Clearly the way to get beautiful women is to ignore them, perhaps mistreat them" (272). The ad Kilbounre is describing is similar to the picture in the Bebe ad, and she is trying to make women see just how degrading these images are. The woman in the Bebe ad is very desperately attempting to get the man's attention by leaning on him and focusing her attention on him, but he doesn't seem interested. The image is posed like that to show superiority and power that men supposedly have over women. This teaches women that they need to constantly dote on the man, whether he pays attention or not.
To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself”. Berger goes on to say, “Nudity is placed on display.” The women in the painting are a display pieces; they are exclusively for the man viewing the art. The painter paints them in a way that they are looking, into the viewer’s eyes to allure the man, the viewer, to appeal to his sexual fantasies and make him feel wanted, powerful and desired. There is a one sided power within the art. Power and sexuality is geared to the man; it is all about him and the woman is stripped of any of her sexuality and power, she is to have no sexual feelings of her own.
This challenges Macbeth emotionally causing him to reconsider his manhood, ‘’Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man’’. Lady Macbeth would have startled the audience considering that women in the Elizabethan society were seen as sub servant. Women were expected to have good manners and obey their husbands, since Lady Macbeth does have a high social status, she would be expected to be gentle and dignified. Whereas the Lady in The Laboratory has another approach to manipulating the person making her poison sexually, ‘’You may kiss me old man’’. This suggest she is using physical sexual attraction to manipulate the person because a ‘’kiss’’ is
Ads objectify women by misrepresenting them. Ads only have really good-looking women on them and almost naked. This creates standards for women to try and become that way. Ads make people think all women should be able to look like the women on these ads. Also some ads make women look vulnerable and that they want to be dominated by men.
Curley’s wife is portrayed as being a whore – but this is only due to the way she dresses, her provocative ways and the way she acts around men, as if she is aware of her femininity. This could suggest that she is only like this because she is bored, like it is something to do – something interesting for a change. She is constantly trying to get people to notice her. But, because of Lennie’s purity and innocence, he doesn’t see her in the way other men do – a sexual object. When Steinbeck quotes “And because she had confided in him, she moved closer to Lennie and sat beside him”, it is clear to the audience that Curley’s Wife is using her sexuality as an object to create some sort of excitement for herself.
She explains that women are objectifying themselves and are equally to blame for the degrading image that men have of us. The article discusses how we do not have to put ourselves in this position and continue to objectify ourselves, however our culture teaches us that that is the acceptable way to live. Unless someone does something radical to change the norms of our society, men will continue to objectify women and the women will help them. This is the way of our culture. I enjoyed this reading because it really opened my eyes to how erotic our culture is, in fact.
However one could also argue that Larkin seems to justify violence against women by suggesting that access to women is something men have been unfairly deprived of. This becomes evident in the first stanza where Larkin presents the girl in ‘white satin’ suggesting her purity and virginity. One could disagree with this statement and interpret the de-feminizing of women differently. It could be suggested that Larkin combines masculinity and femininity together, ‘moustached lips’, to show his view that men and women should be viewed more equally in society. However I disagree with this alternative interpretation as I feel Larkin tries to portray the attacks ‘snaggle-toothed’ and boss-eyed’ are sadistic and grotesque but he does not disagree with
‘Athenian men’s relations with their wives were dominated by fear’ (30 marks) Women would’ve caused many fears for men as they played a major role in the upkeep of the oikos and furthering the family line. On top of worrying about betrayal or falsified sons, men would have to stay wary and alert in case any passing bachelors decided to seduce their wife. However many of the sources are court cases and the sheer purpose of them is to expose domestic problems, this means we need to be careful when generalising to Athenian men. They are all also written by males which may mean the sources could just be overly paranoid and lack credibility. And as always with ancient texts you need to take into account what time may have done to it.
In the essay Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body, Susan Bordo takes an in depth look at the male physique. She begins her essay by describing how she came across an almost naked picture of a man and how she was stunned and absorbed by it at the same time. She then develops her essay by adding pictures of near naked men like the one she saw. The pictures draw the reader’s curiosity of how men have started to become “objects of sexual gaze.” It seems as though over the past fifty years or so women have changed the qualities they look for in a man: from a more dominant, masculine figure to a more passive, caring one. This has recently changed because women have gained more independence in society.
I agree with Sheets-Johnstone’s claim that “women inspire male sexual desire simply by existing.” In the twenty first centuries, targeting western culture, women are constantly examined by men based alone on their outward appearance. A woman can be reduced to only to certain body parts such as the genitalia. This is because a woman’s appearance alone can cause a male to become aroused which naturally leads to this kind of degradation. The woman as a whole is basically forgotten. Because it is common for men to behave in this manner, it is almost routine for a woman to be appeasing to a man for approval.