Have You Experienced Objectification?

[silkleaves]

Silkleaves, I think it's wonderful you were able to see what was going on in your life and immediately begin making changes

Thanks so much...it actually took me a couple years. I was aware, but in that moment, gave in totally to it. I kept wavering back and forth between "I deserve more than this...this isnt me" to "I may as well use what I've learned Im good for to my advantage"... It really wasn't until the beginning of this year that I stopped that behavior completely. I decided that I had to put more value on myself if I ever wanted anyone else to be able to see value in me...more than what I was offering at the time anyway.

So it hasnt been that long, and to be honest, I have often felt regret in trying to leave that part of me behind, because really..it *is* all I know. It has been the one thing that has served me well, literally my entire life. Actually, just a couple weeks ago, I nearly slipped back into it. But circumstances beyond my control prevented that...otherwise Im sure I would be right back at it again. But it was what I needed not to go back to it. And honestly, I'm thankful. At least now I have a chance to be good for something else for a change...to try anyway.

 

[Hope4Now]

Thanks for reminding me about this site. I stumbled on it in the fall when I was trying to convince myself that I actually suffered from growing up with parents who had/have undiagnosed personality disorders (or at least really severe related issues). There was so much denial, gaslighting, invalidation, hoovering...etc..varying levels of every thing on their list of 100 traits, that, at 50 years old, I still have difficulty believing that any of it really happened, or that I was not to blame because I got hurt by it.

In terms of objectification (not socially, but as a single child growing up with troubled parents), the categories of objectification that completely screwed me up in terms of developing an integrated identity were:

Denial of subjectivity - Denial of subjectivity describes a condition where a person is treated as if there is no need to show concern for their feelings. (Not only were they not "concerned" but they actively insisted that my feelings were wrong, so I had to repress most of my natural emotion and manufacture acceptable feelings.)
Denial of autonomy - Denial of autonomy is when a person is denied the right to make decisions for themselves.(As a child I had no decision-making capacity from the smallest things to the biggest. My life was very tightly controlled.
Inertness - An Assumption of Inertness describes when a person is treated as if they lack the capacity to act for themselves.

They invaded my psyche with all this, and the beliefs I developed about myself are still active. My feelings are so unimportant that I don't even know what I really feel at any given time. I stress over every decision and whether it will be a mistake. I forever feel that whatever I am doing on my own behalf is wrong and will cause distress, trouble, or worse. Very hard for me to separate out the past from the present...

 

[Springer80]

many women are written off as 'neurotic' when they go to the doctors with anxiety-related conditions or physical conditions that are exacerbated by anxiety.

Well, it's just that now we aren't treated like guinea pigs in a lab for being 'hysterical' and sexually invaded in the gp's surgery under the guise of treatment; we just get thrown in the miscellany bin instead.


There is a website called The Everyday Sexism Project that a British woman started a couple of years ago. She has been torn to shreds on social media and vilified in certain sections of the press because she deigned to make a livelihood and write a book about it. They said she was mercenary, her only interest being profit.[DOUBLEPOST=1403296101,1403295950][/DOUBLEPOST]It always used to bug when people said things like 'Girls are more trouble' and '35 is the best age for a woman'. I'd think the only reason girls are trouble is because they face more trouble and the only reason women are better in their mid thirties is because it's taken that long to finally get a grip on the all the crap we have to endure.

 

[BlueOcean]

@Laura 2 You are welcome:)

 

[Laura 2]

sexually invaded in the gp's surgery under the guise of treatment;

Dear oh, dear. Here's the all-pervasive commonplace sexual abuse in action: your post here reminded me about the THREE separate occasions in my younger life that doctors did stuff that I would now, as a mature woman, consider to be improper to the point of sexual assault. I'd completely forgotten.

 

[Springer80]

THREE separate occasions in my younger life that doctors did stuff that I would now, as a mature woman, consider to be improper

treated like guinea pigs in a lab for being 'hysterical' and sexually invaded in the gp's surgery

I was talking about to early days of Freud in 1800's but....well, some things just get re-labelled.

 

[Laura 2]

I was talking about to early days of Freud in 1800's but....well, some things just get re-labelled.

Yeah, this objectification and demeaning of women and children has been going on for all recorded history...Freud (may he roast in hell) just repackaged it for the then modern generation - for personal profit and self-aggrandisement, I should add.

Just because there's a bit of law somewhere that goes on about 'equality' and 'anti-discrimination' doesn't mean it's stopped, does it? Yet I notice younger women are quite often strangely seduced into thinking that we women are ok now, that battle's been won etc.

I don't know, maybe the whole of society is fundamentally based on this objectification of others? It's what enables concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, elder abuse by hospital and care workers, government mass snooping, the compilation of statistics about all asperts of our lives...

 

[Springer80]

Today in the news a tory MP told a female Muslim journalist that he wanted to punch her in the throat! The leader of the party has asked him to apologise and that's it.

I find it very telling that not only did he feel it okay that he said he wanted to punch her (not a sentiment usually expressed to a male giving an opinion in a debate) but that he wanted to punch her 'in the throat'. To disable her voice quite specifically.

The same women had an issue with another MP of the same party, who said he wished she'd be 'stoned to death'. He was asked to resign. Probably because of the religio-cultural connation's of death by stoning. Implying Sharia law is not acceptable in the UK it seems but your common garden gender violence is!

Strange that the tory party don't seem to recognise the implications of this distinction. I wonder what their policy on domestic violence is? I doubt this latest outburst squares with it but somehow they think the two can live side by side.

The only saving grace about this, is that in the Queens speech this a year a reform was announced that MP's can be sacked by constituents votes mid-term. I'm hoping women use that right to it's fullest potential.

 

[Springer80]

Of course if women do that, we may find that for quite a while there are gaps in the cabinet! Ah, well it's about time for some musical chairs!

 

[Tinyflame]

Thanks @Laura 2 for what you copied in your post (#8). 1000 likes in agreement with that, other than the reference to invalidation.

The one thing I find 'funny' or encouraging, is sometimes someone states something that are the words for, or the words for the feeling or reality or subjective experience that I can't find to describe it myself. It makes me feel less :alien: .I could never find the words to describe the 'cumulative' feeling or end-result, or any way to describe it really.

Thank you. :hug:

 

[The Albatross]

Yup, in my first marriage I could tick off every one of those including the sexual, physical, and mental/emotional abuse. Quite a guy, eh?

 

[Philippa]

I just sat through stefan molyneux telling the world that women LOVE to be objectified and that we just are being dishonest about it! I really hate that guy now! He said "why else would they wear make up and get boob jobs". Could he have any more of a lack of insight into our conditioned social messages, or co dependency if he tried? Douchebag.