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Brutal Antipathy is a pseudonym for a blogger and forum debate enthusiast whose views often rest well outside of social baseline. A self confirmed atheist, misanthropist, and sadist, his commentary ranges from parched textbook facts to satire and sarcasm. He is a proponent of free speech and individual liberty even when these are taken to excess. His political views shift between lower case libertarian and enlightened despotism depending on the level of contempt he is feeling for his fellow humans at any given moment. His reading interests include history, general science, archaeology, comparative religion, psychology, & sociology. Other interests and hobbies include practicing various crafts, torturing his slave, blogging, playing with his dogs, collecting antiques, role playing & tactical simulation games, renaissance fairs, and cheerfully making other people miserable by holding up a mirror of their shortcomings and repeatedly bashing them in the face with it. L is the owned slave of BA. She basically has the same interests and views as her owner except in music.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

An Objection To Objectification Theory

Originally posted on my blog SkepTex on 11/20/12

Objectification theory, hitherto referred to as OT, is another linchpin of feminist theory.  Like Patriarchy theory, it is poorly defined by way of its supposed effect, thought the effect is assumed to be a social construct and undesirable.  The most comprehensive explanation of OT I have found is the article Feminist Perspectives of Objectification from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  That author wishes it be known that the link above is an archived fixed edition, and that a Winter 2012  archived edition is scheduled to be available on December 21.  I will explore the most current available edition for the purposes of this paper.

The rough definition of OT is that Objectification is seeing or treating a person, usually a woman, as an object.  There are 10 features of objectification, and it is unclear if more than one feature is needed to demonstrate an example of objectification. It is implied weakly in the article that only 1 of the features need be present, but this application renders the theory  hopelessly vague, easily subject to interpretation and opinion.  If  OT proponents wish to use a single feature to proclaim objectification of an individual, it would be fair to state that their argument falls short of conjecture and enters the realm of ideological opinion.  I would also like to posit that the features which I will list may have explanations other than objectification.