by Marjorie A. Gordon-DeLee, MA (January 15, 2019)
Women have had to deal with being looked upon as a piece of meat all of their life. As a sex object, to be used for the entertainment of a man. At least that is how most men look at the female body. The first thing that a male notice about a girl or a woman when he looks at her or approaches her is her breast. If he is walking behind her, it is her butt. The look that little boys and men give to little girls and women causes her to become self-conscious many times about her body at a very young age and she is led to believe that she is inviting him to gaze at her body parts or to touch her body parts. That is definitely not the case.
As a young girl, I would say around eight (8) years old and being a shapely young girl, I despised when the little boys would look at my butt. That was not acceptable to me. I wanted to be liked for my mind, the knowledge that I possessed and not my butt or any other body parts. Therefore, I set out to develop my mind, to gain as much knowledge as possible so that the males would see that there was much more to me than my butt and other body parts.
If they were able to realize what I was all about, then I believed that I was not giving off the vibes to them that I wanted them to notice my body. But, none of that mattered to the opposite sex, most men when they see a woman, their only thoughts are about having sex with her.
What also helped me was the fact that my mother encouraged me to wear dresses all of the time to school. It was either dresses or skirts, but never pants. And, I also wore shorts under my dresses and skirts because of the fresh little boys trying to touch the little girls’ private parts. If I wore pants, it was when I was at home, not at school. If I wore shorts, they were right at knee length or slightly above and at home as well. I wore only dresses and skirts to school all the way up to my Senior year in high school. It was when I received a pair of pants from a young man that was courting me as a Christmas present that I wore the pants to school the latter half of my Senior year in high school. As I am writing this, maybe that was his trick to see me in a pair of pants to get a good look at my butt. Never thought of it in that fashion, but that was probably the reason the pants were given as a gift because he never saw me in any pants before. And this is how the male mind works all the time.
Women have had a difficult time all throughout the decades with displaying their self-worth and demand to be treated equal as human being first and foremost.
Research… indicates that the media often depicts a narrow and often unattainable standard of women’s physical beauty and links this standard with a woman’s sexiness and worth (APA, 2007b). Exposure to sexually objectifying media has been related to greater importance of beauty and appearance in defining an individual’s own self-worth as well as in defining the value of females in general among African American adolescent girls (Gordon, 2008) and to self-objectification, body shame, appearance anxiety, internalization of cultural standards of beauty, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating symptoms among predominately White women (for a review, see Moradi & Huang, 2008) (cited in Szymanski, Moffitt, and Carr, 2011).
It is such an ordeal for women to walk down the streets and then see a group of men who will yell out the most vulgar words to them as if they appreciate that type of language directed toward their body parts and simply seen as a sex object, a piece of meat for their enjoyment. Lord forbid the woman give them a glare or say to them not to use such language toward them, it only will get worse for the woman. So much disrespect.
A secret aid worker in Bangladesh shared her irritation with the sexual harassment that she receives from men:
The continual stares expressing disdain, meat, and entitlement wear me down.
It is relentless.
Women are taught that we cause and invite revolting and socially accepted harassment.
I’m a sexualized piece of meat, irrespective of what I wear, or how I conduct myself
The blatant shamelessness of the leering, catcalling, feral cat noises, creepy guttural sounds, following, curb-crawling in rickshaws or cars, groping and general vileness horrifies me.
Men and boys from all facets of society practice this loathsome national sport. Not all men do this: most will pass by with a curious glance. But enough do it for this to occur over and over during a day (Guardian.com).
Krantz (n.d.) shares in her article more on the notions that women are treated like a piece of meat by many men; using the phrase that has been used throughout the years, “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free”. This is a phrase that I have heard all throughout my life from parents, grandparents and from other elders growing up. Why would a man marry you if you are giving up the “goods” free of charge? When women decide to live with a man as oppose to getting married first, the woman sometimes never get what she really wants and that is the marriage commitment.
Quote by Krantz (n.d.):
Ever think about the expression "treated like a piece of meat”?
In many ways, we objectify animals and women in the same way. From reducing women and animals to their body parts to the idea that they’re “asking for it,” advertisements that exploit animals and women abound in a culture that seeks to justify both groups’ oppression. The control of women and animals has always been intertwined — cows traded for brides and the expression "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free” are two well-known examples.
Furthermore, Krantz (n.d.) stated:
They are reduced to body parts:
Ads using women to sell products frequently reduce them to their breasts, their buttocks and their lips. Women are not viewed as individuals but simply a collection of body parts that appeal to men. Similarly, a chicken is not an animal but a “juicy breast” and a pig is not a being but a rack of ribs. They have been stripped of their identity and objectified as merely pieces to be consumed.
“So, when an animal is killed and fragmented for consumption, everything unique about the individual animal disappears, and when a woman is shown fragmented or it’s implied that she is nothing but a piece of meat, her disempowerment is being communicated.” In both cases, reducing women and animals to their parts allows us to perpetuate and normalize their exploitation (Krantz, n.d.).
In our current White House Administration, the President of the United States of America does not put any value in the rights of women at all. The devastating results for Dr. Basey’s courage in coming forward to reveal the sexual assault against her at the hands of Brett M. Kavanaugh to stop him from being appointed to the Supreme Court was a total disregard for the rights of Dr. Basey and women rights. The Trump administration would rather take the testimony of Dr. Basey’s as a lie as oppose to prevailing justice for the inhumane act of sexual assault against a woman. The total disregard for the rights of women in the Trump administration is absolutely horrendous. Laws must be changed so that women have equal rights across the board and justice is prevailed (Chokshi and Jacobs, 2018).
Even Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has been accused by several women of sexual conduct:
“Several women accusing President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct have come together to publicly reaffirm their stories and call on Congress to hold him accountable.
Samantha Holvey, a former Miss USA contestant, said that while women unsuccessfully came forward in 2016, the national climate has changed in the wake of allegations against disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein — and, subsequently, many others — and the resurgence of the powerful #MeToo movement (D’Onofrio, 2017). “
Currently, all in the news is the allegations against R. Kelly of sexual assaults made by several females:
In 2008, Kelly, was found not guilty of child pornography charges in connection with a sex tape that appeared to show him having sex with an under-age female and urinating in her mouth. The jury decided they could not be sure of the identity of the girl on the tape, who did not testify. He has not been charged in connection with any other allegation of sexual abuse.
The musician, whose real name is Robert Kelly, was accused of holding six women in a sex cult against their free will in 2017, which he has denied (Rosenblatt, 2019).
As a woman, I have experienced domestic violence at the hands of my ex-husband being brutally beaten and sexual harassment on the job as well with inappropriate comments and even an attack during the course of a work day. However, I was extremely fortunate not to have been violated sexually. As other women, I feared coming forward because women were looked down on in all of these instances as being the one who “asked for it”.
We must hold all of these men accountable for the sexual attacks against women and children and change laws so that women have the same rights as men.
Reference:
Chokshi, N. and Jacobs, J. (2018). Brett Kavanaugh: The News on the Accusations, the Hearing and More. Retrieved on January 15, 2019 from
D’Onofrio, K. (2017). 'We Were Pieces of Meat': Women Call for Congressional Probe into Trump. Retrieved January 15, 2019 from https://www.diversityinc.com/news/pieces-meat-women-call-congressional-probe-trump
Guardian.com (2018). Secret aid worker: As a woman, I’m seen as a piece of meat. Retrieved on January 15, 2019 from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/29/secret-aid-worker-as-a-woman-im-seen-as-a-piece-of-meat
Krantz, R. (n.d.). 6 ways the meat industry objectifies women. Retrieved on January 15, 2019 from https://www.thelily.com/6-ways-the-meat-industry-objectifies-women/
Rosenblatt, K. (2019). “Surviving R. Kelly” docuseries followed by 20 percent surge sexual-assault hotline calls. Retrieved on January 15, 2019 from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/surviving-r-kelly-docuseries-followed-20-percent-surge-sexual-assault-n955776
Szymanski, D. M., Moffitt, L. B., and Carr, E. R. (2011). Sexual Objectification of Women: Advances to Theory and Research. Retrieved on January 15, 2019 from https://www.apa.org/education/ce/sexual-objectification.pdf
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