Viva logo

Sexual Harassment and the Male Gaze: How the Objectification of Women Obstruct Social Relations and How Women are Beginning to Challenge These Issues

Let's unite and be the army that we need for each other.

By Traveling From Heavenly PlacesPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
Like

In recent news and according to the New York Times article written by Jessica Bennett titled "The ‘Click’ Moment: How the Weinstien Scandal Unleashed a Tsunami," scandals of sexual harassment are becoming larger and frequent. This issue is not new and the outing of such experiences are also not recent. If our culture respected and integrated social laws that defended woman against social predators, this would not be accurate. Unfortunately, the hegemonic Euro-centric standard is what ultimately leads to a standard of beauty and allows women of color — specifically, darker skinned woman — to have less power and status to that of a lighter skinned woman, who faces her own prejudices. These standards are stereotypical of your Eurocentric features and lead to the obscurity of the relationships between men and women of color particularly of darker complexion.

The Male Gaze is an important aspect to the reasons behind sexual harassment and sexual attacks. Because of the perspective of man of woman, we tend to perceive ourselves as very determinate of what their expectations are. Therefore, we are judged solely on our appearances and not on our achievements. Woman of color like Anita Hill according to Bennett states that she “was the example of a strong, accomplished black woman, and if she of all people could be discredited then it seemed women, particularly women of color, had no voice when it came to sexual harassment” (1). Our appearances are vital to our status in the world, but it’s also the reason why woman of color are sexually mistreated in the realms of work, school, and just pretty much anywhere that westernized European standards exist.

Someone who takes sexual pleasure in the looking of a woman’s body is objectifying the physical characteristics of a woman’s body parts. Since this is consequent of the male gaze, it is extremely harmful to society. This is also why, according to Bennet, a survey cites that in which “88 percent of women said they were harassed at work, the author said the problem permeated almost every profession, but was particularly pernicious 'in the supposedly glamorous profession of acting,' in which Hollywood’s casting couch remained a 'strong convention'” (1). These consequences cause women to express their feelings more openly and more forcefully because of the sexual harassment and gender-based violence that takes place in spaces of work. We also see this objectification with women who are sex workers, who are in the career of sharing their physical bodies to the world of media and their children, additionally females who are part of pageants and other hegemonic beauty objectifying marketing tools.

Fragmentation is also a result of objectification, this adding to the disintegration of the social relationships between men and women of color that lead to sexual exploitation. Explained through Bennett's words, the fragmentation or the reduction of a person to a particular body part is problematic because “Forty years ago this month, Ms. Magazine put sexual harassment on its cover for the first time. Understanding the sensitivity of the topic, the editors used puppets for the cover image — a male hand reaching into a woman’s blouse — rather than a photograph. It was banned from some supermarkets nonetheless” (1). It is evident then, that the male standard for women — the leading cause of gender violence — is also a reflection of the incapabilities of accepting their own constructions. In other words, when confronted with the problem directly, and even indirectly — the example of the puppets — the male powers that dominate the social perceptions and structures of women aren’t able to morally or ethically address the actions that they themselves take part of. Ultimately, they silence woman from sharing their experiences, forcing women to feel oppressed in their own work places, and also denying woman of their own feelings, independence, and power to advance in their careers and society.

The commodification of women and the treating of them as objects put women in a state of disillusion. For example, when a woman's breast is used as a marketing tool for bras, women attract the perception of such marketing tools. We want to become that model as submission to the social norms, hence, putting a price on our own bodies involuntarily. However, during the recent outburst of acquisitions to many powerful men in the cinema world, we see that women are taking a stand to what our bodies actually can do for the world. As famous faces form a loud army of voices against such special abuses, ordinary woman also are using social media to confront their abusers. According to the author, “I’ve heard from women who said they’ve retroactively confronted their harassers and those who enabled them, and from men who are re-examining, perhaps somewhat nervously, their own behavior. The new conversation goes way beyond the workplace to sweep in street harassment, rape culture and 'toxic masculinity' — terminology that would have been confined to gender studies classes, not found in mainstream newspapers, not so long ago” (1). Although some might consider the objectification of women as a way to find self-worth, we see that this also has led to an opening of doors for challenging the representations of beauty and the dominating powers that form the social guidelines for women and also, the oppressive sexual violence that has disregarded women feelings, opinions, and preferences.

The explicit forces of the construction of woman's roles in society has shaped the way men and women interact with each other. Woman of color are inherently targets to these problematic power divisions between the sexes but, when we take in the social, racial, economic, and sexual realities of our world and we construct it to work with everyone, more importantly woman of color and dark complexion, is when a possible change of political style will be meaningful. In the article, we see that Jennifer Bennett explains that a new wave of confrontation is taking place that will and at its own pace change the reality and living conditions for all women across the world.

The 'Click' Moment: How the Weinstien Scandal Unleashed a Tsunami by Jessica Bennett

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/us/sexual-harrasment-weinstein-trump.html

activism
Like

About the Creator

Traveling From Heavenly Places

You can call 📞 me Joely. I’m traveling 🧳 with my family and sharing my experience. Hopefully you like my stories 📖 . If you have any questions Or just want to chat send an email 📧 [email protected]

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.