Young Girls thinking of themselves as sex objects. I'm no scientest but....

loose-dendrite · 2012-07-19T15:39:49+00:00

[permanently deleted]

5eraph · 2012-07-19T15:08:56+00:00

I consistently wonder how many of these problems in society actually exist because they exist, and how many exist because we're told they exist. Humans, and especially children are easily conditioned, and I agree with you. If a young girl (under 10) is constantly told that women and girls are objectified and that they are only valued for their looks, two things may happen: (in my opinion)

1) The girl is going to believe that girls are only valued for their looks, and this belief will persist.

2) The girl will believe that the only way to get ahead in life is to present herself as an object because she truly believes that is where her worth is.

Time for an anecdote from personal experience (which is no way scientific, but it's interesting to share and something to think about). I work at a college, we deal with a lot of mature students who have children. One woman, who happens to be black, always brings in her daughter and insists she gets a private room so her daughter won't disturb the other people writing tests. It's against our policy since these private rooms are reserved for students with learning/physical disabilities, but it's not busy, so we allow her into the room.

Sure enough, we catch her cheating on her test in the room, she comes up with some lengthy explanation trying to justify herself, and then saying we didn't see anything. However, as she's about to leave (we've confiscated her test) she starts to scream about how we're only doing this because she's not white (some background: I work just outside Toronto - I'm the only white person in our department, and I wasn't even the one who caught her cheating) and that none of this would happen if she wasn't black (while dragging her daughter behind her). As she walks out the door she screams "I wish I was white".

Now the reason I'm telling this story, is that how you state feminists are always stating that "women are always objectified" is not too different from this woman teaching her daughter that "everyone discriminates against blacks". There certainly is some discrimination, but she instantly threw that out there, despite the fact that she was cheating, and we caught her. /rant

Sorry, I'm at work now and this happened recently. I completely agree with you. Give your children positive expectations and they'll achieve positive results with a positive outlook.

TheSacredParsnip · 2012-07-19T15:55:35+00:00

I have the exact same thought everytime someone posts in 2X about being scared of rape on a college campus. No shit you're scared. There are posters all over campus with shit like "75% of college females will get raped" next to "men can stop rape." Obviously people are going to be afraid in that kind of situation.

2012-07-19T15:28:08+00:00

Miss Representation is a good place to start. It is a growing trend being seen in studies and much research has been done on the topic. I think what people have wrong is that it's men objectify women. Really it's the media that objectifies women and occasionally on TV you see a man objectify a women, which could perpetrate the 'douchebags' we see today who treat women like a trophy. These douchebags are not representative of how men are as a whole and are very much a minority.

However, the sad thing is that women now objectify themselves and each other much more. Women do believe now more than ever that their value is placed mainly on their looks. I mean why do women wear make-up and men do not? Just my thoughts.

EpicJ · 2012-07-19T16:07:14+00:00

It's those garbage magazines like this that are the problem, many young girls read these many objectify both genders by saying look at this cute boy band, and look kow fat this person is; making young girls self-conscious, up to the age of about 10 girls have generally little to no males objectifying them (most are too busy with football/videogames or whatever). Like always it is media, it has been for hundreds of years people follow celebrities, it used to be royalty that set trends now it is the latest singer/actoress.

SpiritofJames · 2012-07-19T20:44:32+00:00

I think the key is that it is public schooling that is accelerating this process.

rightsbot · 2012-07-19T14:58:19+00:00

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EricTheHalibut · 2012-07-19T15:18:12+00:00

People underestimate how much kids, especially in the preteen/teen years want to do whatever they consider "normal". As privileged adults we forget how much of an accomplishment it felt like just to get through the day without major embarrassment.

So many well-intentioned things backfire when you consider this. If you're told all the time about how much of a problem sex and alcohol and drugs are amongst your peer group, that makes you more likely to think "well, I better get out and do those things, if that's what my peers are doing."

I'm sure that can apply to plenty of other things -- if you tell boys they're part of a rape culture, that diminishes the seriousness of rape, compared to telling them "rape is a terrible crime committed by a small number of violent criminals".

If you tell a 12-year-old girl "women are being objectified all the time today," you can bet your ass that she's going to spend all of her time becoming the best possible sex object she can be.

Dranosh · 2012-07-19T15:31:04+00:00

I would say that after the sexual revolution is when we started to nose dive. The sexual revolution was basically women saying "I can have sex with any one I want to and with as many people as I want to", and men were like "Ok, let's go". Basically, they stated loud and clear that they were worth nothing more than sex objects by wearing revealing clothing, and what have you.

Nowadays, you can't get away from all the overly sexualized media, from songs about sex, to magazines with sex tips, to make-up/clothing ads with half-naked women. It gives the impression that women and men are nothing more than sex objects used for the others pleasure, we are just animals after all they say. If we were in fact JUST animals, then we wouldn't bother ourselves with rape because animals hump anything they can based on pheromones.

The point of this is that before the sexual revolution our society was extremely modest, people were covered in non-revealing clothing like bathing suits, skirts, etc. It said "I am worth more than sex, you must get to know ME before you know me carnally", fast-forward to today and it has been flipped on its head by the hedonistic people that say "You HAVE to know someone carnally before you marry them, what if they don't fulfill your sexual desires or they gasp aren't experienced." These people I feel are the ones that have succeeded in changing society from a selfless one to a selfish one, they've influenced this notion of "What can my partner do for ME?" instead of "What can I do to show my love for my spouse?"

You can see effects of those teachings from replies when I tell people me and my fiancee are still virgins, we don't plan on living together before we're married, and that she dresses modestly in public. They reply, "You gotta test the milk before you buy the cow," "You gotta test drive the car before you buy it" etc. What they don't understand is that cows and cars don't have feelings when you "test drive" them and take them back to the store, there's no depression or shame felt after being test driven as a car/cow.

Those same people don't understand what I mean when I say I receive joy from doing things for my fiancee, I'll buy her a rose spontaneously and not when I'm in "the dog house" because for some reason everyone thinks a guy can't do something nice without being in trouble, I'll clean her car, send her poetry etc. I do it and expect nothing in return, I do it because I seeing HER happy makes ME happy.

This sort of went off-topic, but I think it fits the overall message of little girls are being taught by the media to be selfish sex objects and that little boys are being taught they can't control their sexual urges.

coldacid · 2012-07-20T05:04:33+00:00

Why can't people raise kids with things like "You are gonna do great things," "You are very smart," and "You can do anything" ?

That's how I was raised, and didn't do me any good. Of course, that's just one person's experiences, but I find it hard to think that being raised with messages like those have much effect at all on the kid.

EricTheHalibut · 2012-07-20T06:25:40+00:00

The original thread.

KatGunz · 2012-07-24T05:34:52+00:00

I still don't understand what the objectification of women means. I've been told it's when you see her as a sex object rather then a human being, but then they tell me how having an attractive woman with big breasts on alcohol commercials is objectification.

DavidByron · 2012-07-19T17:00:05+00:00

Women have that power and by six years old girls have figured it out. Sounds about right.

As for the conclusion, anything that uses the word "objectify" is 100% bullshit.

GREATBIGDICK · 2012-07-19T15:28:19+00:00

I have a bit of a theory that perhaps it is the constant talk everywhere about sexism and how woman are objectified.

This is like saying racial discrimination is caused by people talking about racism. It simply doesn't make any sense.

WomenAndChimps · 2012-07-19T16:56:19+00:00

The skills that women have, and the ones that they are most predisposed to use, do not cure diseases. They do not make important discoveries. They do not tap the resources of the earth. They do not even build houses.

Their skills are mostly aimed toward manipulating males.

And most western women clearly both recognise and understand this and use this to their advantage from a very early age.

-- Angry Harry, MRA

http://www.angryharry.com/esWomenandChimps.htm?note

Title	Young Girls thinking of themselves as sex objects. I'm no scientest but....
Author	HPeroit
Upvotes	6
Comments	42
Date	July 19, 2012 2:56 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/wti1d/young_girls_thinking_of_themselves_as_sex_objects/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/young-girls-thinking-of-themselves-as-sex-objects.1017586 https://theredarchive.com/post/1017586

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