Opinion piece by Sati Dib, Visiting Contributor

March 1st, 2022

“You belong in the kitchen”, “why aren’t you sitting in an upright position?” “Be more feminine!”, “You should take care of your house and family,” and the list goes on…

These comments are kind of familiar, aren’t they? Well, almost every woman in our society has heard one of these remarks and reflections at least once in their lives. It could be by their parents, family, husband, or even a random stranger. How are women expected to behave in this patriarchal society? Are they fulfilling the role that has been imposed on them? Are they conscious of the objectification they are subject to and oppression they are living in? These questions and many others arise when discussing women in society. Through this article, I will be sharing my view on the matter, by talking about a personal experience and explaining, more generally how women in our society can be objectified by a denial of subjectivity and silencing.

Four years ago, I discovered my passion for weightlifting. I started going to the gym every day, my goal was to become stronger and lift more and more weights in various exercises. Although I had been criticized a lot from my surroundings for doing ‘manly exercises’, my excitement was colossal until an incident happened with a complete stranger; I prepared the squat bar, loaded it with some weights and started to do my first set. While resting between sets and drinking some water, I noticed a guy approaching the squat rack; he added more plates and started to perform the exercise. I thought that he hadn’t noticed the fact that I was using it, so I came closer and told him that I still had two sets and that he could use the rack when I am done. Now his reaction and answer completely shocked me: he stared at me and said, “I know that you were working out here, and by taking your place, I am doing you a favor.” I asked him why he thought that was the case and he said, “By performing these squats and adding weights you are growing your leg muscles and having large quads and large muscles in general is very repulsive for women. So, I advise you to stop doing moves such as the squats, deadlifts, and bench press because these are only for men. You should instead hop on the treadmill, do some cardio and lose weight so that muscular men (and men in general) find you attractive.” I couldn’t say a word, I just left the gym and went back home. A few days later, I started noticing a decrease in appetite and a kind of fear from food (especially carbohydrates). Every time I ate something, I felt guilty because I was adding on more weight. His comment made me feel self-conscious about my body. This idea of women being constantly surveilled by men and society in general dictating them what they should do, how they should behave, and what is right or wrong, is very widespread in our society. According to Sandra Lee Bartky in her text Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power’ in Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression’, to be comfortable in their bodies, women (which are docile bodies) should conform to specific sizes and shapes. Women are always expected to sit in a specific way. “Woman's space is not a field in which her bodily intentionality can be freely realized but an enclosure in which she feels herself positioned and by which she is confined” (Bartky 67). They can’t be loose like men. In fact, ‘the loose woman violates these norms’ (Bartky 68). This means that women should abide by specific rules and norms to be considered feminine. They should follow diets, do cardio to be fit and ‘shed ugly winter fat with the all-new Grapefruit Diet’ (Bartky 66). Also, women’s bodies are presented as an ornament surface, ‘A woman's skin must be soft, supple, hairless, and smooth; ideally, it should betray no sign of wear, experience, age, or deep thought. Hair must be removed not only from the face but from large surfaces of the body as well, from legs and thighs’ (Bartky 70). Should a woman fail to abide by the rules imposed by the society, she wouldn’t be considered feminine. Women are not supposed to lift weights because that would mean gaining muscles, so the man that criticized me at the gym was basically judging me based on the societal rules of ‘what it means to be a feminine woman’.

Women can be objectified by a sort of denial of subjectivity: it happens when their expressions and feelings are not taken into account. Let us imagine this scenario: in a couple, if the woman is sad, angry, nervous or irritable, what is the first thing that would come to anyone’s mind? Asking her what is going on right? Well, no. The direct reaction of her husband would be (in many cases) “are you on your period?”. He is undermining the fact that her feelings are genuine. As if women are expected not to express their feelings, and once they do it is because of hormonal changes: it is either because she is pregnant, because she just gave birth, she has, had or will have her period and the list goes on. Not only does this happen in the everyday life of women, but also it is present in many movies, TV shows, or plays.

Another way of undermining women’s experiences and feelings is by silencing them. When a man gets angry, shares his experience, speaks about injustice… he is praised and understood, while when a woman does so, she is told to shut up. In fact, she would be stepping out of the boundaries that men have created for her. She is always asked to “be nice”, “smile, your husband had a very rough day and is stressed, he surely doesn’t want to come home and see you frowning”. When a woman wants to talk about abuse or trauma, she is also asked to remain silent because “good girls are quiet girls”.

In a nutshell, from experiencing as an actor and a spectator, situations that revolve around performing one’s gender and the consequences that would result in case this performance is not done well, I can say that women are clearly objectified in our patriarchal society.

References: 

Sandra Lee Bartky, ‘Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power’ in Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression (Routledge, 1990), pp. 63-82