“Why hasn’t someone snagged that?"
But the person to whom he referred was probably not typical of such a conversation. He was repeating something someone had said about me. And, for just the tiniest of a microsecond my initial reaction was that of objectification, which then quickly turned to a feeling of flattery. That's where it stayed. It did, after all, signify that someone thought of me as a catch. I liked that.
After the fact it got me thinking about how women react to flattery of that kind, if they felt either objectification or flattery, and which of those two feelings stayed with them the longest, or which of the two they gave the most significance. It may be because I am a guy, but I seem to see and hear more things that reduce women in such a manner than I do the opposite, where men are referred to in such a way. Funny how that fleeting, small moment set me wondering.
I began to think about my role and my participation in treating women as objects over the years. When you have daughters, it takes on a little more significance to you, because you wonder if they will be viewed or discussed in the same manner when they grow from little girls into young women. And, although it is likely inevitable, unstoppable (particularly when they are as beautiful as Megan and Kylee!), I would rather believe that it won’t happen, even if—most of the time—it is harmless enough. Or is it?
I have only my own example from over the years to predict the future behavior of boys and men, because I have been no saint in this regard. I’m a pretty typical guy. When I was younger, I am not sure I always treated girls and women I knew with the best of respect, or even the kindest of actions. I like to think I matured from that, but every once in a while I still catch myself thinking or doing things that are old and (seemingly) harmless habits. I think it stems from my lifelong thoughts about women in general.
I love women. I am not sure there is any one creature that walks the face of this earth any more beautiful. They are mysterious, graceful, intricately woven, and masterfully constructed physically. Regardless of any woman’s physical appearances, you have to admire the way they perceive and think so differently than we men. Their mind is a complex organ that I have never been able to comprehend more than minimally; they feel things distinctly differently than we men do (or should I say “I” do), and this mystique, for me, only adds to their allure. I believe they think and feel on a level we men sometimes wish we could, and that women are often our guides, voices of reason, balanced sanity, and sources of humility—when we choose to listen to them.
Marry all of that with their physical form, and you have a goddess deserving a pedestal. That is likely the best way to characterize how I have thought of women.
At face value, that image of women I’ve created seems like adoration. However, within that image lies a premise of objectification itself. No matter how positively I praise their essence and being, my thoughts are attempting to make them into some thing, and not some person, and it is only a little distance from that to thinking of women in terms of what they are, rather than who they are.
The reverse of this adoration, the worst case scenario of how men think of women, is complete and total objectification, where we do indeed think of women only in certain terms that suit our own needs. At the center of this: a woman’s physical beauty, and how we define whether or not a woman is beautiful or attractive. It is within that arena that we are most guilty of reducing women, and with giving them impossible standards up to which they should measure. And as if that were not bad enough, we have also convinced many women to judge each other, or their own value, through that same lens. It is buried deep within our culture and wreaks havoc with many a woman’s psyche.
A few years ago someone close to me finally admitted to me that she suffered from bulimia. It was a heartbreaking thing to hear, and was only a confirmation of my own suspicions. I had already witnessed enough of the telltale behaviors to be pretty sure of it; I just needed the right moment of honesty, or of undeniable proof, to ask her about it. As it turned out, that moment of truth only came about because of the deterioration in her health that eventually landed us in an emergency room one night. When the crisis was over, I was touched by her emotional admission.
I had never before been exposed to something like this—or, I had ever taken the time to notice—and it seemed incredible to me. I had heard about it, and had read about it, but I had never before experienced it or spoken with anyone first hand who suffered from it. To me, before that moment, it was an abstract idea that women and girls more than a little off-balance suffered, and I couldn’t reconcile this person I was close to with the image I had of someone who suffered from bulimia.
As I often do, I turned to reading and research to help me understand their affliction better, and understand her better. It opened my eyes to just how widespread the issues of eating disorders are in our culture, and made me a little more aware of the things we expect from young girls and women, how we set the bar so incredibly high for them.
This loved one was, by anyone’s standards, beautiful physically, and she was intelligent. She spoke four languages and achieved the highest of grades in all of her school endeavors. She was athletic more than many her age and skilled in several sports. She came from a loving family. Young men around her almost always took notice of her. Honestly, she had all that a young girl could want, and had every reason to see a bright and happy future for herself.
But that night, when she admitted her bulimia to me, and I asked her why, here are the very words that she used to describe herself: fat, unattractive, and uninteresting.
It broke my heart to hear her say it, because it was so far from the truth and it was hard to hear her say those things about herself with such conviction. She went on to say that one of her deepest fears, because she felt fat and unattractive and uninteresting, was that no one would ever fall in love with her and she would spend all of her life alone. Where I could only imagine an incredible future for her, she saw only a life of despair looming on their horizon, based solely on her perception of her physical appearance, and the role that it played in her finding someone to love and spend her life.
It was a gut check, begging me to rethink the smallest of things I did over the whole of my life that might contribute to anyone seeing themselves that way. I could look back and find moments in my life when I certainly did things that could have helped someone see themselves that way, or at the very least reinforced the ideas that our culture imposes on women to make them feel that way.
At the same time, I realized that I was also the father of two beautiful girls, and that it was likely important that I try to shed some of those old, easy-to-learn thoughts and habits, and replace with them with things that would instead help me help them with their self-esteem and self-perception.
But, I’m still a pretty typical guy, so it’s not easy. And, I still adore and idolize women, which is not the easiest thing to unlearn. I’m not sure I want to. The trick, for me at least, is in how to both adore and respect, while not sending the wrong message about what it is that makes them all goddesses.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I ended up with two beautiful daughters.
© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.
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