WOMEN'S BODIES ARE OBJECTS

A woman is or should be an ornament, something for mere aesthetics. Nothing less.

Playing Lady Lady — Olivia Dean

A few days ago, I was on public transport, and two people were having an altercation. In fact, “altercation” is a mild description for what was happening. Let’s call it a heated argument. Two strangers to each other — man and woman. The cause of the argument was none of their business, but it happened anyway. For more context, the cause of the argument had nothing to do with appearance, but that was what the man narrowed it down to — how the lady looked. He mentioned she had acne and how she looks nothing like a woman, and she responded by calling him an illiterate, saying he knows nothing about hormonal imbalance. He didn’t raise points from the basis of the argument; he went straight to her looks.

sigh

The day after that event, I was on Instagram, trying to distract myself from my problems by drowning in reels. Then, I came across one of those quick interviews where random people are asked a particular question — basically, a social experiment. The question was: what’s one red flag you can’t stand in the opposite gender? The women mentioned things like being unhygienic, alpha male behaviour, being shady, and whatever. The men mentioned things like being fat, having a big forehead, having “yam” legs, using makeup. One went ahead to call women who use makeup “fools.”

sigh

Do I really have to say so much? I mean, after the stories I just told. It’s clear — women have been reduced to their appearances. A clear form of objectification. It shows up in arguments. It shows up in interviews. It shows up in compliments.

“Beauty with brains”

Before I understood what this meant, I used this phrase, and I’ve received it too. Till one day, I thought about it. “Beauty with brains” — are there beauties with no brains? And are brains so exclusive that beautiful women usually don’t have them?

Some people might come at me and say I’m overthinking the statement. “It’s just a common saying.” I agree, it’s a common statement, and that’s exactly why we’ve been desensitised to its meaning. Think about it. It basically says beautiful women don’t offer intelligence, just aesthetics. If it didn’t mean that, “with brains” wouldn’t be an addition. In fact, there wouldn’t be a need for an addition at all.

“You’re smart” does just fine. Just like every other adjectival phrase used to describe the opposite gender — plain, and without implications.

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Playing Girl, Get Up — Doechii, SZA

I understand that women are a work of art, but we’re not just that. We’re not an art piece, or an object of entertainment and pleasure. We’re not a piece to be collected and discarded. We’re not bodies to be abused and mutilated. We don’t care about your specifications and preferences. We’re not your award or a conquest. We’re human, with a soul, and definitely a brain too. We’re complete — we don’t need owners. We’re not objects for certain standards to be built around — too thin, too fat, big bum, small breasts, small bum, big breasts, large forehead, too dark, too light, too short, too tall, no makeup, lots of makeup, curly hair, straight hair.

The standards are worthless — or rather, they should be. Discard them. Their standards say nothing about us. We’ve always been enough.

This piece is short. Intentionally so. The nail doesn’t need a longer hammer.

—From the mind of Aggy.