I just found an article of the Esquire editor claims
that women are meant to be objectified. Esquire is a men magazine that’s been
around since The Great Depression. Since it’s a magazine for men, there are
going to be women in the magazine, but only for visual pleasure. Alex Bilmes, the forty year old
editor, has stated that “his magazine prints pictures of ‘ornamental’ women who
should be admired in the same way that people look at ‘cool cars’.” They
take edited pictures of women, sometimes women completely created specifically
for the magazine, just for men to oogle at hoping that they buy their magazine.
He stated that he could put women in his magazine for reasons of being smart
and intellectual, but the readers themselves (and obviously nobody who makes
the magazine) isn’t interested enough to read anything about women with brains.
He states, “They are there to be a beautiful object, they're objectified.”
A lot of people got mad at his statements, saying that he’s a century late and
not in a good way. While I do believe he deserves all the criticism he’s
getting, he at least admitted he’s fully aware of what he’s doing. Lots of
magazines do this, but would never admit to it. Unfortunately, it has proved to sell more magazines and editors will continue to use this until it stops making them a profit.
Yeah, this is kind of sickening to see. When you see someone that is fully aware of what he is doing but it is a generally common knowledge that it is the wrong thing to do, why keep doing it? Well the simple fact of the matter comes down to the man wants to make money, and he wants to do it at the expense of, well who cares as long as it’s not him and he gets paid. This type of ignorant capitalist attitude is a detriment to the morality of our society. And although as you said yes this is common and at least he is one that owns up to it, I don't think this gives him any reason to think it’s okay, if anything it makes it even worse. When he states that they are there to be objects, I believe is crossing a line that no sane person would outright cross and take credit for crossing it, and it sums up the reason for and the definition of feminism, Women are people. A women is not there to be a cool car or an object that can just be used, and it is saddening to think that this type of attitude can exist and that the person can be proud of it.
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