On the Objectification of Women

Where being a man is an unreachable standard

Photo by Chris Curry on Unsplash

If you didn’t know the effects of the patriarchy on women, I’d say you’re uninformed. If you didn’t know the world ran on patriarchy to begin with, I’d say you live under the ground.

Of the definitions given by Google, I chose this one in particular:

Patriarchy is a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

Now this article isn’t based on history or other factors that created the disparities between men and women but on my personal present-day observation — meaning this is how I see it — so to answer the question of how the world came to be ruled by men, I shall very simply narrow it down to biology.

The average male is predisposed to be physically stronger than the average female. Hormone levels differ in males and females. And most importantly, only one of them can naturally reproduce.

Men becoming the dominant gender was inevitable because even in nature, it is the strong that lords over the weak. Men do not realise that due to this, the lives of women have been made to revolve around theirs. So when they complain about women being nuisances, bimbos, complacent, subservient, they do not realise that the narrative that they hate to see women live by is the one that their ancestors had fed them. It is a reflection of how men have wanted or have made women to be.

This is where objectification comes in. Women are more liable to be reduce to roles or symbols rather than be seen as actual people. They’re seen as caretakers, nurturers, homemakers. They’re seen as beautiful, bewitching, sexy. But it often doesn’t go any further on a grand scale. If you’ve heard of the Madonna-Whore complex, you’ll immediately know what I’m talking about.

Very recently, I was in a conversation with a guy friend who told me he didn't see why women would wear revealing clothes to attract men.

I was momentarily confused.

Now who said a woman's clothing is always determined by who gets to see it? Who said a woman could only wear clothes that show skin to show said skin to a man?

Naturally, I know that even the simplest of actions might have a dozen unseen reasons behind them but without a shadow of a doubt, I'm sure that not everyone centers theirs around other people.

In a different conversation, this guy told me about when he realised that girls got horny too, wasn’t the first time I was hearing it, but the surprise was a constant. And frankly, I can’t blame them.

A primary image women are forced to carry is one of frailness and purity. They’re supposed to double as both higher beings to aspire towards and subordinate to every man simultaneously — search for the Madonna-Whore complex to understand what I’m talking about.

(Maybe I should have named this article the objectification and deification of women?)

This has been the way of the world for so long that one way a woman can fully exist is when she is defined by a man. A woman can only be a woman once she has been compared to a man or evaluated by a man or is in a relationship with a man.

The only way around this tradition that has survived for centuries is to educate both men and women that women are humans before they are women. That women are the same as despite being different from men. That women should be treated as people, not more or less than.