced.īut, of course, feminist concerns about objectification were never really a matter of blanket puritanical condemnation. Why not eroticism also? If a dramatic presentation of a sexual relationship fails to ring true because the performances lack “chemistry” the drama will fail as drama. Comedy, horror and sentiment all have a legitimate place in drama, and all of them provoke emotional and bodily responses. Nor is a sexualised audience response necessarily inappropriate. If nudity is dramatically integral to a scene in some way – in a scene of tender, non-sexual intimacy as much as in a sex scene – then it can’t be condemned as simply “gratuitous”. Most of us are comfortable with displays of nudity on the beach or around the hotel pool that would not be acceptable in the office, so acceptability cannot be measured by square inches of naked flesh. So are liberated and independent women who decry the objectification of women, but are thrilled by shots of male bodies on TV, guilty of double standards?Ĭompared to the acres of taut flesh on display in coverage of, say, Olympic swimming, the odd glimpse of a firm set of abs or a muscled thigh in a BBC drama seems almost trivial. But recently the balance seems to have shifted, with concerns being expressed about the potential objectification of male actors in drama series such as Bodyguard and Poldark. ![]() The idea that advertising, entertainment and news media are guilty of objectifying women is familiar enough to most of us.
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