In 2010 we posted about a Boston.com slide show celebrating Oktoberfest. We argued that, while many different types of men were included, the women pictured were overwhelmingly young and often had visible cleavage. That is, the slideshow was an example of the sexual objectification of women. In response, the slide show editor, Alan Taylor, sent us a note saying that, while he didn’t disagree and was sympathetic to our concern, he was limited by what photographs were available as well as their quality.
This year’s photos, I noted pleasantly, had exactly zero gratuitous cleavage shots. I thought I’d highlight it as an example of how not to sexually objectify women in an Oktoberfest slide show.
In other words, look! It’s possible to take pictures of young women in dirndls without showing tons of cleavage!
MSNBC does a pretty good job too. See also, Oktoberfest and Tradition.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 29
Hoellor — September 29, 2012
The cleavage pic depicts two politicians from the German green party.
someone — September 29, 2012
Trivia: I am pretty sure that the blond woman in the last picture is Claudia Roth, one of the two chairpersons of the German Green Party.
laguiri — September 30, 2012
This makes me think that it's so rare to see in the media pictures of women who aren't stereotypically beautiful, having fun. I like the picture of the two young women under the rain for its rarity.
Alison — September 30, 2012
Lets look at all the images and see what message they are sending:
1 mugs censor downblouse shot of clevage
2 mug obscures clevage
3 umbrella censors clevage
4 hair mostly covers clevage of both women
5 raised arms obscure everything
6 hair and mug cover clevage
7 arms and heads block everything but the tower of mugs
8 the two politicians are completely unobscured
Isn't praising a collection of images like this essentially saying "You can have pictures of women in the media, just make sure there is something covering up their dirty girly parts, because a woman's body is something she should be ashamed of and shouldn't be seen in public", with the only ecception being the need to keep politicians as visible and unobscured as possible? How is this not just as bad as making sure that all images of women breastfeeding in public are censored or removed from the media?
Yes, having the majority of beach volleyball pictures be centered on the women's butt's is objectifying and bad, I'm not disagreeing there. What I'm saying is that when every image of a mug of beer has to be screened to make sure that all incidental women that might be in the background are covering up their "naughty bits", that goes too far into female body shaming territory for me. Other than the first picture (whose unorthodox angle would have caused the downblouse shot to distract from the intended focus of the image) I don't think any of the images would have been worse if they happened to capture some clevage in its natural habitat in the background.
Denise — September 30, 2012
This slideshow made me freakishly happy. I think this is the first time I've ever looked at photos from Oktoberfest (or many similar celebrations that seem to be especially breast-focused - I'm looking at you, Comicon and Ren-Faire) and *not* felt like something degrading was going on. This is the first time I have looked at Oktoberfest photos and thought, "That looks fun - maybe I'll go someday!"
I am not feeling Alison's concern that these photos are somehow shaming because they are "censoring" women's bodies. Nothing is being overtly censored. Rather than portraying the women as objects (e.g. as a sum of their body parts, on display for the approval/enjoyment of other event participants and photo viewers), these photos send me the message that these women are people with agency. They are *doing things.* They are sharing fun times with other people, they are with their friends, avoiding the rain, drinking beer, and taking in the celebration. They are not just pairs of breasts bulging over corsets.
FeministDisney — September 30, 2012
as someone who lives in munich right now- and has gone to oktoberfest twice- i semi-agree with parts of the article but semi-disagree, in that I feel like the tone here is very american-centric. Yes, American media tends to focus on "the boobies" when it comes to Oktoberfest. But yes, that is actually part of wearing a dirndl. As a pretty sensitive feminist I've never felt "objectified" in participating so media coverage in america is not equivalent to how the event happens here. Idk like I get the point and I do agree that this slideshow was nice and that it's good to see how the participants are of so many ages, but it also feels like lying to pretend like cleavage isn't... present. It is! like when it comes up on facebook this article says "Even in the face of girdle-like dirndls, Boston.com manages to avoid sexually objectifying women." And I'm like... that sentence basically says that dirndls, by nature, sexually objectify, and that's not true. It's definitely possible when you present IMAGES of oktoberfest to be objectifying- but that is completely different. I think your point is that its presentation to american audiences tends to focus on the boobs, but that's an issue with the american audiences and their perceptions, not with the actual event or dress itself. Idk. I feel like in a way our experiences tend to get erased in this effort to pretend boobs don't exist at oktoberfest. Yet every girl going will have several conversations about boobs. I know this comment is making not a whole lot of sense but I just found it kind of odd since I can see it from both perspectives but don't totally agree with yours here.
WG — October 1, 2012
- 4 of the pictures show cleavage
- Since when is showing woman-as-servant not objectifying?
- Are women supposed to be ashamed of their breasts?
eduardo — October 2, 2012
@Alison: Feminists policing female
sexuality seems to be par for the course these days. I have collected
many examples if you're interested, and I occasionally discuss what
can be charitably called irony with friends and students.