Science Shows Men Objectify Women
...thats not funny either...
This study is the least awesome study I’ve ever read. I’ve shouted and complained before about men objectifying women’s bodies. Just the other day I was walking from getting lunch to go back to work and say a man, literally lean 1/2 body out his car and yell at a woman crossing the street “Hey baby! That ass would look so good with me in it.” and today just outside of Starbucks there were 4 guys commenting on every single girls body as they walked in to get their coffee.
Maybe I’m just not watching for it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a women lean outside of her window to catcall at a woman crossing the street. Nor have I seen a group of girls standing outside of a store purposely watching men walk into it and commenting on their “fine asses” or “beautiful men titties”. Men objectify women.
And now, we can prove it scientifically. When a man is show a picture of a women who is less than dressed the region of their brain that is associated with tool use….lights up. They literally associate that woman’s body with the same purpose as a hammer or a drill. (hardy har) …And they would use the same words to describe using the woman…like pushing, grasping and handling.
But wait! That’s not even my favorite part…
And in a “shocking” finding, Fiske noted, some of the men studied showed no activity in the part of the brain that usually responds when a person ponders another’s intentions.
This means that these men see women “as sexually inviting, but they are not thinking about their minds,” Fiske said. “The lack of activation in this social cognition area is really odd, because it hardly ever happens.”
What?! Wait! Waaait! aaaaand:
And the men who scored higher as “hostile sexists”—those who view women as controlling and invaders of male space—didn’t show brain activity that indicates they saw the women in bikinis as humans with thoughts and intentions.
Scientists have seen this absence of activation only once before, in a study where people were shown off-putting photographs of homeless people and drug addicts.
…Those men associated women on the same level as homeless people and drug addicts. How charming. Now of course one of the first questions that comes to my mind after being grossed out is “well, what about women?” and …”well, is it the society? or is it evolutionary?”
In regards to the women, if they were shown men in sexualized outfits (or lack there of) they probably won’t have the same reation, only because women are turned on and look for mates who have power and wealth. So, if the men were run with affluent symbols attached to them, that could result in similar studies, perhaps.
But Fiske doesn’t think such an experiment would work the same way, because women usually react to men they desire by “interpreting their minds, thinking about what they’re interested in, and then trying to please them,” she said.
So are these traits simply evolutionary? And if they are – should they be allowed? I really don’t think its healthy for a man to see a woman’s body, disassociated it as a person and reassociate it as a tool… and then to top it all off they completely disregard what the woman is interested in or would agree to doing. …scary hairy, IMO.
Themocracy
These traits are probably at least based on some evolutionary / genetic predisposition, even if culture (memetic predispositions) could have a greater effect than we imagine.
Should they be “allowed”? Um, well, of course, but that’s not exactly what you meant by “allowed”.
I do think we’ve evolved rationality beyond nature, providing us with power with which comes responsibility… ah, the joys of having eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 
So the question to me is just, what values are worth pursuing, how do you promote those values, and at what point are we going too far in fighting our nature for some… uh… “higher ideal”. (Hello religion! ?)
’tis a tricky balance.
I’ll quit babbling for now.
[...] done by researcher Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University. Katie has a post on it at Lib-Deb and its made an impact on the Feminist [...]
It’s weird that the study doesn’t show faces… sometimes studies set themselves up in ways that encourage dehumanization – the Stanford Prison Experiment is a more famous example.
Well, the skeptic in me has to ask some basic questions first. How reliable are the interpretations drawn from their data?
There are neat studies which electically stimuate the left temporal parietal junction to induce an Out of Body experience. The conclusion that this region is responsible for creating the feeling that we are “in our bodies”. This seems more straightforward and easier to quantify than the conclusion that they draw here.
So… I don’t know.
Must we generalize so? Never once did I view a woman in this objectifying manner. I recently read a study that suggests that atheists are more anxious than people who believe in god, but that certainly gives no one the right to generally state “Atheists are more stressed out than Christians.” Some men objectify women. Probably many do. Some Christians have a much brighter outlook on life because of their belief in a higher power. Some government employees drink coffee. Some teenagers listen to Britney Spears. But stating this kind of stereotype as fact?
Katie is correct to a certain extent that yes, men do objectify women. It is also true that women speak roughly 30,000 words a day and men about 10,000. I am not comparing the two examples directly but merely saying that men and women have different physiology, and this causes us to have different impulses. In an ideal world men would always treat women with respect, and women would never rip other people’s lives apart with gossip. Men have parts of their nature they need to fight to be civilized, and women have different parts of their nature they need to fight to be civilized. The question to answer is what document, rule set, or instruction manual will enable both men and women to fight their individual natures? Let’s answer that question individually and use that value system to teach our children.
Lol I googled this topic out of curiosity. If it were biological and uncontrolable then all men do it. You shoudln’t generalize it just makes excuses for them. Not all men had that brain activity, my bet is the only ones who did have been influenced to see women that way through the way we manipulate women as sex objects in society (Women treat other women that way too). And alot of women are attracted to hott men eg movie stars, look at how much attention the twilight guy gets compared to say an ugly movie star. Maybe u dnt like eye candy guy’s fair enuf, but alot of females do and alot of reseach has proven that particulairy in females with high self esteem eg what most men have. Guys just get more physically aroused that’s all, so they tend to often like porn more, but you can get excited and feel attracted to someone without geting arounsed in your genetials, so the fact women dont doesn’t make us non visual, just respond to differnet visual stimulisis of men, eg hott romantic hero not hot porn star, again not all women think like this tho, and Im not talking about emotion either, that rush hott guy’s givev u, I’m quite shocked u as a female say u dnt get this but I understand people are different. I have read this study myself the point of is was to not make out like men are like that just some and I know u say that but you kind of seem to present it and the title like all men do.
Un;ess you gay off course, then you wouldn’t know how women feel about men, sorry just tht of that. It is a good aticle but I dont think its fair your title. It kind of misleads and aot of men excuse their behaviour with things like this.
When morons “do science.” Wow.
So the headless bikini women (is this a neutral presentation?) are objects, because the ‘tool use’ area of the brain lights up. What insightful interpretation of data! How can we be sure that *is* the ‘tool use’ area of the brain? It could very well be the ‘sex’ area of the brain, could it not? Which came first, sex or tool use?
Here’s an equally intelligent and defensible spin on the same data: men are sexually attracted to a pair of pliers. Shocking. Disturbing.
Wow! Talking about hating on men!
Some men objectify women, and they should be chastised for doing so.
But not all men do. Many men are married and are faithful to their wives. They work hard to provide for their families. They spend a lot of quality time with their children.
Judging an entire gender – based on the actions of certain members in that geneder – is stupid, sexist, and ignorant.
I find that many men who think they don’t objectify women (who don’t behave this way) actually do it in a much more seething and profoundly hypocritical way. That is, as emotional hosts. So yeah, it’s not classy to be called out on your ass, but out of the thousands of men you see everyday, how many of them are actually saying that? Besides, if you’re going to be objectified, pray it’s only based on your T&A and not because you look like a nice mother surrogate for his broken ego.
That being said, there are women out there that objectify men. Perhaps not so much as a piece of ass so much as a father surrogate, an source of security and stability. So please, be a little more aware sans chip on your shoulder and acknowledge that it’s a human capacity to objectify.
I also hope you’re not saying men shouldn’t take into account a woman’s physical features for mate selection. That just screams pathetic resentment and speaks volumes about an immature character that objectifies men as sources of security that must be manipulated, guilted into having.
In closing, I think it’s our culture that encourages “objectification” of people. It’s modern philosophy, liberalism, which are responsible for it with its reductionistic tendencies. Y’all are a bunch of intellectually unsophisticated rubes with no sense of nuance.
These are all good points. I am interested in why people objectify others. I am into psychology and my take is that it is a defense mechanism. I find myself objectifying women, includingthose I love and sometimes don’t objectify, when I am frustrated, afraid, sad or hurt, or regretful, or whatever- namely anything that blocks my love and wisdom and understanding and forgiveness. This is why John Gray’s love letter technique works so well. Anyway consciously I don’t want to objectify but I find myself pulled in that direction sometimes. Here’s why:
It hurts less to be rejected by an object than by a person.
And we men need approval and appreciation and some gratification sexually though preferrably from a loved one. And our past comes to play even when our current partners are being loving. We objectify as a reaction. I really believe this, because I find myself going back and forth depending on my confidence. Everyone has baggage, but the love letter technique of Men are From Mars is incredible at peeling back negative feelings to get to love and clarity.
I do not support Evolutionary Psychology as a discipline or good explanations for life and our behavior in any sense.
Can I get a reference on that Fiske study??
Hello,
Must I consider a woman’s thoughts and feelings every time I view a physically attractive woman? This seems a bit unreasonable. Is it really this easy for women to keep their own desires for physically attractive men in check? Are we not allowed to act on our urges? I understand that objectification at a certain scale poses serious social ramifications but why should one be forced to suppress ones urges ( or substitute them with something else)? I would not harm or blatantly maltreat/underestimate someone based on the fact that I find members of their gender to be attractive on a physical level only. Of course, I might feel intimidated by a combo of brains and beauty since I don’t have good looks( and I am doubting I have any extraordinary brains.)
“Nor have I seen a group of girls standing outside of a store purposely watching men walk into it and commenting on their “fine asses” or “beautiful men titties”. Men objectify women.”
Apparently you’ve never been in a movie theater or a book store. Heck, when I’m in the guy’s bathroom I can easily hear girls gossip from behind the wall about a hot guys abs.
“Most of the men best remembered HEADLESS photographs of women in bikinis, even if they’d only seen the image for two-tenths of a second.”
The keyword is “headless.” What happened when they showed pictures of the bikini girls’ faces?
“But Fiske doesn’t think such an experiment would work the same way, because women usually react to men they desire by “interpreting their minds, thinking about what they’re interested in, and then trying to please them,” she said.”
Clap, clap! So you haven’t actually done the experiment since you thought it was pointless because you were “probably right.” More like, your just afraid of being wrong.
women view themselves as sexual objects(my opinion) you can’t judge men for doing so as well, as men are more sexually active and i have come to realize that women tend to manipulate this characteristic. they wear revealing clothing, we would not have had this argument if there would not have been half naked women running around, in conclusion i must say women have a right to their bodies they can wear whatever they want but just remember men have a right to their thoughts.
The woman writing this is an idiot.
WHOEVER wrote this article or whatever study or research this was done by, or with, has some serious lag in terms of reality. Of course men objectify females, boys objectify females. But you know what? Girls objectify boys and women objectify men. The real issue here is not evolution or such. Last time I checked we are humans, and if a sexual urge results in us trying to demean and hurt another, there’s is something seriously wrong with that person, as self-control is not present. Of course to someone who was never taught much self-control, values or anything of any kind you can’t expect much from them. And it’s not always their fault… what else can one know? Plenty of girls and women and females in general make comments about the opposite sex being attractive, hot, “do-able”, etc. I have never heard of and won’t ever believe it’s possible that females wouldn’t be attracted to males, as there would be no reproducing. It’s the same thing both ways, and people need to just realize that this isn’t an evolutionary issue, but more of a societal, cultural and flawed one. If ANY male thinks a female is an object, and is thinking in a rational level, then he will likely have serious problems for himself and others. Same for a female. Fantasy is fantasy, so that’s out of this discussion. But for every time someone blames the objectify sexually of females on evolution, it just sets us backwards. Evolution is what STOPS us from acting uncontrollably on urges like lesser animals do(by brain functioning, intelligence, etc.). You’re telling me that humanity is mainly filled with uncontrollable animals? NO, IT ISN’T! Most people have LOTS of control. If not, societies would be really in trouble. It’s time to look forward, see deeper in to the facts, and realize that this isn’t traits of past evolutionary phases or being lower on the food chain list. It’s about three things, basically, I’m going to say, that all relate: 1.Society, 2.Culture, 3.Control problems. If society wasn’t so bias and degrading towards others on so many things, these problems would drop tremendously, such as objectification. Culture is closely related to society, and if cultural views, such as males being in charge and females being lower ended, watch how fast things would be or would HAVE been different if life and humanity didn’t carry on the exact way it has that’s left up to now. Most of the past is responsible for the present. Last, control. If one lacks self-control, that one is usually depriving either some attitude or behavior problems or chemical ones, such as brain ones(dopamine, etc.). I don’t know the chemicals enough to state deeper facts here, but I know control… I know culture… I know society. I’m sure if I had more knowledge I could hand out more facts here, but I think I’ve just about proved my point across. Science can show whatever is, but that way it is is not limited to evolution. No scientists prove that it’s indefinitely evolutionary, and if they do they’re not taking all the facts and issues in to account, such as the three I mentioned. Many males do objectify females, and I’m not saying it’s not vice-versa, but it appears to be the males sexually objectifying for the majority. Then again, with movies like Twilight and such, it’s brought on a deeper level of the opposite of what society, culture and films usually brought to the media, which is females given more control over objectifying males sexually, obsessing over them more and getting sexually aroused more due to allowing females equal rights and less shame among doing things that society once believed was the “male” thing. I don’t think it’s wrong either way. It’s a balance, but males, at least to me, seem to do more sexual objectifying overall. And there are reasons for it. Plus, show any typical 12-15 year old a picture of Taylor Lautner for half a second. I’m pretty sure she’ll notice everything but his face, so it’s not just a “guy” thing as people fail to move on and see past fully.