An 18 year old Conchita Cintrón, perhaps the most famous female matador in history, Mexico; ca. 1940
Concepción Cintrón Verrill, also known as Conchita Cintrón or La Diosa de Oro (‘The Golden Goddess’) [1] (August 9, 1922 in Antofagasta – February 17, 2009 in Lisbon), was a Peruvian torera (female bullfighter), perhaps the most famous in the history of bullfighting. In the ring Cintrón was said to display particular grace, style and bravado, a combination known as duende. (From Wikipedia)
Hobby Lobby SCOTUS Ruling:
The Supreme Court ruling on BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL. v. HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC. has now opened up the precedent (ignoring how narrowly tailored the ruling was to only contraception) that under the RFRA, even if its a compelling government interest, the state cannot mandate any firm with sincere religious beliefs to carry out a requirement, so long as the government can pick up the slack? It seems like the least restrictive means will always be making the government do it instead and not restrict at all anyone’s religious beliefs.
On page 46 of the opinion, Alito writes: “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs. Other coverage requirements, such as immunizations, may be supported by different interests (for example, the need to combat the spread of infectious diseases) and may involve different arguments about the least restrictive means of providing them.”
This certainly leaves open the possibility that the Court could rule differently on the “least restrictive means” issue in the future, but his language in section V-B, which discusses the “least restrictive means” test, seems to indicate that it is a difficult standard to pass. On page 41 of the opinion, he indicates that “the most straightforward way of [meeting the least restrictive means test] would be for the Government to assume the cost.” He also says that “HHS has not shown … that this is not a viable alternative.” This seems to indicate that if such a challenge were to come up regarding vaccination or blood transfusions, or whatever else, the burden would be on the Department of Health and Human Services to show that it would be impractical for the Government to cover the cost. That would be quite the burden for the Government to prove.
Ginsberg seems to agree with that reading in her dissent. On page 29 on the dissent, she writes, “And where is the stopping point to the ‘let the government pay’ alternative? Suppose an employer’s sincerely held religious belief is offended by health coverage of vaccines, or paying the minimum wage, … or according women equal pay for substantially similar work…? Does it rank as a less restrictive alternative to require the government to provide the money or benefit to which the employer has a religion-based objection?” In addition to indicating that the Court’s logic could prove problematic in the future, she asserts that it is flawed at present, saying, “In sum, in view of what Congress sought to accomplish, i.e., comprehensive preventive care for women furnished through employer-based health plans, none of the proffered alternatives would satisfactorily serve the compelling interests to which Congress responded.”
I agree with Justice Ginsberg on many points here, especially the last few pages of her dissent. Justice Alito attempts to narrow his ruling as much as possible, but leaves a lot of questions unanswered as to the basis for his narrow ruling. To me, the most compelling arguments come from sections III-4 and IV (pages 27-35) of Ginsberg’s dissent. She basically asserts that the Court’s ruling has much broader implications than it intends, and poses quite a few questions about the basis for the narrow ruling.
I am also inclined to agree with her reasoning that the Court should have no business in determining which religious views are legitimate and which are not, and that religious exemptions from generally applicable law should be reserved for groups that are organized “for a religious purpose” and/or “engaged primarily in carrying out that religious purpose”.
The Supreme Court ruling can be found here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf
Justice Ginsburg’s dissent here: http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/231974154
A Female Mason Perched High above Berlin; ca. 1910
Gravity had not yet been invented at that time.
With the rise of industrialization, the number of German women who worked outside the home also increased. This usually meant factory work. But in some families with their own businesses, daughters also learned a trade so that they could help out: here, we see a master-mason’s daughter during the renovation work on the old city hall tower in Berlin.
(Source)
Roza Shanina, a female Soviet sniper who fought in World War II and got 54 confirmed hits. Allied newspapers called her, “the unseen terror of East Prussia.”
“The essence of my happiness is fighting for the happiness of others. It’s strange, why is it that in grammar, the word “happiness” can only be singular? That is counter to its meaning, after all. … If it turns necessary to die for the common happiness, then I’m ready to.” -Roza Shanina
Roza Shanina was a Soviet sniper during World War II, credited with fifty-four confirmed hits, including twelve soldiers during the Battle of Vilnius. Praised for her shooting accuracy, Shanina was capable of precisely hitting moving enemy personnel and making doublets (two target hits by two rounds fired in quick succession). She volunteered to serve as a marksman on the front line.
Allied newspapers described Shanina as “the unseen terror of East Prussia”. She became the first Soviet female sniper to be awarded the Order of Glory and was the first servicewoman of the 3rd Belorussian Front to receive it. Shanina was killed in action during the East Prussian Offensive while shielding the severely wounded commander of an artillery unit.
She was, as the Russians say, a terrifying Nazi slaughtering badass.
I don’t think the objectification of women is actually an accurate reflection of women’s sexuality, this is the problem. I feel like this manifestation is a gross exaggeration of men’s sexuality.
I do not think that the objectification of women is an accurate reflection of women’s sexuality, it’s a gross and inaccurate exaggeration of men’s sexuality. I think that it’s male bias that is causing this form of sexuality to be seen as our only option. Women are pretty much only allowed to display sexuality, when they’re behaving passively and submissively, paying more mind to mens’ desires than their own. We expect sexualized images of women to be highlighting women’s youth and naivety. If women are not young or naive, they’re often expected to behave as if they are, and if they can’t “pass”, they’re desexualized completely. Instances where women objectify men or express appreciation for mens’ bodies, for example, are seen as shocking, bold and out of the ordinary. They aren’t expected to ever be lustful, sexually forward or aggressive. Media that displays men in passive, sexually submissive positions is often assumed to be marketed toward gay men, rather than straight women. I think that if women were writing the songs and the music videos more often, we would see them behaving passively, acting as sex objects, fetishizing violence against women much less often. It’s true that women conform to norms and perpetuate these things to a certain degree too, but by nature of capitalism and the pressures of the market, women are forced to conform to male preferences in order to keep their head above water. In a society where women were just as likely to write a song as men were and were just as respected for it, they wouldn’t have to stick to our current “male-approved” topics. We’d see a wider variety of material coming out.
There is a huge difference between the way sexuality is treated in the music of Ani Difranco, Tori Amos and Fiona Apple, who cater to a largely educated female audience, and the way it’s treated in the music of Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, who cater to a mainstream “male-dominated” audience. Difranco, Amos and Apple are not prudes. They often sing love songs, songs about sexual desire, raw, emotional break up songs and raunchy odes with detailed descriptions of their partners’ bodies that would make you blush. Check out Fiona Apple’s Hot Knife, or Slow like Honey, or Limp, orPeriphery.
These songs are not that different content-wise from the Rihanna’s bedroom slow jams or Taylor Swift’s “He done me wrong” tunes. But there’s something distinct about them. In the Rihanna and Taylor Swift examples, I get the impression that their sentiments have been filtered and censored to be more palatable to men. In Cyrus’s “wrecking ball”, she’s saying she came in like a wrecking ball, but her body language in the video is the complete opposite of that. She’s laying completely submissively on top of the wrecking ball. She’s allowing the wrecking ball to completely control her. The video isn’t about Miley Cyrus’s experience with the person she’s singing about, it’s about the audience’s relationship with and sexual attraction to Miley Cyrus. Her actual voice is completely secondary.Taylor Swift always expresses anger within these strict confines, she needs to be a certain amount of “feminine” when she’s expressing anger at men. She can’t betoo loud or too violent or too weird or too crazy and emotional. She still has to be pretty, she still has to be pining for the guy on some level. In Fiona Apple’s songs, she talks about sex and having crushes and going through breakups, but it’s her pure voice that’s telling the story. It’s not sugar-coated to be more main-stream. It’s not feeding into an exaggerated corporate driven male fantasy.
They also don’t shy away from the aspects of sex that women have to deal with, that make men uncomfortable to hear. Ani Difranco’s Out of Range and Out of Habit use very graphic, explicit imagery to convey her experiences with men as a musician, and her experiences with the cyclical nature of domestic violence. Tori Amos famously talks about surviving rape, in me and a gun.
I think by virtue of allowing women to be in top, respected positions in mass media, by giving them more of a direct role in the creation of these structures, rather than allowing them to make choices within structures where men still make all the rules, we would break some of this cycle, by expand the material we display and consider to be acceptable, giving people a lot more options and consequentially reducing the amount of “peer pressure” that people face now in regard to objectification.
Objectification Theory
Objectification Theory is a psychological “framework for understanding the experiential consequences of being female in a culture that sexually objectifies the female body” (1, p. 173). “Objectification” means treating a person as an object or merely a body. Objectification runs from leering and catcalling to sexualizing portrayals in media such as TV shows, movies, advertisements, music videos, and pornography. Objectification Theory provides a way of understanding some of the problems that differentially affect women in our society and other Western societies. This effortpost focuses on objectification of the female body and subsequently neglects interactions between, for example, objectification and race, and the effects of objectification on men, though these topics have been investigated (see, e.g., Testing a Culture-Specific Extension of Objectification Theory Regarding African American Women’s Body Image and Reasons for Exercise and Body Esteem: Men’s Responses to Self-Objectification
- Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks. This is the paper that started Objectification Theory. Fredrickson and Roberts suggest that objectification may be at least partly responsible for the higher incidence of depression in women, sexual dysfunctions, and eating disorders. The suggested causal pathway is from objectification to self-objectification which results in habitual body-monitoring, which results in shame, anxiety, and distraction. This theory has received extensive empirical support to which I now turn.
- Objectification Theory and Psychology of Women: A Decade of Advances and Future Directions. This article provides a nice overview of research within the Objectification Theory framework, including objectification’s effects on men and interactions with race. The article displays the wide empirical support for Objectification Theory but also identifies limitations and directions for future research such as the need for more cross-cultural research and investigation of interactions with other variables such as age, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation.
- Sexual Objectification of Women: Advances to Theory and Research. This article extends Objectification Theory to understanding substance abuse and presents a definition of “sexually objectifying environments” (SOEs) in which “(a) traditional gender roles exist, (b) a high probability of male contact exists (physically speaking, a male-dominated environment), (c) women typically hold less power than men in that environment, (d) a high degree of attention is drawn to sexual/ physical attributes of women’s bodies, and (e) there is the approval and acknowledgement of male gaze” (20-1). They give Hooters and related restaurants as examples of SOEs and suggest that more research be done into SOEs. Just such research will be discussed next.
- Experiencing Sexually Objectifying Environments: A Qualitative Study. This article uses the definition of SOE given above to investigate the experiences of 11 heterosexual female Hooters employees. The interviews highlight, among other things, the ambivalence the employees feel toward their job, the negative emotional effects of constant objectification, and competition with other women. I have to say, the concreteness and “realness” of this article can get depressing.
- Everyday Stranger Harassment and Women’s Objectification. This article presents an investigation into the negative effects of stranger harassment. They found that stranger harassment was positively related to self-objectification for women who reacted to stranger harassment with passivity and self-blame, but not for women who reacted with active coping strategies such as confronting the harasser. Stranger harassment was also positively related to women’s fear of and perceived risk of rape.
- A Test Of Objectification Theory: The Effect Of The Male Gaze On Appearance Concerns In College Women. In this study, female participants were made to believe that they would be interacting with a male or a female. Mere anticipation of male gaze, but not female gaze, resulted in greater body shame and anxiety, but no changes in dietary intent were seen.
- The Role of Body Objectification in Disordered Eating and Depressed Mood. This study provides support for Objectification Theory’s claim that objectification can lead to habitual body-monitoring, which can lead to depression and eating disorders.
- The Role of Self-Objectification in Disordered Eating, Depressed Mood, and Sexual Functioning Among Women: A Comprehensive Test of Objectification Theory. This article provides a more recent replication of the results of the previous study.
- My Body or My Mind: The Impact of State and Trait Objectification on Women’s Cognitive Resources. This paper investigates whether objectification can impair women’s cognitive performance. It was found that women prone to self-objectification had longer response latencies when performing in the presence of a male experimenter.
These studies represent a small sample of the psychological research on Objectification Theory. Here’s a link to a zip folder containing all the articles in this post.
I hope to be remembered for my atrocities! 