Deconstructing "Objectification"

All the feminists I know are also fairly conservative Christians. While some feminists might applaud women who make vigorous use of their sexual power over men, these feminists say that such women are "objectifying" themselves.

To objectify oneself means to buy into the lie of being only a sexual object. Women who have beautiful bodies and wear revealing clothing are "objectifying" themselves. Therefore they should cover themselves, dress modestly.

This will conceal the fact that these women are, inescapably, (potential) sexual objects.

The only way to avoid objectification is to think of oneself as a purely sexual object in the eyes of men and to hide that fact. The woman is always the object of the man, ultimately, whether she dresses sexily or not: this is especially the case for women who dress modestly to show mercy to their poor sexually stunted Christian male friends.

Men are sexual subjects. They are never seriously called to show modesty in order to avoid becoming sexual objects for women.

These feminists need to consider whether women can also be sexual subjects -- that is, whether they can use their beauty to attract men to themselves in the same way that men seek to attract women to themselves.

To do this, they would need to exploit their sexual attractiveness, and so sexual subjectification might in the end look identical to sexual objectification. Either a woman would consciously choose to be a non-sexual sexual subject, seeking relationships with men (and women) solely on an intellectual or emotional level, which would look the same as a "righteously" objectified woman; or a woman would choose to celebrate the fact that she is a sexual being and the fact that she can so thoroughly throw men off with her beauty, which would look the same as a "classically" objectified woman.

But in any case, both unreflective use of revealing clothing and unreflective "righteous" use of modest clothing leave women always, inescapably, as sexual objects.