"Objectification": Science, or Junk Science?
Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 12:19 AM - Edit history (3)
To Briefly Summarize, for those who don't want to dig through the whole thread:
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Re: Recent discussions on the topic (May 2012) --- it appears to me that this is yet another "study" with nebulous yet ultimately meaningless definitions designed to obtain a scary-sounding preordained outcome. "Men see women as objects"... oooh, that sounds bad. Undoubtedly there is some real hard science in there, somewhere, underlying that determination, yet like so many other of these "studies", to see the actual data you have to pay to read it.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/people-see-sexy-pictures-of-women-as-objects-not-people.html
Funny that these sorts of "How horrible is the commodification and monetization in society" studies all seem to charge a fee to read 'em.
If the data was so ironclad and unchallengeable, they'd put it in Scientific American, not pissed-off-sociology-grad-student-of-the-month.
Same shit, different week.
= new reply since forum marked as read
People recognized right-side-up men better than upside-down men, suggesting that they were seeing the sexualized men as people. But the women in underwear weren’t any harder to recognize when they were upside down—which is consistent with the idea that people see sexy women as objects.
People can recognize women whether they are upside down or rightside up. Obviously we see them as objects. There is just no other way that strong scientific data can be interpreted.
It's irrefutable SCIENCE, dammit!
To tell them what they already know, i.e. that when men see a naked woman, they think she's a hammer.
...But you know what? You're right. There is NO WAY to challenge such a clear-headed, scientifically solid theoretical framework such as this:
http://www.sanchezlab.com/pdfs/FredricksonRoberts.pdf
..it can't be done. Just like you can't go to the beach in Wyoming.
The stimuli is human, but the perception is not.
Consider this picture of an attractive Japanese woman. For those who objectify women, her nudity and seductive pose could be an invitation for rape because she is only judged by her body. The rest doesn't exist to them.
Seriously- how about a warning next time!
upside down
set of scientific assertions.
Did someone go inside these guys' (presumably guys) heads and discern that they were somehow turning their lovers into "utensils"? And what do people normally think about when they're having sex? What are they supposed to be thinking about?
Yes, mutual pleasure and in the best case scenario soul-merging transcendence combined with lower chakra funky sweat and lust, clearly... but that's not really the realm of science IMHO.
I agree that this study (from what little I can read for free) appears to make a daring leap from pattern recognition neuroscience to gender studies sociology, and it isn't clear (at least from the secondary sources) how the recognizability of upside-down swimsuit models establishes a dehumanizing relationship between the subject and l'objet du desir; if anything, failing to recognize the inverted pic seems to indicate less ability to recall distinguishing human features, which is to say that upside-down males are a more fungible commodity in the viewer's imagination (although it would be interesting to break down the effect by sexual orientation instead of gender), and I suppose a researcher could use the same data to formulate any number of hypotheses, e.g., "If upside-down men fail to make an impression on the visual cortices of women, does this corroborate H. Stern's (1989) theory that all women are potential lesbians?"
With that said, I don't think "objectification" as a concept is automatically worthy of ridicule (any more than "dehumanization" or "commoditization"
; the way the term is wielded in some circles can seem pat or downright smug, but it's hard to assess the "scientific legitimacy" of most terminology in the social sciences ("self-actualization"? has anyone truly defined "consciousness", much less disruptions to the psychic mojo midichlorians?), and I'm open to the idea that humans might regard one another as potential property: for all we know, we could all be solipsists at heart who regard our fellow travelers as unfeeling machines, only some of them are easier to spot when they're upside-down, owing to some evolutionary prerogative (or perhaps an environmental consequence of media exposure to female anatomy) that warrants closer scrutiny of the sorts of organisms with pronounced mammalian protuberances (assuming these photos were taken of the front half; perhaps inverted dorsal photos offer a promising avenue for future research.)
(This reminds me of the Radiolab upside-down Furby experiment, which sought to demonstrate the opposite effect, namely the inclination to assign humanity to inanimate objects, at least when the object is capable of guilt trips (curiously, the participants perceived their Barbie doll as utterly unworthy of empathy, so maybe the feminist critique isn't off-base when it comes to the real world effect of unrealistic human simulacra on life imitating art imitating life.) Still, I wonder how the upside-down photo experiment would have gone if the pictures screamed "Put me down! I scared!"
experience differing degrees or levels of empathy towards one another, in all manner of interactions"
But that is, again, a subjective opinion and a qualitative assessment, far removed from a gibberish-filled attempt at cobbling together a scientific theory rationalizing all sorts of bullshit bugaboos, from "The Patriarchy" to "The Male Gaze". It's worth noting that even some of the most staunchest defenders of this nonsense as-its-presented in this thread have acknowledged the "bad writing" in what, again, is presented as some sort of authoritative scientific document.
I'm also referring to this rundown on the framework for so-called "objectification theory", which, although being in pdf form, is blissfully free and as such far more properly priced for the value IMHO.
http://www.sanchezlab.com/pdfs/FredricksonRoberts.pdf
This is the piece that contains gems like "objectification causes disruptions in the flow of consciousness". As I said, that's a fine sentiment for meditation on in the Zen Monastery, not so much in an allegedly "peer reviewed scientific paper".
Good post. Oncology and ontology, to be sure. You get bonus points for the midichlorian reference. 
p.183: "This state is what Csikszentmihalyi (1982, 1990) calls 'flow', occurring 'when a person's mind or body is stretched to the limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile'..." (like defining "flow"?)
Even if this concept is as nebulous as a disturbance in The Force, your offending sentence isn't especially hand wavy by sociology standards (which isn't saying much), but perhaps the authors were up Csik's creek without an effluent metaphor... while I agree that reading this sort of research can be a tool for clearing one's mind of all thoughts, I can't disparage the soft sciences for attempting to find meaning in bathroom stalls and Yahoo! Answers; in spite of some delusions of objectivity ("Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low" , I don't find this "partial framework" of "objectification theory" any more troubling than liberation psychology in general or niche-based academia in particular (e.g., Into the Abyss and Back Again: How Nietzsche's Übermensch and Convergent 'Ring' Cycle Motifs Prefigured the Archetype of Frodo Baggins)
I think Parts I and II/III might belong in different papers, and every paragraph heading in Part II starts with "Objectification may contribute to..." which hardly inspires confidence as far as causality or predictability are concerned (and if you believe Ethan Watters of Crazy Like Us, blaming something as universal as "sexualized gazing" for endemic mental health phenomena might be ethnocentric* to boot), but the theoretical basis of the first third of the paper (the parts I skimmed through, anyway) seems to correspond with consensus reality at least through the looking glass of social science. I mean your point is taken about the verbification of otherwise unpretentious nouns, and the tendency to isolate a real problem before declaring it the root of all oppression, but, I dunno, it's better than nothing, or at least believing it's better than nothing is better than nothing. Unless it isn't.
[p style="font-size:10px"]* "There is now good evidence to suggest that in the process of teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we’ve been exporting our Western “symptom repertoire” as well. That is, we’ve been changing not only the treatments but also the expression of mental illness in other cultures. Indeed, a handful of mental-health disorders — depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anorexia among them — now appear to be spreading across cultures with the speed of contagious diseases. These symptom clusters are becoming the lingua franca of human suffering, replacing indigenous forms of mental illness. <...>
What is being missed, Lee and others have suggested, is a deep understanding of how the expectations and beliefs of the sufferer shape their suffering. “Culture shapes the way general psychopathology is going to be translated partially or completely into specific psychopathology,” Lee says. “When there is a cultural atmosphere in which professionals, the media, schools, doctors, psychologists all recognize and endorse and talk about and publicize eating disorders, then people can be triggered to consciously or unconsciously pick eating-disorder pathology as a way to express that conflict.”" (source)
Bad enough when she makes you hold her purse, guys, but... NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He's a disposable applicator! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
He's shiny! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
Here's another one: The "MAN" is "wood" (hmmmm) and the symbolism here is clear: he is sawing off the head of his own humanity at the behest of the spooky space patriarchy, which has reduced him to a heteronormative phallocentric oppressionatrix male gaze flizmatz of hortzwardle. It's science, you know.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And this: Can there be any more clear evidence of what the Space Patriarchy does to our collective humanity?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I never heard that term, so googled it and look what I came up with...
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/10/1968-ad-women-of-the.html
certain behaviors or attitudes. They do!
That's a far cry from it being something like a solid scientific concept, or a ... what is it? "well-understood cognitive process" (sure, if there's one thing science understands well, it's cognition, right? 
)
Some people categorize some music as "hair metal". That doesn't mean that "hair metal" is a rock-solid piece of scientific theory.
It's a label, conveniently used for certain attitudes or sexual expressions that some have decided rather arbitrarily are "problematic" or for lack of a better word, "bad".
It's like other labels slapped on phenomena- the phenomena are there, but the categorization is arbitrary. To act like it's some ironclad fact; is ridiculous. And not helped by the so-called "science' desperately peddled to validate this nonsense, that men see sexy women like they see toasters (but, really, who doesn't want to have sex with a toaster? C'mon.) or they don't recognize what they are upside down or whateverthefuck.
This thread spells it all out pretty well- there's no there, there.
People are sexually attracted, sometimes to people they don't even know, sometimes on the basis of superficial visual characteristics like, oh, appearance. Shocking! New! Development! Not!
Most of what is passed off as "objectification" could either be more accurately labeled (to my mind) "superficial sexual attraction" or maybe bad advertising.
centrally scrutinizing every instance of physical attraction "aha! Objectification! Le sigh."
I hashed it out, what, 2 years ago? I'm sure I could have worded much of it better, the half-assed OP, IIRC, was part of a larger DU conversation going on at the time, which is why it feels sort of like a non-sequitur... Back when I took certain aspects of this place more seriously than I do now; like, I thought there was actually a point to discussing what are apparently ironclad inviolable gospel truths, like the one that says when men look at pictures of attractive women their brains turn the women in the pictures into blenders or leaf blowers or collections of body parts- that humans- men, really- are incapable of finding other people superficially, physically attractive and concurrently being able to understand in their pointy little heads that the people they're feeling their empathy-deficient lust for, are actually people.
Who knew!
Yeah, so, it's all here. I'm not getting into it again. I found it fascinating that the person in your thread simultaneously lamented the fact that "we can't have a discussion on this topic" and then point blank stated he refused to discuss it.
I have been back and forth with a woman in one of these threads who is now trying to conflate Feminist objectification theories with psychodynamic object relations theory.
For saying that she is absolutely wrong on all of the facts, I am pedantic, insulting, etc. It is intellectually dishonest and sadly confirms what I often observe about any one with a fervent emotional certainty about a cause or belief; they have unfinished emotional business with their own childhood.
I can empathize with the rage, the terror, and the hurt that the abused do suffer. I can not tolerate being projected upon and being made an object to work through their subjective psychological experiences. Not every man, woman, white, black, gay, straight, Christian, etc. is the one that hurt us when we were most vulnerable.
It is very easy to not see others in person as they are but what we imagine they are based on our own psychological experiences. Unfortunately the internet makes it that much more the easier. All we get are words on a screen from anonymous individuals. Talk about the wall of Plato's cave. 
Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 01:50 AM - Edit history (1)
And okay, fine, see for yourself. Just don't turn it upside down, lest you perceive it as an object.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1568&context=psychfacpub
women) mixed-model analysis of variance. The predicted interaction between position and target gender
emerged, Consistent with our hypothesis, our results showed that people recognized upright males
better than inverted males.
this pattern did not emerge for females,
Additionally, participants recognized inverted females better than inverted males. This effect
was not found for upright males and females, t.Neither the two-way nor the three-way interaction was significant.
Consistent with our hypothesis, our findings showedthat the inversion effect emerged only when participants
saw sexualized males. This suggests that, at a basic cognitive level, sexualized men were perceived as persons,
whereas sexualized women were perceived as objects. Future research should examine why people perceive sexualized women as objects. One may expect that object-like
recognition of women could be explained by a lack of identification with sexualized women among female participants and by sexual attraction among male participants.
...Didja catch that? Probably not, huh. Okay, let me "unpack" it for you..... They showed undergrads pictures of men in bathing suits right side up. They showed undergrads pictures of men in bathing suits upside down. They showed undergrads pictures of women in bathing suits right side up. They showed undergrads pictures of women in bathing suits, upside down. (With me, so far?)
Okay, the Earth-Shattering "scientific finding" they came up, with, here, was that most of the time everyone was able to identify "that was a man/woman in a bathing suit", whether or not the picture was upside down or right side up. However, people were slightly less likely to figure out "that was an upside down man in a bathing suit" (like, 73% of the time) than they were to figure out "that was an upside down woman in a bathing suit" (84% of the time).
Couldn't possibly be because of some other thing, like maybe the fact that male bodies and female bodies look a little different, shape-wise, when upside down...
....no, no, it must be OBJECTIFICATION aaaaarrrghhhhh o noez! Specifically that people figure out an upside down woman is a woman a tiny fraction of the time more often* than they figure out an upside down man is a man, because, um.... they're not seeing the woman as a woman.
Or something. Yeah.
Right, so.. the topic of the OP.
Here's the hard-hitting research data:
* Yes, you read that right, more often.
When it was right side up, the girl was wearing a bathing suit, but when you turned it upside down, the bathing suit slid off and she was naked.
Is this anything like that?
you can only call something "bad science" if it is being asserted AS "science".
To wit, if someone says "Radiohead sure sounds to me like an updated version of Pink Floyd", unless they're couching that as some sort of scientific assertion, it's silly to go "hey, that's shitty science!"
Now if someone expresses a subjective opinion about some specifics related to a topic which, as illustrated pretty clearly in this thread, is itself attempted to be peddled AS "science" but pretty fucking clearly is NOT, i.e. "people recognize upside down womens bodies as womens bodies at a slightly higher statistical frequency -8% or so- than they recognize upside down mens bodies as mens bodies, ergo checkmate! objectification! science!" 
...well, I have kind of a headache and it is hailing right now, so I can't parse out exactly what that is, but it is definitely, again, not a scientific assertion, so it's like doubly silly to try to call an non-scientifically stated opinion related to something that is itself bad science, "bad science".
an upside down woman in a bathing suit's body, as a woman's body, than they are an upside down man in a bathing suit's body, AS a man's body.
But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that there might be other, more plausible explanations than "objectimifcation!"...
(leaving aside, for a moment, the dubious proposition asserted by the study which says recognizing a woman as a woman MORE frequently implies the viewer is LESS likely to see her as a woman instead of a "thing" 
)
like, for starters, men's and women's bodies generally have different shapes, and part of that is different degrees of horizontal symmetry.
People recognized right-side-up men better than upside-down men, suggesting that they were seeing the sexualized men as people. But the women in underwear weren’t any harder to recognize when they were upside down—which is consistent with the idea that people see sexy women as objects.
Right. People recognize upside down women as women more frequently which means they don't see women as women, but rather as objects. Seems legit.
And of course, there's no other possible reason why it might be statistically slightly easier -according to the study, a whopping 6% or so- to recognize a brief image of an upside down female body as a human body than an upside down male one, cough differences in horizontal/vertical symmetry cough
