Whilst discussing/ arguing with a few contemporaries about the return of inexplicably still-somewhat-mainstream misogyny-fest Miss World, I found myself faced with a couple of separate but related lines of argument from folk who’ll defend to the death a woman’s right to be displayed like a side of pork in a butcher’s shop window.
“Well, it’s not like people watch football players for their brains either, is it?”
“Proposing to ban everyone from modelling, are you?”
Here’s a photo I took on holiday of an advertising standee in a swimming shop that I hope helps illustrate my response.
- Click for a bigger version.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being attractive. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a person primarily being valued for their physical attributes above their mental ones. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a person’s profession being based primarily on those same physical attributes. There’s nothing inherently wrong with modelling, even.
But look at that bloody thing up there. If I’d set out to create a satire of how the bulk of the media presents images of male and female beauty, I don’t think I could have come up with anything more perfect.
“You are MAN! You are POWER! You are STRENGTH! You MASTER your environment! GRRRRAW!”
“You are WOMAN! Stick you bottom out a bit more, we can still see some of your swimsuit.”
(I hesitate to point out even in jest that the bloke at the top is intent on riding his long, thin pointy thing into the wave’s big wet hole. Holy Sigmund Freud, Batman!)
That’s the difference between watching Tommy Smith dance down the right wing on a Saturday afternoon and gawping at Miss World contestants. Yes, you’re objectifying both in a sense – you’re certainly not bothered about either’s intellect or personality. But one is active, the other a completely passive request for approval. Taken in isolation it’s probably not that big a deal, but it ISN’T an isolated example – with few exceptions Hollywood, TV and adverts all repeat the dichotomy that’s writ large in that ad. Men are told to Be All They Can Be. Women are told that Some Day Their Prince Will Come. It’s patronising, it’s reprehensible and it leaves all of us culturally poorer.
I don’t want to ban Miss World. I don’t want to take away anyone’s right to do whatever they choose with their body. I just wish that as a society we’d see beauty contests for what they are – a tacky little symptom of a much wider malaise.
Really well put.
But birds in swimsuits… Phwooooar!!!
And there’s something about beauty pagents that bring out the best in people. I mean, don’t all the women in it, when asked, wish for world peace? You ask any footballer after their performance what they’d wish for and you’d be very lucky indeed (nay amazed) if they said a shower and a sit down with their girlfriend to discuss world politics, let alone the ceasation of hostilities in the global arena.
[...] not been happy with anything I’ve posted on this blog since it went up (the post regarding active vs. passive objectification is the closest to a decent piece to date), but I’m a firm believer that the first step to [...]