You don't say! This study has found that when men look at what they maturely term, "girlie calendars," not only are they aroused, but they don't think of them as people that are thinking beings, but objects.
When men are shown images of women in bikinis, the part of the brain they use when thinking about DIY tools and other objects lights up.At the same time, the region they use to try to tune into another person's thoughts and feelings tunes down, brain scans showed.
I was under the impression that the entire culture of marketing already realized that and sells women as part of the product. Her sexuality, her image, her body, her skin, whatever you want, she is yours. Right?
The last line of the article takes the cake.
Asked if women were likely to view half-dressed men in the same way, she said that women tended to rate age and bank balance over looks.
Surely there is *some* biological desire that makes women automatically think about whether men can provide or not, but that desire is minimal considering that we must also factor in common sense. I think this argument proves that despite some pre-historic desire for men to get horny over scantily clad women and for women to want rich husbands that provide security and ability to nest (this is what evolutionary psychologists would argue), most of this desire comes from cultural conditioning. If you are exposed to something enough, you have trouble distinguishing between what you want and what you are supposed to want.
On the other hand, can there be sexy images of women without them inherently being sexist or objectifying?
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I'm skeptical. This article raises more questions than it answers. What were the men's ages/levels of personal experience with women? Were the men all from the same cultural or religious background? Would testing men with varying social views (be they religious, political, etc.) affect the outcome? What were the men's upbringings, how were male/female relationships modeled in their homes by their parents? Were any gay men tested to see what images lit up their brains?
All I see is the same old stereotypes-"men like girls and power tools! Women like bank accounts cuz they're all golddiggers!" I'm also very leery of the phrases "A study has shown" or "Scientists say" when little to no information is presented about HOW the study was conducted, whether or not the hypotheses was tested with varying results, who funded the study, etc. It almost seems sometimes like "Scientists say..." has become the new "God says..." for our culture, in that we're being blindly asked to accept what we're told because it came from a "scientist" somewhere, without them being made to show their work.
great points
Thanks.
You can have a sexy picture of a woman without it being objectifying only if it's in a larger context. That is, if you know the woman. Unless she's your significant other, however, that's going to be super creepy. It's certainly worse to have a 'sexy' picture of some girl in your math class (without her knowing) than it is to have a pin-up calendar of women who are, presumably, consenting. Then there's the question of celebrities. If you know a little bit ABOUT the woman, think she's talented or funny, is that less creepy than having an anonymous woman on your wall? Should all pin-up calendars come with blurbs about the women? Would that really make any difference?
Sorry if this was semi-incoherent, but my thoughts on this subject are always intensely muddled.
What if this is a picture of a character in a story?
In that case, one might be interested in the character as an individual, without knowing the person who's photo that was. And this applies the same to pictures for non-sexual narratives and ones involving sexual events within the narrative.
I think that is a really interesting question, one that I have been thinking about lately because of the release of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. SI portrays the swimsuit issues as being more tasteful than men's magazine's like MAXIM, which, whatever, but I find it interesting that they always include a bunch of information and interviews with the models.
I go back and forth on whether or not I think it is better than other magazines or an equally bad wolf in sheep's clothing, but I guess on just a gut level it strikes me as less objectifying than some magazines. I don't know, maybe it is that it seems to come out with the "these are incredibly beautiful women who get paid a lot to do this" instead of pretending that the women want nothing more than to be with the random men ogeling them in photos, but I have been pondering lately what effect, if any, the little information and interview has.
I agree with the "add personality" part, but disagree that this requires text. I find that a good artist or photographer can give you a glimpse of the character and/or model's personality. Jay GreenMan's photography, and a lot of the other stuff I've found through Jane's Guide, spring to mind.
The producers of mass-produced Maxim-style airbrush-away-all-personality crap may have technical proficiency, but they fail epically in this department. That's why their pictures are so boring.
After considering it more, I really don't think it matters if the man (because it's usually a man) knows everything about the woman (because it's usually a woman) he's ogling. His interaction with her is still entirely one-sided; she is not an active participant, and, really, this is what bothers me about pornography: the element of consent has been revoked. Things are being done TO the woman, not WITH her.
Yes, it is only a picture, but pictures are powerful. And, yes, the consent was there for the photo shoot or filming, but after she signed that contract she can no longer change her mind. Women can revoke consent at any point in the real world, but they can't revoke it once they're on film, and I find this problematic. I feel like the only way I could ever be comfortable with 'sexy pictures' or porn or whatever you'd like to call it is if it were online only, not downloadable, and the models/performers/etc. could remove the photos or videos at any time.
Maybe I'm coloring this too much with my personal experience. Who knows.
Actually, when a man masturbates to pornography, he's not doing ANYTHING to or with the model or models who's likenesses are used in the product.
He's masturbating to a photograph, or a video image.
The model has absolutely nothing to do with the process after the photoshoot is done - when the man downloads the image or buys the tape or the magazine, he's looking at an image, which has no connection whatsoever to the human being who was photographed for that image weeks, months or maybe even years before - it might as well be a drawing (and in a lot of porn - particularly some of the Japanese stuff - it actually IS a drawing).
Which is funny, since Playboy has always included interviews and information pages about the centerfold models.
Personally, I don't think it makes much difference whether a person is a stranger, a friend, a spouse or a lover. A straight male who sees a woman he thinks is sexy will get a boner just the same, whether she's posing in a magazine, starring in a movie, sunbathing at the beach, buying ice cream in a supermarket or browsing in a bookstore. If anything, being aroused by a person you know well (at work or school) can be pretty awkward if you're not involved with them and they notice the bulge in your pants.
This study does sound very suspect. Just reinforces gender stereotypes. I know women who enjoy erotic images of other women, and they don't treat real women as objects because of it. And I know sensitive men who indulge in pornography on occassion but are still capable of treating the women in their lives like human beings. Not to say that porn and unrealistic images of women are totally harmless. I still tell people to read "The Beauty Myth" every chance I get. I am tired of being told that I as a woman am programmed to look for an old wallet. This is such crap! I'm in my 30s and often go out with guys 10 years younger or more, and I really don't care if they are employed or destitute or wealthy beyond my dreams because I make my own (modest) living. Physical attraction and charm seem to motivate me. I do not find men my father's age attractive in the least, even though Hollywood is constantly trying to brainwash me into doing so. I guess I'm just some kind of aberration, not wanting to date grandfathers... :)
I wonder: is a picture of a woman that a lesbian would find sexy (such as in Susie Bright's collection Nothing But the Girl) also considered objectifying?
Good point...although another salient point might be - are there pictures that "lesbians find arousing" or pictures that "lesbians SHOULD find arousing"?
Personally, I know a lot of my friends who look at the same pictures that qualify as "girlie" mags (or alt porn, etc) and find them pretty sexy ;)
It looks like their experiment was only conducted on men, so drawing any conclusion about women's brains is irresponsible on the researcher's part.
And I'd be willing to guess that those same bikini-clad women might register differently in the men's brains if they were taken off the calendar. Women aren't objects, but calendars are.
This is what I thought, actually: yes, some of it is probably due to the objectification of the women. On the other hand...they are actually looking at an OBJECT. Their brain waves might register very differently were they looking at a beautiful woman they were thinking about asking out.
(For that matter: men have been shown to compartmentalize that kind of thing. Studies have shown that both men and women's self-esteem suffers after looking at pinups and magazine models. Why? Because women see them as what men want, and men see them as ideals: women they would never ask out nor think they could. Probably if you looked at only men who did think they could ask these women on a date successfully, you'd see a different result.)
There was a study done by the Center of Behavioral Neuroscience and released in 20007 that reported men and women showed different patterns of brain activity when viewing sexual stimuli. Men looked at the female face much more than women. Women also looked longer at pictures of people involved in sexual acts.
So I'm not sure the "women don't like sexy shit and only want a bank account" is true.
Well done Lis. Let's examine the woman in the feministing logo for self objectification. She's sitting on her ass, pointing her finger, like she's got an opinion, but she doesn't have a job. Oh wait, I can't concentrate... quick... someone call me a troll and ban me...
Aaaarrrrghhhh... !
" She's sitting on her ass..."
That makes it self-objectifying? What do you trolls sit on, your fingertips?
It looks like a blow up doll.
And the hair is so big, like it spent all day. And the physique is waif -like - thin arms, like a little doe. The feministing logo seems to embrace sexual dimorphism, and we all know that in the species with greater dimorphism, where the female is much smaller, it is because the female does fuck all (apart from sitting around objectifying itself in feigned ignorance of the consequences).
It's a not a blow-up doll, it's a play on the classic mudflap girl often placed on trucks, the hair is supposed to be windblown. She's flipping the bird to those who would assume she is only there to be objectified. But your projections onto the graphic (she doesn't have a job, spends all day on her hair), make me think she also does well as another famous type of silhouetted imagery--the Rorschach Test.
Totally. I was thinking about this study while I was watching the men's diving team yesterday.
(Guys, you are very talented and I'm sure you have lives and personalities aside from your washboard abs, but that's not what I was thinking about while watching your perfect, contorted, free-falling bodies)
Objectification of people by other people is completely involuntary. We have to do it, just like we have to categorize people and judge them on first impressions. When objectification becomes one-sided, mainstream, and de facto public policy is when it leads to dangerous sexist practices.
So long as they're images solely designed to stimulate sexual desire in men - ergo a product of the patriarchal system which perpetuates the objectification / commoditization of women - then the answer will always be no. I'd even go so far as to say that so long as women are portrayed / perceived primarily in terms of their sexual availability then there's always an element of that objectification in play. It's all part of the same cycle of oppression and subtle existential violence that conditions and constructs the consumerist-ownership dimension of male sexuality (Or rather, how male sexuality is incorporated into masculinity in broader terms). Whilst objectification doesn't sum up the totality of male sexualisation, it's a factor which I think cannot be extricated so long as we're (That is, Western/stereotypically white/capitalist/relatively affluent) stuck in the current mould of masculine / feminine.
In short, whilst we're in a culture where human sexuality is a commodity and women are the primary 'resource' in that sordid market, then any and all presentation of human sexuality will be tinged by sexism, patriarchy, objectification and gross androcentricity. That said, realisation of our negative socialisation can and *does* lead to change over time. Even if we do live with a lot of these negative values, that doesn't detract from the beauty and power of human sexuality - rejecting that side of your existence because the conditions of it are less than perfect isn't something which I think is ever healthy.
This seems eerily similar to http://www.feministing.com/archives/013734.html
Yeah.....wth?
Yes, it's reporting on the same study. Which hasn't been published, so all we've got is a few newspapers' accounts of a presentation of it, which gives nowhere near enough information to critically examine the study.
I was thinking the same thing.
And what part of the brain is connected to age and bank balance? What a ridiculous (and predictable) response.
Also, that article is ridiculously sloppy reporting. The study did not -- could not -- conclude a single thing about what the men were thinking, which is what the first sentence says. Some of the comments from the researcher also seem kind of suspect to me, but I don't really know enough about her to know what sort of context she's working in. And we can't compare the article to the actual study, because it's not published yet.
Must agree that I'm skeptical of the study -- from what I've heard brain mapping is not really anywhere near the stage where we can postulate a specific area for tools and infer that the test subjects thought of women as tools.
Even if the same area of the brain is used that's still not enough for this conclusion especially given that other parts of the brain are likely to be working too. Including parts of the brain that deal with reproduction and arousal -- which presumably don't get triggered when looking at pictures of screwdrivers (not for most anyway).
This article on the so-called study is even more ridiculous than the first referenced article about it posted yesterday on feministing. That a well respected psychologist would go around making such generalized and stunningly biased statements to the press under the guise of "scientific findings" is astounding. I can only assume Fiske takes it for granted that the general news readership is profusely lacking in criticle thinking skills and that using terms like "MRI brain scanner" and "prefrontal cortex" is enough to wow them into believing that what she's saying has scientific merrit. In acting this way she undermines the legitimacy of genuine research and discussion of sexualized imagery and it's effects on relationships both professional and personal.
I tend to believe that most issues regarding gender are culturally conditioned. For example, different societies regard different traits as being attractive in a potential sexual partner. Yet people are reluctant to believe social reasoning about almost anything, and evo psych is popular.
I don't necessarily think sexy pictures of women are objectifying, but I guess it depends. In the majority of pornography, yes. In artistic photography, sometimes. Women tend to be considered the definition of "sexy", while men "do" sex. I enjoy photography, and artistic nudes come up a lot in my online browsing. Most of the photos tend to be of women, although I do find some men. Yet their bodies are positioned differently. Women usually lie down, while men stand--which seems to portray them differently. I also find a lot of pictures of female bodies with her face not visible, which I think tends to make their bodies like an object.
In some ways, I enjoy appreciating people's bodies as a form of beauty. Yet I think my concept of physical beauty (multi racial, multi-gendered, and different sizes) differs greatly from the conventional media depiction. Is this a type of objectification? Is it especially when sexual desire is involved?
I think it's a tough question, but I tend to think that just admiring the way someone looks (even though I place appearance at a far lower level than personality and other traits) doesn't objectify them. Lust is okay, but when it involves ignoring the person's feelings and needs as an individual human being for the sake of your own gratification--then it's not okay. Believing that a person or his or her body belongs to you, or that they "owe" sexual gratification to you--that's objectification.
Then again, there's a difference between artistic nudes and pornographic images... So maybe it's not quite the same comparison.
Personally, I hate those pictures where the faces are cut off. I like to be curious about a person, both enjoying the mystery of wondering what a person is like based on his or her appearance, and realizing the contradictory truth that looks can be very misleading and superficial.
That got a little rambling there, but the original question was thought-provoking.
I don't know if this has been brought up before, but the fact is that this study is not widely available to look at. If you look up Susan Fiske in psychological journals, etc. she has very interesting, serious work that has been published.It's not like she's just writing BS all the time. When the media reports on a study, we have to be good consumers and realize that they are going to emphasize anything and everything that reinforces stereotypes. They can pick and choose what they want to present from studies. The same thing happens when a study comes out saying that men and women are very similar in terms of brain functions, etc. If there are any differences mentioned in the study, we're more likely to hear about those than anything else, especially from mainstream media.
Also, media sources, in the language that they use, can sometimes twist a simple correlation (relationship between two variables) into a phrase that implies causation (that one variable directly caused another to occur).
"Asked if women were likely to view half-dressed men in the same way, she said that women tended to rate age and bank balance over looks."
This is *really* frustrating! It's deeply unlikely Fiske was speaking with authority when she said this and yet it's reported as fact.
It gets better by the way. In National Geographic online's take she was asked if she'd tried a similar test with women. The answer? "But Fiske doesn't think such an experiment would work the same way, because women usually react to men they desire by 'interpreting their minds, thinking about what they're interested in, and then trying to please them,' she said."
How nicely does *that* mesh with stereotypes of women as subservient and inclined to submerge their own interests (sexual and otherwise) into service to men?
In other words, according to Susan Fiske, men mindlessly objectify women whereas women mindlessly objectify themselves? Sounds more like Anne Coulter or Rush Limbaugh envy than credible cognitive psychology.
figleaf
I tend to think that seeing a human being as a sexual object is only a problem if a) it only happens to one sex in a broad cultural sense (ie, okay for men to do it to women, not okay for women to do it to men) AND b) if it's the only way the people doing the viewing are able to engage with the person depicted as a sexual being. I mean, sometimes all we have access to is an image, and if it's of someone we don't know, we have to create the fantasy/narrative around it in our own minds . . . and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It can actually make room for more flexible sexual fantasies than narratives that are created for us.
It seems wrong to me to assume that human beings seeing the human beings they are attracted to sexually as, well, sexy, as across-the-board problematic.
I hate to be a smart ass, but a picture is an object. I doubt the parts of the brain that judge emotions would be activated if you showed someone a picture of Batman, either.
I would be more interested in what parts of the brain were activate if they interacted with real women.
No sane evolutionary psychologist would argue that, because this whole argument is riddled with logical fallacies. A-->B does not mean B was caused by A.
I really like feministing but it makes me very upset when you blog about how faulty science is without actually understanding what you're talking about. There is a place for evolutionary psychology within a paradigm of woman's equality (actually I think it is NECESSARY to true equality for women) and it's posts like these that prevent me from calling myself a feminist.
marie-
Why does a post on a blog prevent you from calling yourself a feminist? Feministing's great, but it's not the final word on What Feminists Believe. If someone disagree with Starhawk's view of history, should she refuse to call herself a pagan for that reason alone? If some of Richard Dawkins' views don't do it for someone, should he not be an atheist? If Mother Jones didn't want Blair Mountain to happen, is she no longer pro-union? So you disagree with some posters on this blog about evolutionary psychology. Why does that stop you from being a feminist? They're not claiming to speak for every feminist and they don't. You can just be a feminist with a different view on evolutionary psychology.
You obviously underestimate the depth of feeling some of us men have for our tools.
Do scientists really think so-called "gold diggers" are anything but a product of patriarchal society? I'm inclined to believe that if women had had full-on eqality from the beginning that such a quality would not be a prevelant. Most women throughout patriarchal history have looked for me who are good providers because having children leaves us in a vulnerable position, as does not having full equality to seek out any job we find suitable for equal pay. Of course women in past generations seeker out men who could provide in vast numbers: it was incredibly difficult for tthem to earn on their own.
I get really angry with men who get pissed off about so-called "gold-digging whores"; after all, if society hadn't forced women into the position of lifetime servitude in the first place, there wouldn't be as strong of a need to seek out a guy with a lot of bread because we'd have been able to make as much as we needed on our own without help.
These days, as Western society undergoes huge changes, many of us are changing the "gold digging/good provider" dynamic by either becoming our own breadwinners or by sharing more equatibly in work for money and in the home. In turn, this is negating our desire for a man who can pay the bills, and many of us are now seeking so much more in a partner. We want respect, sanity, true equitable stability and a soul-mate, all things that feminism and feminist spirituality are working hard to provide.
We may have survived for long periods of time by clinging to financially stable men, but these days, because we are learning to take care of ourselves, this is becoming less true, at least in the financial sense. As we become stronger, smarter, and more able to become the change we wish to see, we are asking men to evolve past their own social trappings.
I know this is somewhat off-topic from the original discussion, but whenever I see the term "gold digger", I feel the need to remind the guys (and a few women who may be smarting from the term) of their place in our "evolution" as well. Because it's a phenomenon mostly created by patriarchal trappings - compare women from 200 or even 1500 years ago to women of today, and you'll see what I mean - I can't help but mention this anytime I see the phrase bantered about.
Sincerely,
A non-gold-digging gal who knows better than to blame Mars and Venus for the ills plaguing society!
Do scientists really think so-called "gold diggers" are anything but a product of patriarchal society? I'm inclined to believe that if women had had full-on eqality from the beginning that such a quality would not be a prevelant. Most women throughout patriarchal history have looked for me who are good providers because having children leaves us in a vulnerable position, as does not having full equality to seek out any job we find suitable for equal pay. Of course women in past generations seeker out men who could provide in vast numbers: it was incredibly difficult for tthem to earn on their own.
Generally speaking, on an animalistic level, women do gravitate towards men who achieve higher social status, and this is true in almost every society. The main difference is how the men reach that status. In modern society, it's money, fame or political power. In more primitive societies it's a matter of who's the best hunter, who's the toughest fighter and so on. The way people worship athletes is a sign of this behavior. The fact that women who are successful in their own right usually go for high-status men shows that patriarchy has nothing to do with it.
Well, this is a rather silly, antiquated view that's backed by years of outdated and debunked research on primates. If by "animalistic" you mean animal-like behavior in humans, then this doesn't make any sense, as most female primates secretly mate with every male they meet up with in order to hedge their bets and protect their young. And if you're strictly talking about humans, then you've got to account for the fact that women are socialized to go after men with good paychecks.
In modern society, men and women are socialized to believe that having a big paycheck gives a person higher status. It's the higher status (among other things) that attracts potential mates. Physical appearance, health and personality also play roles. Before wealth was in the form of money, people attained higher status by having more (or better) land, crops, animals, shiny objects, scalps or whatever might be valued. To this, patriarchy added hereditary titles and religious office.
The fact that primates will mate outside of their pair bonds doesn't disprove this.
thankz fer schoolin my pore innorant selff. i never dun red ennythin on dis subjekt befoor comentin hear
Don't look now, but your arrogant male privilege is showing. You might want to put that away before you embarrass yourself. Thanks for the lecture, though.
P.S. I've heard all the evolutionary psychology drivel time and again, and I've even watched a few of the same Discovery channel specials that you have. The thing is, people are complex and have a number of different things they base their "mating choices" on. I myself have never been able to stomach a man with a large paycheck, although I've been pursued by a number of them, because they always have a matching ego that needs a little too much stroking and ridiculous ideas and values about capitalism and social justice that just don't align with my own. In fact, all of my female friends feel the same. Silly us. We're so out of touch with the fact that we're supposed to be pursuing the strong hunter types (because those hunters were sooo indispensable to society, what with their contribution of 20-30% of the food source) who will protect us vulnerable baby-making machines and confer their oh-so-valuable high social status on us. 'Cause we couldn't have our own values and criteria for a mate. That would require rational thought.
Yes. They posit it must be from the beginnings of human evolution, when we wandered the tundra picking gold cards and gathering diamond tennis bracelets.
Ack! Sorry about the typos early on my post; they are products of angry-thumbs-on-iPhone-at-7am typing.
"Asked if women were likely to view half-dressed men in the same way, she said that women tended to rate age and bank balance over looks."
Did they put this theory to the test? I'm wondering exactly how one would estimate a half-dressed guy's bank balance... By the value of his underpants? How expensive his haircut looks?
Does this mean women will have to stop objectifying themselves?
There is now an article on this study on the CNN homepage. The sad thing (well, one of the sad things at least) is that studies like this can be publicized by oranizations like CNN, and people take it to be the aboslute truth, no questions whatsoever. Like how has socialization has affected these reactions?/ what are the reactions of men of varying ages and sexual orientations (only 21 hetero male undergrads in the study)?/ what are women's reactions?, etc. etc. etc. Questions that any scientist conducting a thorough study would explore.
I think Fiske should have a wee review the scientific method
The image of a woman is not a woman. So it should not come as a surprise or cause any distress to find such results in brain activities of men. Of course one would not interact with an image of a person in the same way he or she would interact with another person.
In the words of that famous painting by Rene Magritte: This Is Not A Pipe.
I am curious to know the way a women's brain reacts to the SAME stimuli that the men were shown. Maybe it is not "men" but rather human beings in general that become conditioned to think in this way. All the studies I have read so far conclude that men are more visual than women and they base this on the way their brains work when looking at naked woman. The woman are said to be less visually stimulated when viewing naked men. Well Duh! I guess so. Our minds use symbols as tools for understanding the world around us. Our society is conditioned to see women, not men as sex symbols. I would think this would affect even heterosexual woman at least on a subconscious level.