"Objectification": Science, or Junk Science?

[Major Nikon]

150. Interesting, yes. Will it happen here, I doubt it.

I have yet to see anyone here have a lucid discussion over Dworkin's idea of objectification, which is the heart and soul of 2nd wave feminist theory. Nussbaum describes Dworkin's idea of objectification pretty well, which is that the patriarchy and sexual objectification are intrinsically linked to the point at which all manner of consent is effectively removed from women regarding the vast majority of heterosexual coitus. This is where the "all sex is rape" allegation about Dworkin (and feminist theory on objectification) comes from. The best you can get out of those who claim to understand feminist theory is that Dworkin didn't explicitly say that, and while this is true, it's certainly what it means which even Dworkin didn't deny.

So let's just pretend for a moment that Kant's ideas weren't completely nutty and Dworkin didn't take them to another dimension of nuttiness and sexual objectification really is a thing. For this to be of any value at all past a mental masturbation exercise one must try and figure out what the real impacts of it are. Nussbaum makes a case that all objectification isn't even negative, but for whatever of it is that does have a negative impact what is it? Dworkin promised us that the proliferation of porn would be reflected in higher incidence of violence against women, yet the exact opposite happened.

The purpose of any theory is to provide a model to predict reality which can't be otherwise proved. If the theory fails to accurately model reality, then it's really of no value whatsoever. Objectification is a failed theory, yet instead of questioning the theory, you have those who so desperately wanting to believe it are questioning reality instead. So just like Kant's ideas are derived from religious philosophy regarding faith based morality, we now come full circle in that we just have to have faith in objectification theory.