This series seems to get worse and worse... #1 is shamefully ableist, #2 is just repeating a nearly identical "tip" from the last part which was rightfully identified as unbelievably problematic in its assumption that being "gross" or "embarrassing" will never bring negative consequences (professional, financial, social, otherwise) and that these actions are inherently 'liberating' for women.
 
Eating sloppily, sprawling all over subway seats, skipping and galloping around... So basically, as a grown woman, my best hope of subverting a sexist culture that infantalizes women, is to act like a 5-year-old?

We knew that eventually Oprah's honorary PhD was going to be used to write pseudonymously in sociology journals. This is a strong argument against granting honorary doctorate degrees. 

God I hope this is the last installment.

such haters

For as many gender binary articles in this blog... those blue and pink circles lol.

So, somebody looks and says, "Wow that disgusting woman acting like a total slob and dancing around "franticly" has really shifted my sexist perceptions! How subversive!"

My embarrassing action for today: reading this blog. 

i opened the door for a man the other day. he was beside himself with confusion as he walked by, sputtering a small "thanks, but i should... have... i'm sorry." he was embarrassed for himself and for me. i was just helping a fellow human. i think the spirit of the first #2 is better than some of the specifics listed. i do heartily agree with read more in the second #2 but i would extend the plea to everyone regardless of sex/gender identity.

SocImages readers: since the author is doing such a lousy job with this series, we have to take it over.  Let's come up with some useful advice for women on how to help dismantle a system of sexual objectification.  We can do better than parts 3 and 4 of this series.

I don't really understand the hate for these articles. I've been working on these and similar ideas for a few months now--trying to re-program myself--and it's been incredibly freeing. I can't change the world I live in (not by myself, at least), but I do have control over myself, more or less. It's not victim-blaming so much as a pragmatic survival strategy. 

I do think most of the examples for "embarrassing things" are poorly-chosen, though. You shouldn't necessarily be going too far out of your way to make yourself/others uncomfortable; the point (for me, at least) is to normalize your natural human behaviors and stop beating yourself up for making mistakes in public. I've been eating with a little less fanatic carefulness in public, for example, because, as I remind myself, I'm at a restaurant to eat and not to be looked at. And so on.

The key is repetition--these ideas got into you through repetition, and repetition is going to be what gets them out. You have to create your own propaganda and feed it to yourself, over and over. It's not easy, but it does work.

I didn't realize that opening doors for everyone was embarrasing... subverting sexual objectification isn't about denying the objectification by making yourself not the object...

Love this post, as I was reading it it brought to mind how playing roller derby does all these things for me.  I suspect many non-traditionally ladylike sports do the same thing.

I say we objectify women all we want and force them into the culture because there's no real way to sensitively avoid hurting someone's feelings and destroy the extant culture! If we can't destroy objectification without offending the disabled, then why do it at all? So bring me some titties and sandwiches, bitches. 

This is ridiculously preachy and it makes me feel like I'm not the right kind of female (for the author).  I like my grooming time, it's a relaxing part of the day. The author is telling me that I need to behave the way she wants to be the right kind of feminist. Fuck that shit.

I kind of wish that the author took more time encouraging women to take charge of their own sexuality and enjoy being sexual by themselves before they worry about whether they are sexy to men. Masturbation and buying sex toys is a good start. Also, women should dress in a way that makes them feel good, not necessarily how society says is sexy.

'
You’ll become a much more interesting person on the inside if you spend less time worrying about the outside.  The study featured above showed that time spent grooming was inversely related to income for women.'

This bit disturbs me. The first extremely generalist statement seems to imply that the women we see around us whose personal 'outside' style clearly requires quite a bit of effort - hair dye, be it blue or blonde; make-up, be it experimental or conservative; pubic hair, be it trimmed, absent altogether, or shaved into the shape of a freaking unicorn - can be AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMED to be less interesting 'on the inside' than other women who plump for a more minimal-effort style. To my mind, that itself is funnily enough what objectification really is - using a woman's exterior appearance as though it were a valid cue to her intrinsic 'inside' worth.

The second sentence leaves a bad taste in my mouth too - I hope I'm wrong here, but it's position in the paragraph seems to imply that a person's income increases the more 'interesting on the inside' they are! I'm forced to that conclusion, because I'm sure even the author doesn't believe the correlation found in the study is a result of those lousy fifteen minutes extra average female grooming time infringing on time that would otherwise be spent in the boardroom, workshop or laboratory. My guess is, it's a result of the objectifiers' old cute/competent dichotomy that keeps women who like a high-maintenance appearance out of positions of responsibility and high income because they're perceived as less authoratative, and forces women in positions of high authority to adopt a more low-maintenance style than they would naturally be drawn to, in order to be taken seriously by sexist male colleagues and clients. It sure would have been nice to see the author challenge the root cause of such a disturbing finding as this, rather than just reporting it in such a blase manner and implying we should all just roll with it.

if someone is being disgusting he/she is not respecting others, and thus others would be more than entitled to hate me and criticize me... I believe it invites prejudices... I don't agree with #2 sorry

Oh my word. What has happened to this series? It is becoming more anti-women with every post. I thought for a moment there that I was reading Cosmopolitan and a list of "how to love yourself" tips. 

I thought this series was going to challenge gender expectations, sexual objectification, patriarchal values etc., but it has stopped making any sense at all. Can you rethink it please? It started off really well. 

On the bright side, that chart has some cold hard numbers that back up Tusconian's insightful comments in the last thread about the the unequal grooming expectations placed on minority women.

I'd like to have a male version now, please. What men can do to end objectification of women. 

I don't think opening doors for everyone is "embarrassing."

Im okay with equlity based behaviours- helping everyone carry things, opening doors and being polite to everyone- but why must I try behaving in a way which if I saw a man or a woman doing so I would consider disgusting? I want to be able to respect myself and behaving sloppily -eating messily, belching etc- would erode rather than improve that self-respect. This is not about acting in a "ladylike" way.

This series has a perfectly good aim but is incredibly badly executed- dumb, ableist, mysogynist and simply horribly ill-thought-out.

This series is just awful. I find it really disappointing that (1) someone opted to post it on SocImages as if it were good/helpful/useful advice for subverting sexism and the patriarchy...it clearly wasn't posted for the intent of deconstructing or critical discussion,  and (2) to my knowledge no one from SocImages has bothered to address any of the multiple and thoughtful criticisms that have been posted in the reader comments.

Thank you! (:

First, yeah, this is not much better than the last.

Second, it would be FASCINATING to see a similar take on this idea written by someone who wasn't a white, heterosexual, conventionally attractive, relatively thin blonde woman slathered in makeup with a stable, reasonably high paying job.  You first.  You throw all your makeup in the garbage and belch at meetings in front of your superiors in the workplace.  I'll be waiting right here.

Not only is this being stated by a woman who is doing all the things she's waggling fingers at US not to do, she's the person with the least to lose and the most to gain.  Like I said in the previous post, not everyone is in a position to act like an immature slob in public and expect it to be seen as a statement.  YOU can spread your legs and pat your belly and eat like a nasty slob in public, and you'll at worst be seen as having bad manners as a human being.  More likely, fratty guys will invite you over to their table and compliment you on how "real" and "quirky" you are, trade insults about all those women you deride so constantly with you, and offer you a few shots.  In a world where white upper-middle class femininity is idealized, you can twist it in almost any way and still be seen as beautiful and worthwhile, and maybe even have your intelligence and personal talents acknowledged.  Some people will call your personal upbringing into question, others may question your sexuality (because I'm VERY SURE that Ms. Heldman has chucked her red lipstick and trendy, form fitting blazers into the garbage years ago), but you will not be seen in general as any worse than you are when you act prim and proper, and may even be seen as MORE beautiful.  Not so for a woman of color, or a poor woman, or a woman who otherwise deviates more than a bit from how you appear.  Black women are already seen as manly (and NO, that's not a good thing, no matter how much white feminism wants to twist it to be for it's own gains) and trashy.  Poor women are seen as femininely sexual in only the most basic ways, and also "trashy."  If a black woman, a poor woman, farts and behaves like a fucking pig in public, no one is surprised.  In their mind, black women are already manly, disgusting, unintelligent creatures who are sexual only in a theoretical way that's portrayed as a joke ("hurr hurr, 15 kids with 17 babydaddys!").  People like me need to fight to be acknowledged as completely female, ffs, forget being considered "attractive" or "mentally capable."  Attractive will only come in a highly fetishized way, and mentally capable....not in my lifetime.  If I want a goddamn job, I can't mince about making adolescent proclamations about a gross misunderstanding of feminism.  I am not going to splay my legs and do parkour in a suit and belch in front of people, because I don't have a cushion.  If I lose my job (which I will if I stop conforming to beauty standards beyond a certain point) I need to find another one, immediately.  The other option is homelessness. 

And of course, still blaming women for their objectification.  Why not call out men, or the media?  How dare women try to make their own living in a world that is fighting against them!

I hope the writer is reading and paying attention to these comments. I appreciate what Ms. Heldman is trying to do but the result is really sort of embarrassingly naive and problematic.

How does embarrassment become empowerment? 

How about instead, we do something once a day (or week, or perhaps month) that we normally wouldn't do, something that makes us uncomfortable (not because it's embarrassing, but because it is hard), something we've always wanted to do but have restrained ourselves from doing with that worried inner voice?

Go to dinner/movie alone, vacation/travel alone, go somewhere new, ask a guy on a date, go to the gun range, take a pole dancing class (try not to think of this one as a man pleasing routine, I tried this once just for curiosity and for having one of those friends that is always forcing me to do things that make me uncomfortable, for which I am grateful, but that sh*t is hard).

Trying new things will surely give us more insight into ourselves, into what we do like and value, it will surprise us with finding out we enjoy things we never expected.  Embarrassing ourselves doesn't get us anywhere, and we also shouldn't force ourselves to "act" a certain way simply to get a rise out of people. 

no. 2 is just wrong and disrespectful to other people. i would not like to have such friends. talking about your period in public is like men talking in public about morning erections. no thanks

I am a 22 year old factory worker temp currently living in a smaller town. Thank you for writing this.

What a disappointing series, I may say.
On the first point, I don't have a lot of criticism, other than to say, "What an ableist message." Personally, as an able-bodied woman, I find suggestions like this helpful and very enjoyable. Often when I find myself falling into a fit of self-nagging, I'll grab a friend and take off running. It's quite liberating.
On the second: what is this any more than a restatement of point #1?--this time in a rebellious light rather than a self-empowering one.
Now, here in point three is where it gets nasty. Everything about this is just so wrong. How dare the insinuations be made that women who invest time in their outward appearance a) are thereby less interesting or developed of people on the inside, are b) wasting their time on a ritual that CLEARLY cannot be enjoyable and CLEARLY produces an effect that seeks only to satisfy onlookers rather than the self, and c) are prone to loss of income due to a short ritual devotion. Moreover, what a ridiculous graph. The clear intended purpose of the graph is to show relations between different wages/activity durations and gender/race. In this graph, time allotted to appearance is clearly an effect, not an effector.
And then comes point #4. Most of it consists of acceptable statements, except for that one little weed telling us that seeking male attention is inherently and always wrong. It isn't. The distinction is that it becomes a problem when it overrides other thoughts, causes us irrational negative thoughts, or becomes the basis of our routine behaviours.

Is there anything men can do to stop sexual objectifican?