Do men see women as objects?

SvitlanaLeo · 2024-03-16T07:05:53+00:00

The study is about men with high scores on hostile sexism, but in the retellings of the study by cultural feminists, “men with high scores on hostile sexism” has become just “men.”

EL_overthetransom · 2024-03-16T08:47:25+00:00

Pictures are objects.

White_Immigrant · 2024-03-16T06:57:30+00:00

This study proves that we use that part of the brain for multiple tasks, like most parts of the brain. Anyone reading further into it than that is drawing conclusions it isn't possible to reasonably make. You could just as easily claim that men see tools like they do women, and that they womanify inanimate objects. Of course, that's why we give ships, boats and cars female names. My car is called Keith however, read from that what you will.

Durmyyyy · 2024-03-16T07:07:45+00:00

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wardenferry419 · 2024-03-16T09:24:43+00:00

At my point in life, I see women as either problems or non-problems.

Virtual_Piece · 2024-03-16T16:58:20+00:00

Both genders objectify each other in one way or another

ArmchairDesease · 2024-03-16T07:06:19+00:00

"Men see women as objects" might be sometimes true in a narrow sense. But that's surprising only if you ignore all the other instances of the human experience in which we objectify each other.

I might see a plumber as an object, as he's the instrument through which the leakage in my sink will be fixed. I might see a football player as an object, since his utility entirely lies in his capacity to score a goal. And yes, I might also see a person I like sexually as an object, since she/he is instrumental to achieving something I want (sexual gratification).

And, by the way, traditionally women relied on men's job to provide an income to their family. A jobless man was considered "useless". What's that if not objectification?

But the story doesn't end there. A plumber, a football player, a person I like physically and an income-earning husband are not ONLY objects to the person "using" them. Their instrumental value is always (hopefully) inferior to their inherent value as people, which is never put in discussion.

The uncomfortable truth is that we're all both subjects and objects to each others. I don't see sexual objectification of women as more important than any form of objectification by anyone. As always, with feminist issues, it's a laser focus on a very narrow aspect of a much broader phenomenon.

odeacon · 2024-03-16T11:46:13+00:00

Some do unfortunately. But the vast majority of men don’t. You can be sexually attracted to a woman and not see her as an object

Skirt_Douglas · 2024-03-16T16:08:06+00:00

It proves nothing. This is called bunk neuroscience. You can’t just look at the brain light up and declare it’s for the exact same reasons.

Just because your brain lights up in the same place when you use a screwdriver as when you see a naked women, doesn’t mean you think naked women are screwdrivers.

No scientist worth their salt would draw such an idiotic conclusion.

The fact that this came out of prinston doesn’t make it authoritative, it suggests prinston has lost its integrity.

Puzzleheaded_Pea_889 · 2024-03-17T03:34:58+00:00

This study and many others like it have actually largely been invalidated - this now famous study showed you can use the same technique used in that paper to find evidence of facial emotion recognition in a dead salmon bought at the grocery store. Basically, there's a lot of different regions of the brain that can be activated at random times, so if someone unfamiliar with statistics tries to find any correlation between any two parts of the brain, the odds of finding a spurious correlation by chance are extremely high simply because you've done so many comparison tests that you're bound to get at least one false positive.

Furthermore, using fMRI to infer what your brain is 'doing' is a little questionable. No one actually knows what each part of the brain actually 'does', and so parts of the brain are frequently activated in response to seemingly disparate stimuli (for example, the insular cortex appears to be involved in both hand-eye coordination and in the response to bad smells). So even aside from the statistical chicanery, the fact that some regions of the brain are active both when viewing women and when viewing tools doesn't tell us much of anything, as the activation may simply be related to general visual processing (if anything at all).

BloomingBrains · 2024-03-17T07:36:28+00:00

So what? Its also true that same part of your brain that processes is cuteness is the same part of your brain that processes violence and hunger. That's why people say things like "Aw that puppy is so cute I could just eat him up" or "I could squeeze him to death".

Does this mean most people are violent psychopaths who want to murder and eat dogs? No. The human brain is actually still very primitive in a lot of ways. But just because the brain functions one way at a mechanical level does not mean that it reflects how people actually think and what they would actually be willing to do.

SvitlanaLeo · 2024-03-16T06:59:51+00:00

And what part of the brain, according to contemprorary international academic neurobiology, processes objects and tools?

hottake_toothache · 2024-03-16T11:08:22+00:00

The use of brain imaging to say that men see women as objects is an insane jump, that is only made because if furthers a slander against men.

DrankTooMuchMead · 2024-03-17T02:17:16+00:00

Men are more visual. And if we weren't, the human race would end. Somebody needs to approach somebody based on little-to-no criteria.

And this is only part of attraction. Incentive to make the first moves. Love is more than just appearance.

So what kind of feminist hole did you drag us into, OP?

JSquiggz16 · 2024-03-16T11:31:24+00:00

It could be that they are seeing the photo as an object, not the woman who it was taken of

ratcake6 · 2024-03-17T22:39:11+00:00

This "objectification" business is a load of crap. Where does it begin and where does it end? Are you objectifying a cashier when you use them only as a means to check out your groceries? Are parents objectifying their children when they expect them to get a respectable job instead of lazing about on heroin all day?

When definitions become so broad, their only use becomes that of a perjorative, something subjectively employed to disparage your opponents, not a thing with any real explainatory power

Lazy_Cartographer505 · 2024-03-17T23:46:45+00:00

Some women throughout history have been treated like objects but not all the time and not every single relationship a woman has with a man literally means that he views her as an actual object lol. Objectification exist on many different things and I can see where that comes from. But no I do not view my mother or cousins or coworkers or friends as objects. I didn't even view my own girlfriend's objects and I attracted to them

Skyboomuh · 2024-03-16T05:17:07+00:00

If no one actually said it, then that blows my mind as to how this became part of the common parlance in gender studies and discourse. Though I can't glean much from just the abstract.

Nonetheless, isn't 'objectification' in the context of sexism a bit of a misnomer? If it's about sex, not many people want to have sex or commit sex acts on objects. If I saw someone or part of someone as an object, they are no longer sexually appealing. There would have to be some implicit understanding that any 'object' of that nature is part of a whole. A whole person. Otherwise, where would the attraction come from?

Unless you're into some weird stuff, sexual attraction doesn't happen without an understanding of inherent and implicit personhood and agency.

I guess that's assuming that the 'object' referenced in the root word is a part of the body. Though it could mean object in the sense of something to use. But I guess that would require a discussion of the etymology of the word and it's use in this context.

Idk. These are just thoughts I've had on the subject. Maybe I'm a bit off base or something.

Realistic_W8974 · 2024-03-16T05:22:52+00:00

Men are definitely very visual in terms of romantic attraction, but that brief enchantment a man might experience towards a beautiful woman offers negligible support for an extreme claim of men viewing women as objects.

Let's look at the countless offerings men have made to women over the millenniums in terms of marital and romantic affection through gifts, flowers, poems, promises of long-term commitment and so on.. this voluminous historical archive proves that men are more likely to see women as companions rather than objects.

Living_Accountant_67 · 2024-03-16T12:12:09+00:00

We don't while women see us as ATM

AbysmalDescent · 2024-03-20T14:33:02+00:00

To me this just seems like bad and compromised "science", effectively misrepresenting information to suit a misandric narrative or agenda. They are, by any means necessary, trying to vilify and attack male heterosexuality. It's a conclusion that is leading the data, with people coming into it with a heavy bias at every step of the way. This could just as well be a result of men having stronger reactions to images of women, that images of women is triggering a stronger reaction in the part of the brain that allows men to identify shapes/patterns or men have a stronger connection between sexual arousal and visual stimuli than women.

Men being attracted to women is not objectification, and it's disturbing to me how far this false narrative that it is has gotten. Men having a stronger reaction to visual stimuli, something which would likely be beneficial evolutionarily in order to perform "on demand"(also to women's benefit), is not objectification either. This type of blatant anti-male biases shouldn't be in science.

DemonAlbena · 2024-09-13T16:59:41+00:00

I kinda maybe...like sexualing woman and like games that sexulixe woman as a female😅 Is that wrong?

Lumpy-Sorbet-1156 · 2025-01-15T21:38:19+00:00

No - More the way a little boy sees a sweet shop proprietor.

So at least if the study were done on any men (which it looks like it wasn't), then you might expect, for example, the brain regions that process the nearby presence of other people to light up as well.

Remote_Repeat4814 · 2025-03-16T10:23:58+00:00

A healthy male with a normal sex drive will almost always see women as sex objects. My entire life, I've paid attention to any half decent looking female. The longer I go without sex or masturbarbation, the stronger the urge.

As a matter of fact, I'd have had sex with any of them in any given moment, given the opportunity.

That instinct still prevails and it takes ALOT to reel it in in a relationship.

Foreign_Village7549 · 2025-09-22T18:02:13+00:00

Answer is yes lol. Unless they prove themselves to be more than just sexual objects, then yes this is how we will view them.

Spiritual_Collar6912 · 2026-02-27T18:28:59+00:00

A more accurate and fair test would be to see if they view actual women they know as 'objects'. Because in physical form, when you don't know a person all you have is what you see.

9-28-2023 · 2024-03-16T11:30:55+00:00

Uhhh wdym objects? I store objects in my cupboards and shelves.

BannanasAreEvil · 2024-03-17T00:10:14+00:00

I mean, yeah men do!

Pictures of sexualized women where put in front of them, instead of those men thinking "I wonder how she's feeling at the moment, is she sad her picture is taken?" Instead like most men with a normal libido they where not thinking of how she's "feeling" but their brain went more towards desire to "have".

You can usually only "have" objects, those mens brains where being triggered by their libido, notice how these where "heterosexual" men?

So let's sum up this study.

They took a swath of heterosexual men and showed them pictures of half naked women. They where surprised that these heterosexual mens brains didn't trigger thoughts of "empathy" or yearning to "understand" what the half naked women might be thinking. Instead the areas of the brain that did light up where the ones typically used in the feelings of desire snd ownership. Pikachu face that heterosexual men see tantalizing picture of women and their libido takes them to thoughts of desire first.

I bet they would have much different results if they repeated this test with men with very low libidos, asexual men or homosexual men!

I mean this test was flawed from the start, where is the control group? Was the control group supposed to be men who are less sexist? If so why make judgements on the control group, they are supposed to be the control, the one you test against.

cruisinforasnoozinn · 2024-03-16T11:54:53+00:00

If its true, its likely something we aren't thinking about. All you can do is put effort into humanising someone you want to have sex with, and pay attention to their comfort & needs because they aren't a tool or an object.

As a bisexual man, I have to agree that the way a lot of men think about sex is kind of frightening - even really nice guys who respect me outside of a sexual situation have visibly lost some of that respect once my clothes are off and they're hard. I've been as bad myself at times of high sex drive or lower empathy than normal. Just something to keep tabs on, yknow?

Physical_Material_79 · 2024-10-04T09:27:29+00:00

WOMEN ARE OBJECT THATS WHY

Mysterious_Team9138 · 2025-06-13T18:01:38+00:00

They do see them as objects in my opinion generally

Title	Do men see women as objects?
Author	StandardFaire
Upvotes	70
Comments	106
Date	March 15, 2024 11:54 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1bfscsf/do_men_see_women_as_objects/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/do-men-see-women-as-objects.1427058 https://theredarchive.com/post/1427058

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