“Stop objectifying women!” says modern society. “We’re more than just our bodies!”
This message seems to be preached everywhere we turn. Whether it’s screamed during a protest, shoehorned into a Hollywood blockbuster, or written in an article from The New York Times, it’s one of the defining messages of modern feminism.
For many years, the media did women a disservice by stereotyping them as all-around weak, always in need of a man to come to the rescue and never using their own wit to work themselves out of problems. Many famous women were immorally (and often unwillingly) categorized as sex symbols, degrading them to nothing but an object for the male gaze.
Over the years, the vision for less sexualization of women in media has been realized, progress that many find praiseworthy. However, with the decrease of female objectification, we’ve simultaneously seen an increase in the unethical sexualization of men, something perfectly illustrated by the literary trend known as “Men Written By Women.”
We’ve all seen it before: The strong female protagonist with a phoenix tattoo on her back is busy trying to save the world while also struggling against the presuppositions of the patriarchy. She isn’t where she wants to be because men hold her back. She isn’t as far along in her endeavors because men look at her as nothing but a controllable sexual object. Then, she meets the dark-haired, genocidal bad boy whose only personality trait is that of being “hot.”
Yet, oddly enough, he turns out to be the love interest. He’s the “only one who understands her.”
It’s ironic. The modern female protagonist spends so much time fighting against the patriarchy’s suppression of women, yet she falls for the only man who will actually abuse her. He’s the only one who will actually imprison and manipulate her. He’s the only one who will actually carry out a romanticized version of sexual assault.
The hypocrisy of these female authors is astounding. They say we shouldn’t objectify women, yet by reducing the male love interest to nothing but his “perfect face” and “impeccable abs,” they do the exact same thing to men.
Take, for example, Xaden Riorson from Rebecca Yarros’ popular fantasy novel, Fourth Wing. The first time Violet, the protagonist, sees him, she takes a whole paragraph to describe how attractive he is:
He’s tall, with windblown black hair and dark brows. The line of his jaw is strong and covered by warm tawny skin and dark stubble, and when he folds his arms across his torso, the muscles in his chest and arms ripple, moving in a way that makes me swallow. And his eyes… His eyes are the shade of gold-flecked onyx. The contrast is startling, jaw-dropping even—everything about him is. His features are so harsh that they look carved, and yet they’re astonishingly perfect, like an artist worked a lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth. Even the diagonal scar that bisects his left eyebrow and marks the top corner of his cheek only makes him hotter.
The problem doesn’t lie in the character’s physical attributes, rather the intention behind leading his introduction with them. Xaden’s first appearance isn’t character driven. It isn’t an establishment of personality or status or wonder at who this mysterious person might be. It doesn’t set him up as a love interest, rather it reduces the idea of romance to physicality. It turns him into an object for Violet’s lustful ogling. Ogling that, if the genders were reversed, would all but certainly be frowned upon even by the book’s author.
The same problem arises in characters like Aaron Warner from Shatter Me, Rhysand from A Court of Thorns and Roses, and the Hawthorne brothers in The Inheritance Games. All of these characters have the potential to be memorable for their personalities. They have the tools necessary to be well-developed, interesting people who leave a thoughtful impression on those who read about them. Instead, the only impressions they leave on readers, most of whom are women, are physical attractiveness and poetic one-liners.
Many modern female authors acknowledge the harm in objectifying women, in that it is dehumanizing and often leads to mistreatment, yet they don’t seem to care that there is equal harm when it’s done to men. This harm doesn’t only affect those being objectified, it also affects those doing the objectifying. It creates a false, misguided narrative that may create unrealistic expectations in either romantic or non-romantic relationships. It pedestals the idea that it is okay for one party to use the other as a means for self-gratification, but not the other way around.
If it is wrong to objectify women in media, it should also be wrong to objectify men.
“But it’s not real! It’s fiction!” one might say, an excuse I’ve heard time and time again. They’re right in that it’s fake, but they ignore the very real consequences. Fiction — even poorly written prose — has always and will continue to mirror reality. The things we choose to consume, especially if it’s on a regular basis, affect us in our day to day lives, whether we’re conscious of it or not. The modern media encourages this detrimental consumption. Why wouldn’t they? It makes them money.
Everywhere we look, there is a billboard promoting a new movie, an ad getting us excited for a new product, a news article announcing the opening of a new fast food place.
And what is the result of this constant onslaught of advertising? A society clinging to materialistic things, basing their self-worth in something they saw on TV, stuck in this endless loop of the same thing over and over, and ignoring true human connection in favor of romanticized abuse they read on the page.
I’m going to make you a bet. Go to Barnes & Noble and head for the BookTok section. Grab the first book you see. I bet you that it’s a recently-released “romance” novel, complete with the newest objectified, abusive, and unhealthily portrayed play-thing that is the “book boyfriend.” No matter how much willful hypocrisy these authors choose to marinate in, the objectification of anyone, be it male or female, will continue to be what it’s always been: morally wrong.
