You may have read an article about how Getty removed their "sexiest fans" gallery due to receiving backlash from social media. What's interesting is Vogue Magazine posted a similar type of article about men, which didn't seem to receive much in terms of outrage. Is it more offensive to objectify women than it is to objectify men?
The whole article from Vogue discusses football players and describes them as "Reasons to Watch the 2018 World Cup." From talking about one player's lips and smile to another player's abs, this article clearly objectifies men in a manner that would be completely unacceptable if they were women. The primary difference is the reaction this piece has received versus the reaction Getty received for doing something similar. The reaction Getty received forced them to completely remove the gallery and offer an apology. As of writing this article, however, Vogue's article is still live and the reaction from social media has been relatively benign.
Personally, I do not believe the article from Vogue causes any offense, nor do I think it requires any outrage, so why do many of us consider the Getty gallery to be offensive? If society considers anything negative against women to be more significant, is that in itself a form of sexism? Some could assume that men simply don't care as much as women when it comes to these issues and that people are becoming overly prone to outrage. You may be led to believe this if you read some of the comments. The majority of the comments on the Fstoppers article about the Getty gallery are from men expressing their unhappiness in regards to the outrage. Effectively, men are outraged about women being outraged about something. The discussions tend to focus on how people are just looking for things to be outraged about and how this infringes freedom of speech. Whether or not this affects freedom of speech could be debatable; in any case, we are seeing more frustration against "political correctness." We also see more and more companies developing themselves to be seen as forward-thinking and modern when it comes to how women are presented, yet, we don't see much of that happening for men.
There are many that assume issues relating to men aren't taken as seriously by society in general. Maybe men's issues don't matter as much and we're simply expendable to some extent, which is horrible to say the least. The saying "women and children first" comes to mind. An article from The Guardian discusses this specifically, and in practice, there have been situations that suggest this is not as relevant or true. There are no actual laws that dictate this either; even still, the sentiment seems to remain.
I think it's important to consider context too. For the longest time, women haven't had many of the rights that men have benefited from. Although in Europe, two of the more prominent countries (U.K and Germany) do have female heads of state. Is this enough? Could it be that strong reactions are required when female rights are infringed or if something is damaging the perception of women in order to bring some balance and equality? The outrage we see now could be due to the many numbers of years where women didn't have rights and it's strong reactions that have helped push the progress. Maybe the reason companies like Getty are actively trying to be seen as modern and forward-thinking is that they have deep-rooted issues that need to be shaken off. Progress can be slow, but fortunately, we've seen it happen and we can help it continue.
Personally, I don't think either company did anything majorly wrong with either the galleries or the articles, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm right. I don't assume to know the answer; I can only describe my own thoughts and ask questions that I feel are relevant. Ultimately, there're two facts I'm certain we can agree on: people find people attractive and attraction is fundamental to how we operate. Just because a particular article or gallery shows individuals of a certain gender as being attractive does not mean all of their other characteristics are negated. In some sense, this reminds me of the fundamental attribution error. Having said that, It's important to remember how a single image can be extremely impactful. Photographs have the potential to drastically change the political landscape for better or worse. Images can become symbols with incredible meaning. Maybe we need to be more conscious of how an image or a gallery is portrayed and what message it sends. Once again, context is important, and in the current climate, with many women trying to develop and improve perceptions, maybe the pendulum does need to swing a little farther to one side before we see some proper equality.
Just because you CAN make things an issue. Doesn't mean they should be made into an issue.
(snowflakes) It's getting very old.. very fast.
It's fun how people offended by discussions, and by people trying to assert their rights and a change in values that will bring forth a more tolerant, safe and open society are the first ones to say cuck, snowflake, etc...
Look at you whinning about women speaking up against the roots of widespread abuse, you the snowflake whose sensitivities were triggered XD.
People want the same rights as everyone's else, but want to be treated differently...
Bored people navel gazing and chasing their own tails is unfortunately what much of social media has devolved into... Outrage is how these people achieve their daily dopamine hit. They're addicted.
Both men and women like looking at attractive people and that's never going to change.
So, someone is offended by the Getty Gallery thus, it must not be viewed by anyone. Since someone is offended by almost everything we really should view/read nothing. Now, back to my safe place.
Aa Bob Dylan said, “The times they are changing”. For me regrettable. It appears everyone is getting offended these days. All this “privileged” hype. When I ask my Creator about being white, He said it was His choice, not mine.
i'm outraged that my picture is not there.
Next time, when getting a model release, ask the model what they do for a living and their biggest accomplishments, than when they post a photo in a article about beautiful women with beautiful bodies, they can write: "She is not only hot but also an accomplished rocket scientist"
I think that if you allow yourself to be objectified, whether male or female, it says something about your own self-respect, period. It also says plenty about those who are objectifying you, of course, and neither should be more or less to blame. Everybody should be standing up to it and saying, at the very least, "okay, that's a bit too much of the 'sex sells" trope..."
I think the bigger problem is simply that overall, society is allowing advertising to continue taking this cheap-shot route to selling products or services. Television is absolutely full of objectification; you literally can't turn on a TV without seeing excessive cleavage, skin-tight everything, etc.
Unfortunately, probably the most disheartening thing is that even as we switch away from large corporations' advertising campaigns, into the world of Youtube stars and Instagram "influencers", ...individuals are collectively objectifying themselves, just as much or even moreso than the ad campaigns of large companies were. Go figure.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to live in a world where public nudity is totally normal and not a distraction from our everyday lives. But I just don't think we're ready for that.
And yes, the objectification of women is usually a much more weighty matter than that of men. Because when it happens to men, it's almost always in a harmless, "ha ha, he's so handsome, wow!" kind of way, whereas when it comes to women being objectified, well, you don't want to know what the men are thinking, let's just leave it at that.
there is also the context that the footballers being photographed by vogue are very famous, wealthy men. Many of whom openly embrace a status as a sex symbol, and know they are being photographed.
The women in the audience are normal people there to see a football match, being singled out. Its strange to know people at Getty started going through hundreds of photos of female spectators to find the "hottest".
I've had my face show up in the media thanks to Getty Photographers. It can be a very strange experience, not always very comfortable.
This isn't really the content I come to fStoppers for.
If the Getty images offend you, why are you viewing Fstoppers? There is a plethora of similar shots found on the Home screen and even a forum for Glamour.
There's a difference between journalism and art.
I cannot tell you how nauseated I am every time an (always heterosexual) male suggests, oh, ever so innocently, that MEN SUFFER, TOO! every time one nanosecond of attention is either directed elsewhere or directed at them in a manner they cannot, for once, control.
Have you been sleeping under a rock during the past #meToo years as women finally decided that being assaulted was not as cool or as necessary as men had led them to believe? Men have had all the power, have refused to give up their power, and still refuse to do so, and continue to use their power to discount, degrade and assault women. Do you wonder that the tone-deaf offensiveness of that spread was vilified on social media?
As the beginning of your education in gender politics, think on this: Why is it cool and admired when a woman wears a tuxedo, but laughable and grotesque when a man dresses in drag? Why? Because being a woman is considered inferior. It is laughable (we respond involuntarily) that a man would choose to feminize himself, to LOWER himself to the level of a woman. To objectify a male is to admire his power. To objectify a woman is to emphasize the power of the male gaze over her, it is to remove her power.
Is it more offensive to objectify women than men. Yes. And it is just as offensive to even ask that question. Give it a rest, dude!
It's offensive to you, to you, it's offensive because of your opinions which others may share but that doesn't make you right by any means.
How could you possibly know what all heterosexual males have suffered or haven't? The answer is you don't, not even close.
Your statements and position all seem to assume that men and women exist independently in some bubble which is false. We're all interconnected, men and women do not exist on opposing sides, absolutely ridiculous.
Yes, there are problems that need to be solved but that's true for both genders. You can feel more passionately about one issue over another but that doesn't mean other issues don't exist. You just want to believe they don't but once again that doesn't make you right
You also completely disregard the individual in favour of discussing everyone as groups of people. Humanity does not operate like that, surely you must understand this.
"To objectify a male is to admire his power. To objectify a woman is to emphasize the power of the male gaze over her, it is to remove her power." Where are you getting this from? This assumes everyone on the planet is attracted to everyone in the same way and for the same reasons, complete and utter nonsense.