Objectification a moral, not gender, problem

    On Objectification

The issue of sexual objectification, mostly of women, is pervasive in my life. It shows up often on facebook, sometimes on youtube, and on occasionally in the news. Some people refuse to accept its existence. Some of them are sure that it happens to men as much as women, and therefore it should not be an issue of importance. Then there are those who just don’t see it. The other side has people that insist women, for the most part, are objectified every day all the time and want every little bit of it gone. But there are also people on this side who see it but are unsure how much of the time women are actually objectified, and how much it matters.

The fight is almost always a battle of the genders. The issue that is most always debated is objectification of women, which incites attacks from men. Of course, there is the occasional male feminist, but it is nearly always men versus women. We need to stop viewing the problem of sexual objectification in terms of females versus males. This is not a gender issue. It is a moral issue.

The goal should be equality, and there should be no confusion about it. One way to go about equality is to bring people or groups down to your level. That is not the type of equality that anyone should be pursuing. We need to give others an arm up. What we need to ask when we are called to action or read an article on objectification is, “How would this make me feel if I was of that gender, or if that was me?”

For the most part, objectification does not make anyone feel good. It doesn’t matter if you are male, female, or anything else. I do not want to be treated as something less than the complex human being that I am, and according to the golden rule, I should treat others the way I want to be treated.

It is hard for some people to grasp that something could upset a group or individual. However, making someone understand something is almost never achieved through force or unkind words. It can be achieved by treating whomever you are trying to convince just as you would like to be treated. However, not everyones views can be changed, and it is not okay to use that as an excuse to be nasty.

Of course, it is easy for me to say that. I might not always follow it, but I should try. Everyone should try. So I invite everyone to start seeing sexual objectification as a human problem, not a gender problem. Both sides.

Let’s debate, not yell.

On Feminism

Definition of feminism: the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

Most groups have extremists and moderates. Please do not mistake extreme feminism as all feminism. I also caution extremists on the following: making every little thing into a fight decreases the chances of changing people’s minds about more important, general issues. Also, feminists are stronger as a group, so fighting with other feminists that have different views only hurts you.

Please try not to give feminism a bad name.