National Geographic: Bikinis inspire objectification

I know Samhita posted about this study, but this headline scares me: Bikinis Make Men See Women as Objects, Scans Confirm

Sexy women in bikinis really do inspire some men to see them as objects, according to a new study of male behavior.
Brain scans revealed that when men are shown pictures of scantily clad women, the region of the brain associated with tool use lights up.
Men were also more likely to associate images of sexualized women with first-person action verbs such as “I push, I grasp, I handle,” said lead researcher Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University.

Eek.
Okay, so some men see women as objects – I think we all know that. But is it really the bikini’s or – more to the point – the bikini-wearer’s fault? Because that’s what the headline seems to be saying to me. The last time I checked a bikini couldn’t make a man do anything.
The study, on the other hand, seems to be pretty interesting (though also terrifying).

Most of the men best remembered headless photographs of women in bikinis, even if they’d only seen the image for two-tenths of a second, Fiske reported this weekend in Chicago during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
And the men who scored higher as “hostile sexists”–those who view women as controlling and invaders of male space–didn’t show brain activity that indicates they saw the women in bikinis as humans with thoughts and intentions.

Ughhhh. I’m really ready for this week to be over.