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Objectified Women

In the essay by Scott Russell Sanders, “Looking at Women,” there is a message that women are always being objectified in society today. The way they wear their hair, dress, do their make-up or even walk is grounds for classification among the male populous. Sanders also deems women who dress up and wear make-up as women who are trying to turn themselves into “dolls” that don’t mind being treated as sexual objects. He asks the question: “by turning herself (or allowing herself to be turned into) a work of art, does a woman truly escape men’s proprietary stare?” (253).
We seem to have this idealized concept of what love is supposed to be like according to the way society has molded us. Perhaps these ideals are more about the self than they are about a relationship between two people. We want to feel loved, and when we get that love from another person we become determined to secure that feeling. By securing these feelings we lean towards controlling that relationship. However, control is merely a way of fabricating and disguising reality. And by manipulating reality in this way we create an ideal relationship stemming mainly from our own selfish and vain imaginings. Primarily, the role of the manipulator goes to the male populous. Literature gives us many examples of these sorts of ideals while at the same time showing us how reality eventually prevails in these conceptions.
In the short fictional story “The Other Wife” by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette, a clear objectification towards women is demonstrated. Marc seems to be a controlling man, and he no longer wants to be a part of his ex-wife’s life. When he sits down with his new wife at a table farther away from his ex-wife, he begins to talk about his past marriage. He claims he could never make her happy, and that she was “difficult.” Marc is an example of a man who wants to be in the dominating role in his relationship, and he assumes that he...