The Objectification of Men

Okay, before all the feminists jump down my throat, I certainly recognize that women are objectified in our society, that it's a real problem, and that it needs to stop.  But I feel that men are similarly objectified, and few people are talking about it, at least that I know of.

A while ago, a friend of mine showed me her friend's Pinterest board entitled, "I Just Love to Look at Him."  The pins were of attractive male celebrities, and most of them were shirtless.  My friend and I didn't necessarily approve of the board, but a male friend of ours happened to be in the room and said something to the effect of, "Oh, so when a girl oggles a shirtless man it's okay, but if a boy looks twice at a girl in a bikini it's not?  How would you feel if I had a Pinterest board devoted to attractive, scantily-clad women?"  We tried to explain that we were only looking at the board because we thought it was funny that the board existed, not because we were oggling.

But it got me thinking about how often I get offended when men talk about "hot" girls in movies, yet that's
exactly how I described Chris Hemsworth when I saw him in Thor.  In fact in high school I had a wall in my room devoted to pictures of Orlando Bloom and Tom Welling, though in none of them were they shirtless.  I had never thought before that I was doing exactly what I wouldn't want my guy friends to do: comparing real people to a false ideal.

We talk about how young girls' perceptions of beauty are skewed because of how women are portrayed in media, but is a similar thing happening to young boys who see their sisters putting up the latest calendar of ab-sculpted firemen?  This video is from a while ago, but I think it's still very pertinent.  Women may not see themselves as beautiful because our standard of beauty is fake.  I wonder if men feel similarly.

According to a parody on Dove's Real Beauty Sketches, the answer is no.  In the original, women describe themselves to a sketch artist, then another person described them, and they saw the two results.  Invariably, the second picture was more beautiful than the first because, as the ending states, women are more beautiful than they think.  In the parody, the same thing happens with a group of men, except the results are opposite: the first picture is of a movie star, and the second is horrible.  At the end, it says, "Men, you're less beautiful than you think."  While hopefully we can chuckle good-humoredly at the joke, I think we should also recognize that it is a joke, not reality.  Men don't necessarily see themselves as beautiful.

Many of the men I've interacted with, in fact, don't have high self-esteem.  They see themselves as too fat, too thin, not muscular enough, too short, and even too tall.  They don't like their hair color, or say they don't have enough hair.  They criticize themselves as women do, offhandedly and usually without malice.  Once, several of my girl friends and I wanted to organize a group and sing to the men who lived in our apartment complex, "That's What Makes You Beautiful," by One Direction.  I regret that we never did it.  Those men didn't realize that we saw them as amazing, attractive guys just as they saw us as amazing, attractive girls.

With all of this on my mind, when I started dating my last boyfriend, I glanced up at the framed picture of David Tennant on my wall and I took it down.  I wouldn't want him to think that I found The Doctor more handsome than him.  Nor would I feel comfortable if he had a picture of, say, Billie Piper on his wall, possibly comparing her to me.

I think it's time we recognize that objectification happens to both sexes and it's not okay, and that all of us, men and women, are beautiful the way we are.