Tits and Ass

Something that has bugged me for a long time, but in a somewhat inarticulate way, is women (and men) complaining about various artistic portrayals of women being "hyper-sexualized" or "objectified", particularly in video games, comic books, the media, whatever, as if this is an assault on "regular" women. An assault perpetrated by men for the purpose of hurting women.

My problem with this, I've come to realize, is that it's just ignoring way too much context. Are these portrayals of women exaggerated? Yes. But so are the portrayals of men in the same media. I don't know a lot of men who view the impossibly-ripped superhero as an assault on their self-esteem.

I think it has more to do with how men and women view physical attractiveness. Most of the men I know view it as something you build--which is true, if you want to get ripped, you go to the gym, you work out, you eat right, and you develop a nice muscular build. So if they don't have one, they don't view it as some hopeless endeavor, it's just that they're not that interested in it. They do other things with their time, and get their self-esteem from those things.

For women, though, having a perfect body/face/skin/hair seems a lot more of a genetic thing, so no matter how much effort you invest, you can only do so much. Even cosmetic surgery can only go so far. They are defeated before they begin. A *hopeless* ideal does not inspire self-esteem. It inspires self-loathing.

It's just another example of the destructive effects of irrational perfectionism.