Op Ed [Dec 18, 2011, 1:29 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Kotaku - Nerds and Male Privilege.
The idea that perhaps the way women are portrayed in fandom is aleetle sexist is regularly met with denials, justifications and outright dismissal of the issue. So regularly, in fact, that there's a Bingo card covering the most common responses. Part of the notion of male privilege in fandom is that nothing is wrong with fandom and that suggestions that it might benefit from some diversity is treated as a threat.
But what is that threat, exactly?
yuastnav wrote on Dec 18, 2011, 20:33:
Well, that only shows how remote I am from the standard thinking patterns of most people of this society. For me sexualisation is objectification and that is not a good thing.
Big-breasted, scantily clad women jumping around is god damn annoying in my opinion (on different levels) and it is a kinda sad for me to see that this is actually perceived as the norm.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say about scantily clad women, however I really strongly disagree with the idea that sexualisation is objectification. In my opinion, this is a strange sort of reverse-sexism, the suggestion that women can't be sexual. As Prez says, women at times want to look sexually attractive and that's fine. Men are exactly the same and to expand on Prez's point, women between 15 and 90 check out guys.
Objectification is when their other attributes are ignored, prejudged or dismissed because of sexuality - they become just a sex object. I look at women and consider their attractiveness but I don't make assumptions. I don't mean I'm sitting around rating women out of 10, that would be objectifying, but I notice attractive women so therefore I am subconsciously making judgements about appearance, as everyone - male or female - does.
I like looking at attractive women and as our species wouldn't exist without this, I'm not going to apologise for it. There is a difference between thinking someone is sexually attractive and thinking someone is only useful for sexual gratification.
Sexuality is not sexism.
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