Yup, Sexual Objectification is an Evil Male Plot for World Domination

Sexual objectification is an objectively long term (nine syllables!) that feminists throw around a lot, but why exactly is it an evil male plot for world takeover?

I am so glad you asked!

Sexual objectification is the act of treating someone else like they are not a human but merely a thing that exists for you to get off to. It is the assumption that, because someone is female (or feminine, or queer — there are lots of fun variations on the concept), they must be receptive to you sexually.

Objectification is based on the assumption that because of who someone is (say, a woman) rather than what they have done (say, indicate they have a crush on you), they are sexually available to you. This idea underlies things like sexual harassment or street harassment: The notion that, even if a person hasn’t indicated they want to be treated sexually — or has even indicated they don’t want to be treated sexually — you’ve got the right to hit on them anyway, for the mere fact of who they are.

That sucks.

I know, Reina — we got this in, like, feminism level zero. But I’m bringing this up for the umpteenth time (heyy) because sometimes we forget that these problems are structural. Sometimes we forget that the tacit assumption that women exist for male sexual pleasure, or are always receptive to sexual advances, is not only an individual annoyance for individual women — it’s a vast, evil conspiracy that allows men to retain control over the world. 

Okay, yeah, I don’t actually think men sit around in big harasser conventions plotting domination — I just like secret agent metaphors. Systems of power are trickier than that: People’s motivations are diverse, and both organised groups (say, MRAs) and normal individuals (say, your ex boyfriend) exercise power in ways that oppress others. We can understand the cumulative effects of these behaviours as structural — that is, occurring in patterns that disproportionately hurt certain groups — if not, you know, a literal conspiracy (but if you know of one, send me a tip).

Objectification minimizes and reduces our ability to participate in society as full human beings, turns us into jittery self-obsessed messes, and, in short, stifles our badassery.

This is especially true because women are not only assumed to always be down for random dudes’ sexual comments — but because we’re also supposed to like it. (And sometimes we do like it, and that can be confusing and ambivalent.)

I’ve got nothing against sexuality — me and sexuality are pretty hot and heavy.  But we can think of objectification as sexuality weaponized: Sexuality used against us, not with us or in collaboration with us. Assuming that we’re receptive to sexual advances because of who we are (for example: women), rather than what we do (for example: flirt with you) takes away our choice, and thus the respect every human being deserves as an agent (a secret agent, naturally) who can choose. This lack of choice can be super disorienting, can make us feel pretty powerless, can make sexuality something that gives us anxiety rather than pleasure, and can keep us from doing important shit, like becoming famous writers or taking naps or protesting corporate bullshit.

Here are some reasons why assuming women are always open to sexual advances contributes to an evil male plot of world domination.

Objectification keeps women busy

Do you know how much time your average woman on social media, dating sites, or, like, the sidewalk spends wading through random dudes’ sexual suggestions? Or — and this one really gets me — wondering why we’re not being subjected to random dudes’ sexual suggestions? A lot. Deleting sexually aggressive Facebook messages and cringing on the sidewalks in expectation of sexual comments are both normal parts of my daily routine, as are — when these things are not happening — obsessively wondering why I am somehow not pretty enough to be sexually harassed (because again, we’re taught that if we’re not getting it, we’re doing something wrong). It is very time consuming. In the amount of time I spent worrying about this yesterday, I could have done my eyebrows, sorted through my personal finances, and run for president.

Objectification keeps women timid

Here’s the clever thing about double standards: They keep people in line. You can think of a double standard like a cage made up of people shouting at you — you move left and people shout shit at you; you move right and people shout different shit at you, so you eventually just sit there and weep. You can think of objectification sort of like that. Move one direction, and there are a bunch of random dudes shouting shit about your tits; move the other direction, and there a bunch of random internal voices wondering why they have stopped shouting shit about your tits.

This chorus of really loud voices keeps us from being brave. It keeps us from doing things like going outside (street harassment!) or standing up in front of groups of people (eyes!!) or expressing ourselves (judgement!!!). It keeps us from entering certain spaces, or from feeling comfortable in certain spaces. It takes a lot of mental and even physical energy. It prevents us from expressing dissent, because we can always be delegitimized with recourse to our bodies and sexualities — rather than, you know, our opinions. See: Every woman who’s ever tried to write something on the internet. (Seriously, have you ever paused to contemplate the sheer amount of data spent dismissing people because of their bra size??) 

Objectification keeps women insecure about our actual talents and abilities

Remember the time that dude in my Hindi class had a crush on me that I didn’t reciprocate and then one morning he saw hickies on my neck and spent the rest of the semester aggressively correcting my grammar and heavily implying that I was stupid and worthless because I did not agree that he was entitled to sex with me? Hahaha I remember that, wasn’t that funny?

No, it wasn’t — it was an evil plot of patriarchal world takeover. Obsessing over women’s bodies and sexualities not only attempts to prevent us from being awesome — it also gives people a tool to dismiss our intellectual, creative, and political work.

Objectification keeps women fighting each other (rather than, you know, patriarchy)

Wanna know something fucked up? I literally cannot talk to other women about how upsetting I find being street harassed without part of me feeling a little smug about it. Like smug smug. Like “Look how pretty I am! I’m so pretty I can’t even walk down the street without being told how pretty I am. I’m so pretty it impairs me.”

This is such major bullshit, and if I could isolate the part of myself that buys into this shit, if I could just isolate that fucker and  leave it crying on the ground like that freaky Voldemort horcrux baby, we could all wake up in the Forbidden Forest of feminism and find — presto changeo! — patriarchy gone, and we ourselves walk out of the woods reborn, whole, with nothing but a scar and an extended Harry Potter metaphor. 

We’re simultaneously taught that we should ignore male attention and that it’s totally integral to our worth as women and as human beings. Not only this: We are taught that sexual attention is a finite and very important resource that we are in a Hunger Games death battle with other women for. This not only prevents us from establishing supportive relationships with other women, it also absolutely cuts down on the amount of lesbian sex in the world.

Hunger Games death battles + no lesbian sex = Total patriarchal world takeover.

Objectification keeps women so focused on our ridiculous selves we can’t put our energy toward what it really ought to be put towards, such as making beautiful political communities and fighting capitalism.

It’s kind of a truism that sexual standards are actually a capitalist conspiracy to sell mascara, but yeah, sexual standards are actually a capitalist conspiracy to sell mascara. Objectification, and our incessant fucking socialization to stay on the right side of it, is, ultimately, a tool of world domination because it prevents us from building the kind of power and solidarity that can actually take down social systems. It renders us insecure in very real ways — both in terms of self-assurance and in terms of material safety — and this insecurity atomizes us. That is: It makes us obsessed with the self, the individual, and our individual bodies, vulnerabilities, and insecurities, rather than the possibility of political community.

I’m not saying that we’re all brainwashed and the fact that we need to smile to put blush on is a creepy and symbolic manifestation of psychic domination; me and my lipstick will boldly charge together into the revolution.

I am saying that having our humanity denied even in small ways constantly is not only bad for us — it’s bad for everyone. It’s bad for all the things we could do and the systems we could take down and the worlds we could create if the violence that kept us clinging like hell to the integrity of our bodies were just lifted, just a wee bit, just enough.

And ultimately, I think that’s where our real power against evil lies. We are ultimately people, as much as society wants to treat us like objects. Objects can’t form political communities. People can. People can come out of the little cultural shells that we have been stuffed into and we can stretch and we can fart and we can band together and take on the new fucking day.