Nearly every year for years, the Jones-Allison Hall — an all-female dorm — has hosted the Mr. Jones event, in which male students compete for the title of Mr. Jones. While the event will not be held this year due to a lack of contestants, the competition would have been forced to alter its rules by the Campus Activities Board. The change would have required a Mrs. Jones to be named as well. That decision led many to ask the question, “why the change?” and one of the answers I have heard tossed around is that “it objectifies men.” Whether that is the actual motive is unclear, but just the idea of it was enough to get me thinking and quite frankly, it grinds my gears.
As a woman, I’ve dealt with objectification more times than I can count; I’ve experienced it, witnessed it, heard it, read it, you name it. And while I’m not for a second saying men are never objectified or that only men are to blame for it, I do think that it is much more common in regards to women, and it’s honestly sickening.
Again, while the “objectifying men” answer is most likely not the one you’d be given if you asked, obviously some students see some truth to it otherwise it wouldn’t even be considered as a possibility, and it leads me to ask this question: Has the Miss Universe pageant been forced to alter their rules to have men walk alongside them and be crowned Mr. Universe?
Of course not. And why would it, a man is already given that title by themselves and society as soon as they come out of the womb.
I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that women are so easily cast aside so frequently and then when we are objectified it’s almost considered “normal” and “part of the territory” of being a woman, but the very second a man feels anything remotely close to that, the world is ending and the life can’t go on until the problem is fixed. And before you can start with the “that’s not true” comments, actually take a second to think about all of the examples that you’re so used to that you don’t even realize it’s sexist and objectifying.
In sports, the men’s games are named only by the sport followed by “league” or “association” but on the women’s side, almost every single league is prefaced with “women’s” — the National Basketball Association versus the Women’s National Basketball Association or the College World Series (CWS) versus the Women’s College World Series of Softball (WCWS). I understand the need to distinguish between the sports, but why in the men’s game is it just basketball but the women’s game must be labeled women’s basketball. It’s like a warning, “oh, be careful this is women!”. But as far as the CWS and WCWS goes , why do you even need to distinguish? There’s no men’s softball world series in college, but yet once again, the sports world and society has to give the audience a disclaimer because heaven forbid someone accidentally watches women play sports.
In art, the same principle applies. Galleries feel the need to hold women-only galleries so it appears that they are not discriminatory based on gender but in reality they still are. If they weren’t, the number of women in regular shows would be much higher and the gender-based shows would not have to exist.
And heaven forbid a woman stand up for herself because when we do, we’re “too bossy” and “women should be more submissive,” never mind the fact that it’s both absurd and sexist.
Now before you brush this off as some “angry feminist” rant, think about the bigger issue. We’re all people and we all want happiness and equality, whether that be through gender or race or religion or any other thing that so often drives people apart, so why can’t we all just get over ourselves and our ego and treat EVERYone with respect, not as objects, but as human beings?