The Sexy Lie

Great TedX Talk about how the hypersexualization and objectification of women in modern society deeply impacts not only prospects for the future, but destroys personal livelihood as well.

Nonsense. Sex-positive feminism is the only true way to empower our sisters and daughters.

Interesting. Well, i am a fierce advocate against the hypersexualization of the media that rans rampant in the west lately. But that said, i can't help to feel that she is focusing totally on the wrong issues. The problem is not the hypersexualization per se, or the time a woman spends "dressing up". If that was the issue, Saudi Arabia would be fine and dandy for women. No, the problem in the west lies with what i believe is a decline of cultural and intelectual standards, in the face of rampant capitalist marketing, and how you need to fight for "atention".  Marketing tries harder and harder to grab your atention by any means necessary, either depicting violence, sex, or anything else that stuns you for enough time until you absorb some stupid comodity mantra.

The sucess of twilight,  romantic comedies and other much less hypersexualize media shows that it's not the sex that sells, and i agree with the talk on that, but it also shows that maybe more women than men actually escape that objectifying root. I mean, think about it, women can actively say that they want a man with personality, witt or charm. A man says that he prefers that over a big set of breasts, and since his infancy almost, he is labeled a wimp, either by men and women alike, women who expect, and actually belive he is a mindless drooling potential sex rapist waiting to happen. If you even look a girl the wrong way, you can be charged of harassement.

Its all fine and dandy to blame men for craving nice girl bodies, but wasnt that rammed into their minds since childhood? And worse still, aren't the women themselves using that to their own advantage? At least those who can. I dont think i feel "empowered" by seeing naked women everywhere. I feel anxious, i feel like my mind drowns under the desire i feel at first, and the indiference i feel later, from seeing it everyday.

Women want to be recognized by what they say and do? Well i am sorry to break the news, but they already are. I, and most men my age, grew up in a world where i would be afraid of showing even a remote hint of sexual desire, since that is labeled "wrong", and "dirty", and this is something that despite all the religious messages, only became universal when we started being "raised by our mothers", like Brad Pitt so eloquently says in "Fight Club". We listen to women, we care for women, we even sacrifice for women, and in the end the big idiot that treats them like objects is the one that men want to be, and women want to be with, so what gives?...

Women want to be respected? Then they need to get their priorities in order too. How can women chant 50 cents trashy lyrics? Stuff that degrades them even? Thugs and douchebags are idolized by women since ages, and like the saying goes "good guys always finish last", and that is as true here as it is in saudi arabia.

I don't see nothing wrong with women taking an hour to "dress up". I also don't see nothing wrong with men that take that amount of time too. But i see a lot of wrong when that is considered a problem, and women in the west not caring if a guy is smart, cult or reasonable is ok, but then they complain that all men only do is "see them as objects". Well maybe the ones you promote are like that...

It is an interesting video, and I agree with her basic position wholeheartedly, but I am less receptive to the cultural feminism that permeates the lecture. For one, the premise that sexist, patriarchal culture is the root cause behind the disempowerment of women is false. The material inequality in capitalist society, not ambiguous cultural oppression, is to blame for the lingering social disparity between the sexes, as is capitalism's blind pursuit of profit through objectification. Two, the notion that patriarchy is either some historical parallel to class society (as in, a dual systems theory with "intersections" of oppression) or exists prior to it is subjective, ahistorical nonsense, and it is time that the concept be ruthlessly critiqued. Along with patriarchy, "male privilege" is a myth (no different from white, straight, or cis privilege) with no historical foundation. At most, only a minuscule proportion of the male population throughout history has occupied a genuinely privileged social position, one with meaningful power associated with it. The rest can be chalked up to a division of labor that was no more empowering for men than for women, or at least, trivially so.

This is a topic I have intended to address in greater depth for some time in an independent thread, but alas, constraints of time and will have hindered me. I simply felt that it was important to situate the speaker's criticism in a proper theoretical framework. Furthermore, from an activist perspective, socialist feminists would do well to abandon patriarchy and male privilege lest they wish to alienate half of the working class, as such pronouncements only serve to confuse and frustrate male workers while offering nothing valuable in return.

Rev Scare wrote:At most, only a minuscule proportion of the male population throughout history has occupied a genuinely privileged social position, one with meaningful power associated with it. The rest can be chalked up to a division of labor that was no more empowering for men than for women, or at least, trivially so.

Do you not feel that, at least during certain significant periods of history, women of all classes have been repressed by their husbands and fathers?  Is that a meaningful power structure?

I'm playing devil's advocate a little here.  I basically agree with everything else you have said. Working class men and women should work together in solidarity. The idea that privileged women are supposedly not as privileged as privileged men is not our concern.

Entfremdung wrote:Do you not feel that, at least during certain significant periods of history, women of all classes have been repressed by their husbands and fathers?  Is that a meaningful power structure?

One cannot simply abstract from class only to selectively reintroduce it, as is often done by those who maintain that men oppress women. The implication is that men as a group have historically oppressed women as a single category. The fact that a male serf enjoyed no meaningful privilege over a female aristocrat, for example, is conveniently overlooked. Privileges are special rights, but what men "enjoyed" throughout history were obligations imposed by society—social duties often to their disadvantage.

One might argue that women have been dominated by men within their own social class, even if the same does not necessarily hold when considering members of different classes, but this immediately calls into question the conception of patriarchy as an all-encompassing and eternal presence, since it then possesses significance only within a class context and not independent of it. Beyond the logical shortcomings of such an approach, I might also challenge such a sweeping historical claim on empirical grounds. I find reason to be skeptical of arguments that all societies throughout history (that is, subsequent to the hunter-gatherer stage) have exhibited uniform patriarchal structures that have adversely affected all women and elevated men. For example, women enjoyed considerably more freedom in ancient Egypt than contemporaneous Greece, and the role of women can vary immensely from one class society to the next.

The division of labor between the sexes is contingent upon the mode of production and can hardly be said to benefit men as a whole at the expense of women as a whole. Lindsey German has written a number of engaging articles on women's issues from a Marxist position, including a critical analysis of patriarchy in Theories of Patriarchy. The idealist, ahistorical concept of patriarchy offers no answers to our social inquiries save for cries of male privilege tied to vague feelings of oppression.