Are women destined to be objects?

After years of "breaking glass ceilings" and "women's liberation" it seems like women have made no gains in a male dominated world.

Now male domination within this context is more than job placement and payment it's about men believing that women should not hold these positions and should not be paid more than a man. I have heard people saying "how can they say women aren't equal when they hold managerial positions now". The fact that women are holding these positions, possibly because their male counterparts are not as qualified, does not negate the fact that there are quite a number of men who believe that women belong in the home and are objects to be possessed by men.

Now perhaps you are not of that persuasion and we applaud your forward thinking however there are people, men (and in some cases women) who believe these things, who HONESTLY believe these things. Jokes are made daily (on Twitter, on Facebook, all over) about women staying in the kitchen and "knowing their place" and at some point these jokes stop being funny. I mean, yeah I have laughed at one or two but come on man at some point you must remember that you have a mother and may have a daughter at some point, do you want her to be living within these limited possibilities?

After a discussion with some older business people it was noted that some businesses prefer not to hire women due to productivity lost during maternal leave and women are believed to take more vacation leave than men. I'm not sure how I feel about this, because the only leave I've ever taken since working was after I handed in my resignation letter... and I took two days sick leave after I busted my face and had to get stitches (but that's another story).

From the hands of time we learnt that women were considered to be the "other sex", the submissive sex, the sex to be controlled. Let's not even begin to mention the plight of women during slavery. Even now people hold these beliefs as true. Sometimes detrimentally so.  I'm sure we've all heard of stories where women are killed, mutilated or abused because their significant other holds these views - that she is an object for him to control. Now, it's funny because a man who holds these views will tell you that his mother is the exception. So, every other woman is subject to his "rule" and control except his mother. Perhaps this is due to the birthing factor, y'know how dare he attempt to control the woman who brought him into this world. But if he then views all woman as potential mothers then wouldn't that debase this ideology?

While studying media and communication at the University of the West Indies (yes I'm not just speaking from my ass, I'm a bit educated and such) we had a discussion about media and gender (still pissed that I wasn't able to do that course). We spoke about the objectification of women in the media, especially in advertising. We also discussed gender stereotyping, we were given two handouts (this was like from 2009 and I still have them, hoarder much?). Now one handout states that  men powerful men, athletes and gangsters are showcased widely in the media, the other adds that women make up "soft news" items. Women will generally speak on any topic that is not considered hard hitting news and their perspectives are generally not reflected in the news. The handout also adds that more emphasis is placed on the physical appearance of the female newscaster (than the male newscaster).

In all this, a section of these handouts deals with the commodification of women. It states that:

 "women's sexuality is often packaged for consumption. Particularly in ads, the woman's body is associated with goods and services. Women are shown inviting persons to purchase the product through seductive verbal or body language. The impression is given that if you buy the product, you will get the women free. In some ads this actually happens: a man is seen walking away with a woman on his arm because he uses or buys a particular product". 

Therefore, despite all our female ancestors (fore-mothers if you will) have fought for, are women still in the same position they fought to get us out of? Are women destined to be objects owned, controlled, possessed and displayed by men - the superior sex?

This thought crossed my mind after seeing two especially explicit music videos lately - one from Demarco and the other from Ricky Carty (whoever the hell he is, or is trying to be). The videos included women - naked women performing sexual acts. Now the interesting thing about the Ricky Carty video was that his lyrics (and his actions) were suggesting that he was in control and whatever he told her to do she would have to do. At one point he mentioned something about "tekkin cocky inna all positions", which I suppose is apt since the song is titled Gyal tek cocky.

Are women destined to be objects? Are we the other sex, which needs control and direction (that only a  male can provide)? Are these roles and rules innate? Or are they learned? How are these things learned?


Are women destined to be objects, and men the fairer sex?