Objectification will always be around, advertising depends on it
Good luck in trying to stop the billions of dollars of advertising that have "objectification" as their basis. 
And yes, some folks don't have this high on their priority list. So what. I have it down somewhere on the bottom.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And Hollywood stopped objectifying women? And video games stopped objectifying women?
I'd say things would be lots nicer. 
And there would be no mass objectification.
But all these feed off one another quite nicely, don't they?
Discussing a liberal issue on WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FRIENDLY LIBERAL website.
YES, that perfectly describes someone who is only posting to piss people off. Oh, and that getting SOMEONE ELSE to post objectifiying pictures just so that they could troll us. That's evil genius caliber trolling there.
Now you, on the otherhand, post something just to PISS OFF supporters of said LIBERAL POSITION ON SAID LIBERAL WEBSITE....naaaaw ya ain't trolling at all...
Can't prove your case? Attack the person.
Not that my time here has jack shit to do with whether im right or not (and we both know im right.) Nor does it mean that an old poster can't be a troll. It is also not like the creators of this site have a lengthy section telling us exactly what this website is for either >.>
Of course if you hate feminist so much there is a website just perfect for you:
http://www.freerepublic.com/
But whatever shall I do, I have only been here 10 months. Obviously i have not earned the right to point out the obvious.
Hold me, im scared of mean old quinnox and his thinly veiled trolling and hatred of feminism 
Almost as weak as predicating the validity of an answer on a start date for member status.
However, I don't presume that you can, in fact, do any better... 
I simply will not engage. Ever. Waste of time. Waste of breath.
there are plenty of male posters who swarm any thread having anything to do with feminist issues. And I know we have some vocal feminists on DU - I just don't think they're particularly radical. 
Not enough of these in the world:
maybe it's because the people who run those stores are generally male. Do you know the ratio of men to women CEOs is pitiful? It's worse than the ratio of women in gov't. And do you think there are tons of women sitting on the BOD? Yeah, no. Just because a company uses sex to try to turn a profit doesn't mean it's not sexist.
And I don't think it's my distorted perception...maybe it's an age thing, but my 16 yo daughter and her friends think those magazines are sexist and disgusting. They are far more aware of stuff like than I was at that age. And in all my years on women's only mommy boards, I don't remember one single discussion about feminism where the consensus was that those magazines weren't degrading. But I guess all those mommies were 'distorted' as well?? And all the old high school friends I have on facebook that post feminist stuff about the dangers of those type of magazines and how they are going to teach their daughters different...well their perception must be distorted as well.
I'm not buying into your rules if you're not buying into mine. 
not, at least not in the theoretical origins of the term.
Which ultimately derives from Marx and has to do with social relations under capitalism.
Reification (German: Verdinglichung, literally: "making into a thing" (cf. Latin "res" meaning "thing" or Versachlichung, literally "objectification"; regarding something impersonally) In Marxism reification is the thingification of social relations or of those involved in them, to the extent that the nature of social relationships is expressed by the relationships between traded objects (see commodity fetishism and value-form)...
The concept is related to, but is distinct from, Marx's theories of alienation and commodity fetishism. Alienation is the general condition of human estrangement. Reification is a specific form of alienation. Commodity fetishism is a specific form of reification.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(Marxism)
Under the reign of capital, people become commodified as labor and subject to capitalist relationships in which people are treated as things and used instrumentally. People also self-objectify by assuming the properties of "things" and attempting to conform to the standards of capitalist commodification (i.e. getting facelifts and the like to present the proper 'image' to the market -- for spouses, jobs, whatever, in which relations between people have become relations between "marketable objects" .
Sexual objectification is only one of the ways people are objectified under capitalism.
of terms. I would ask, however, how this applies to art and artists. At least by the first definition "As a tool for another's purpose," models are almost always objectified--you can even include actors under this definition. The model or the actor is employed as an element of the author's artwork, and are volunteering or being employed to portray anothers' artistic vision. But many find artistic photography, even when reducing a person to their composite parts, as in bodyscape photography, emotionally moving and edifying--a celebration of the human form. Should this art be banned? Derided, because it offends some peoples' personal sensibilities, even when the artist is simply following an artistic impulse, their own self-expression (granted, in collaboration with another), whether to express a profound idea or a simple celebration of what they see as beautiful?
Before I move on to my next point, I'd like to bring up the fact that many commercial photographers and graphic designers responsible for the advertisements that we see everywhere, DO consider themselves artists. And to say that it's not art because it's commercial doesn't hold water--some of the greatest art in history has been commissioned, and was therefore commercial.
I'd say the sticky wicket is when the layperson lets the vision of the artist influence them in a negative way, that is to say the objectification within the art leads to self-objectification in the mind of the viewer. I'd argue that the viewer lacks a necessary discernment when they internalize in this way. Art is a passive force, in that we can choose our own reaction to its stimulation. Models in magazine ads have been photoshopped to a point of virtually impossible physical perfection, but artists have always tried to portray what they view as the Ideal (look at Ingres' La Grande Odalisque--the subject has been given several more vertebrae in an attempt by the artist to make her more "ideal" . Girls and boys should be made aware of this practice from an early age--just because it's a photograph, doesn't mean it's real.
Please, don't get me wrong. Obviously, not all advertisers have these kinds of artistic ambitions. But I do object to blanket statements that seem to catch in their nets a lot of very talented, honest artists, who are already vulnerable in a lot of ways.
Have we met?
The world is small, DU even smaller, and you have a catchy screen name, to say nothing of the style and content of your posts
Honestly it feels very 2008. If I were picking now, it would be something from Archer.
But i agree, 100%. My main focus right now, politically, is turning the House Dem, although I acknowledge it's a longshot.
DU is a good place for news, etc. i try not to get sucked into the long-running people drama anymore, but it still happens. I fully admit I'm not perfect.
She could unblock the last two, block you, then reblock the others.
Might I suggest...
The term pin-up may also refer to drawings, paintings, and other illustrations done in emulation of these photos (see the list of pin-up artists). The term was first attested to in English in 1941;[1] however, the practice is documented back at least to the 1890s.
The pin-up images could be cut out of magazines or newspapers, or be from postcard or chromo-lithographs, and so on. Such photos often appear on calendars, which are meant to be pinned up anyway. Later, posters of pin-up girls were mass-produced and became an instant hit. As social standards changed, male subjects also began to be featured in pin-ups.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)
The Happy Accidents of the Swing
Date 1767-1768
Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 81 × 64 cm (31.9 × 25.2 in)
Current location Wallace Collection
Looks like courtship to me. If you think that resembles the contemporary output of capitalist commercial media, I would respectfully suggest an eye exam.
You obviously have no idea what I'm talking about, no idea what anyone is talking about when they refer to objectification, and have no concept of what constitutes historical evidence or historical analysis. But way to miss the point.
You don't contradict my analysis, suggest a counter analysis, or provide anything close to evidence. That you think that picture is exactly the same as rape porn and SI covers patently absurd. What is your point? Everything has been and is always the same? Capitalism changed nothing? There is no difference between a painting and a multi-billion dollar corporate industry that sells disembodied images of women? Ever consider the concept of reception? Of the extent of the audience for whom the images are intended, and what the pictures themselves depict? That a painting was created and hung in the home of a wealthy patron--that you insist is no different from a SI cover or the sacred genre of rape and mutilation porn--is exactly the same as trillions of images transmitted into people's homes every day. Exactly the same. There is no difference between the 18th century and today, absolutely none. Why even bother with learning history because nothing ever changes. The whole purpose of the past is to justify the status quo. If it generates profit and promotes privilege for the few above the rights of the many, it must be natural and immutable. Nature insists on compelling men to treat women as less than human. Biology doesn't promote continuation of the human species. It compels misogynist men to sit alone at home looking at images of body parts on the internet rather than engaging with real human beings. You read the Marquis de Sade and saw an 18th century picture of a woman. That means nothing can ever change.
His high flying clients were either guillotined or exiled. And he himself "deemed it prudent" to go hide in Grasse in 1790...
Oh, and slave supporters in this country cruelly objectified black people in cartoons in all kinds of publications, depicting them as subhumans. History, yes indeed.
I saw his "It's a matter of time" at the Guggenheim in Bilbao in October of 2008...fun walking through a big salad bowl within a salad bowl...but a litle claustrophobic...
Oh, and didn't "Tilted Arc" get taken down? You should be doing a happy dance...
I did a paper on the project in undergraduate school. It is oriented to be hard to walk around and it's a specific height to annoy people inside the building. He is actually quoted as saying it was a statement about his anger with the government. That's cool, but charging the government to install art that will annoy people who didn't have a say about what it would look like is kind of a dick move.
You're right about the complications of mixing art and politics. I remember the NEA controversy. What a mess. When people ask me what art is one of my stock answers is "cultural R&D". That's a worthy objective for government dollars. I obviously support federal funding for the arts. If it was up to me we would reduce the military budget by half and give the money to the artists, but I might be prejudiced.
It's dicey because art is not something that you can vote on, and government money sort of comes from accumulated votes. So it's hard to make good art without annoying the people paying for it. Check out the work of Komar and Melamid.
http://www.komarandmelamid.org/chronology.html
http://www.komarandmelamid.org/chronology/1994_1997_peoples/index.htm
But it all sucks, at least the People's Choice stuff. But then again, it's supposed to.
Komar and Melamid's People's Choice series, 1994–1997, consisted of the "most wanted" and "most unwanted" paintings of 11 countries, as well as two songs in the same vein. The artists commissioned polling companies in the 11 countries—including the United States, Russia, China, France, and Kenya—to conduct scientific polls to discover what they want to see in art. The use of polls was meant to mimic the American democratic process. Komar said, "Our interpretation of polls is our collaboration with various people of the world. It is a collaboration with [sic] new dictator—Majority." The process was also meant to change the artists role as a leader. Komar and Melamid believe that the broad public is an adequate judge of art, contrary to the historical precedence, much in the same way that the broad public in America is entrusted with electing the President. It is a new type of leader, one that asks questions, instead of a dictator. Melamid said, "Picasso mimicked Stalin, so we try to mimic Clinton."[3]
Who decides which objectification is bad?
I'll direct you to this video. It is not simply a drawing or painting of a woman, as you clearly think. I happen to have that picture in my office at work. I assumed everyone knew its origin. It's a WWII propaganda poster designed to bring women into the war effort by working in factories. But that is totally the same as the SI cover or rape porn because the images are of women, right? 
Laci Green explains objectification for school age audiences. This should help clarify your confusion. If you don't understand after this, it's because you don't want to.
Last edited Sun Feb 23, 2014, 08:53 PM - Edit history (1)
You flopped in your effort to critique my historical analysis. Your effort to use art history to explain what you clearly have no concept of was a complete failure, and now you insist an argument that you don't even understand is propaganda. Your rhetorical skills leave a great deal to be desired.
"Got nothing": You mean you're angry I didn't write out crib notes for a high-school level video for you? Just who do you think you are that you can command anyone to prove anything to you? That you see everything relating to women as an example of objectification is revealing.
This juvenile display of machismo is boring. I'm out. You'll have to find someone else to knock around to make yourself feel important.
Some. The explosion of wealth that followed our victory in the war and the indebtedness of the rest of the world to us had a lot more to do with it. World War II saw the birth of the suburbs and all those sweet, sweet consumer goodies for the modern home that went with it.
Richard Hamilton
Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?
1956
actually, it was an audacious Pinot Noir I just discovered...
I shall cry into my pillow all night...
You hit uncomfortably close to the truth there.
The same as we do with any other variety of dehumanization. There is no singular "silver bullet," no one thing that will fix it. This includes passage of laws, which as I'm sure you know wouldn't do anything but reinforce the views of people already so invested. Off the top of my head the best thing that can be done is first, learn to recognize it, and then to simply avoid patronizing businesses that rely on objectification to sell their products, instead favoring those that do not. You know, like how we handle other marketplace issues like bigotry or anti-labor practices.
No, I'd actually think you "got it" if you could represent my argument accurately, and then disagree with what is actually being said.
You realize your argument here amounts to hollow conspiracy theory, right? It's full of "they want!" and "the true motive is..." and "it's all a front!" and the only support for it all you give is "I think."
Objectification is the reduction of a human person into an object, sexual or otherwise. It is the reduction of a person's intrinsic value into what benefit they can bring you. And while always negative it's not always harmful (those charity commercials with the big-eyed kids? The kids are props, objects used to make you feel guilty, so you donate - a lot of which goes to overhead, but since some of it does reach the kids, net gain for them.)
However when objectification is mainstream and constant, it causes a cultural skew - and before you say it doesn't, think whether or not you think Fox News has an influence on our overal culture, then come back. The media has an impact. And when women are consistently displayed as, well, displays, that has the effect of normalizing and reinforcing that perception of women. Where a person is only as valuable as they are "pretty," this causes a glut of social issues... especially if hte standard for what is "pretty" is the product of software
Extreme example perhaps, but this is what's at hand.
Instead of using images of people, advertisers have to actually sell us on the product's merit? Seems simple enough. 
good thread
You guys seem big on making lists in that forum, as Warren's post points out above. 
Just thought I'd point that out to make sure I make the list. I've made a few lists already.
I'm so proud.
I don't judge threads by how many recs they do or don't get.
I have seen excellent, thought provoking threads get no recs, and silly substance free threads get tons of recs.
Lord of all they survey!
when ones "group" has almost as many people trashing it as subscribing, I guess one has to look for validation somewhere.
This reminds me very much of the words said to me by my high school friend's very wealthy Mexican mother when I was expressing the need for more action by the government on poverty: "There will always be poor people with us." The tone with which this was said made clear I was wasting my time even entertaining the thought.
Poverty will always exist. Objectification will always exist.
They certainly always will if we choose to do nothing about them.
I -- and a whole lotta people on this planet -- don't have the luxury of this issue being a low "priority" in our lives.
