Mixing signals

Yesterday in class we went over how adds objectify women and are starting to objectify men. Several interesting subtexts arose out of the discussion. Today, events really brought some of them home.
First, it is obvious that there are huge disparities in the ideas of what constitutes objectification. For the girls it was frequently being looked at admiringly as sexy individuals. The answers to several questions posed indicated that comments on appearance, no matter how phrased or how complimentary they were intended to be, were offensive. Comments on physical features are often considered objectification.
The guys, by contrast, did not consider it objectification, at least as a general rule. They simply thought they were pointing out their admiration for some aspect of what made her beautiful physically to them.
For the girls it seems there is a distinction between being physically beautiful and being a beautiful person, whereas the physical attractiveness made up a part of what made her beautiful.
Anecdotal evidence suggests most guys select who they wish to discover more about based on physical beauty. A girl who appears attractive becomes a potential interest, so the guy moves on to initiate a conversation.
The girls in the class indicated that for them, they first noticed a guys' mind. I call smurf. It has been the experience of every guy I have ever discussed it with that girls initiate conversations with attractive guys before they have ever opened their mouth. Ugly guys have to get lucky somehow to have a physically attractive girl express or maintain interest in them. Note that I am not arguing this is right or wrong. I am simply stating the facts as they are. People are first attracted to each other most often by appearance.
This is probably an extension of the advertisements we viewed and similar ads. Playboy has never actually been purchased for the articles anymore than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is picked up for the first time by a guy wanting to know what underwear Jim Palmer is wearing.
There is no question these things are objectification. The saddest thing about that is many girls have bought into the need to objectify themselves and then complain when their behavior is met by objectification.
At the risk of being accused of wheeling out tired old arguments, I will bring up an example from this afternoon. I was forced to go to downtown Portland for some training for my job. During the lunch break I was walking around Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Lo and behold, as I was people watching, I saw a girl. It was hard NOT to see her. She had luxurious, flowing blond hair, a shoulder and midriff baring top that did very little to hide her...shall we say ample breasts, a short, tight, silky looking skirt that was diaphanous enough to be considered almost see-through, and heels. I won't attempt to guess their height, but my feet hurt just looking at them.
Most guys tried to keep their looks surreptious but a few stared openly. One of them was unfortunate enough to be accosted by her rather aggressive comment about his staring.
Frankly, she was wrong. She has bought into the cultural idea that she can do whatever she wants and there will be nothing said. However, when a beautiful woman walks around in scanty clothing and shoes that have the social coding "Smurf me", she is going to draw looks. She is going to get attention. That is what that style of dressing is designed for.
Does that justify the looks? Actually, I am hard pressed to say it does...but even more hard pressed to say it doesn't.
The root cause is a society that teaches people to dress that way...and to ogle that mode of dress. Both issues need to be addressed.
On the one hand, people have the right to dress however they wish. On the other hand, in the classic words of an old advertising friend, "If you don't want people to notice your ad then you shouldn't make it irresistible." Ironically, he was referring to a going out of business ad designed to not sell anything...but the lesson holds.
We will continue to have social issues until both sides, male and female, ogelr and ogle-e change their behavior.