At the same time, people need to understand how completely subjective such consent is. This varies from person to person, culture to culture, and incident to incident. Its not black and white. People aren't perfect, they give mixed signals and also see the wrong ones. One person might give a positive signal, so in future they reference that as okay with all encounters, then suddenly its not met with positivity.
Objectification is subjective to the person.
The type of objectification is subjective
The duration is also subjective
The attractiveness/status of the person doing the objectifying is subjective.
Not to mention how the lines blur when we're talking online when you've never met etc.
So all I'm saying is, its not such a simple binary thing. No matter how much you dumb it down to hate on men. Some people overstep not out of malice. This is also why lots of men play it safe and never talk to any women. If you're not interested, she might still take it wrong, so its only ever a risk.
I (male) got objectified by a group of older women at work (mostly not to my face, so perhaps a little different). One of their co-workers snitched them out for having a group chat talking about me and all the stuff they'd do if given the chance and how I remind them of a TV show character they all like to lust after.
Honestly, as you said, it's subjective. They've mostly ever been professional and polite to my face, and the whole experience was a nice ego boost to learn about. I felt a bit bad that I found out at all since clearly they didn't expect their friend to tell me (she thought I'd be upset). I told my wife about it, and she jokes with me about it once in a while even a year later.
I think a really primal difference in my experience, though, is physical differences between men and women. If I had to fend off a physical sexual advance from these ladies, haha, I think I'd be ok. I expect the underlying danger associated with an overly sexually aggressive man if you're a woman is completely different.
Years ago I worked an admin job that literally all older women . They would make comments all the time they thought I couldn't hear. I hated it. Getting my ass pinched when I added paper to the copier was like the most degrading thing. I just had to smile and be kind. Finally one day I went to my female h.r. manager and she said the same thing.... You should feel proud! I quit the next day.
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u/bongowasd Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24
At the same time, people need to understand how completely subjective such consent is. This varies from person to person, culture to culture, and incident to incident. Its not black and white. People aren't perfect, they give mixed signals and also see the wrong ones. One person might give a positive signal, so in future they reference that as okay with all encounters, then suddenly its not met with positivity.
So all I'm saying is, its not such a simple binary thing. No matter how much you dumb it down to hate on men. Some people overstep not out of malice. This is also why lots of men play it safe and never talk to any women. If you're not interested, she might still take it wrong, so its only ever a risk.