ISBN:
9780415882880
,
0415882885
,
9780203835845
,
0203835840
Language:
English
Pages:
xvi, 181 pages
,
24 cm
Series Statement:
Routledge research in gender and society 27
Series Statement:
Routledge research in gender and society
DDC:
306.7082
Keywords:
Sex role
;
Women Identity
;
Women Sexual behavior
;
Sex (Psychology)
;
Feminist theory
;
Feministische Philosophie
Abstract:
"Objectification is a foundational concept in feminist theory, used to analyze such disparate social phenomena as sex work, representation of women's bodies, and sexual harassment. However, there has been an increasing trend among scholars of rejecting and re-evaluating the philosophical assumptions which underpin it. In this work, Cahill suggests an abandonment of the notion of objectification, on the basis of its dependence on a Kantian ideal of personhood. Such an ideal fails to recognize sufficiently the role the body plays in personhood, and thus results in an implicit vilification of the body and sexuality. The problem with the phenomena associated with objectification is not that they render women objects, and therefore not-persons, but rather that they construct feminine subjectivity and sexuality as wholly derivative of masculine subjectivity and sexuality. Women, in other words, are not objectified as much as they are derivatized, turned into a mere reflection or projection of the other. Cahill argues for an ethics of materiality based upon a recognition of difference, thus working toward an ethics of sexuality that is decidedly--and simultaneously--incarnate and intersubjective"--Publisher description
Abstract:
Troubling objectification -- Derivatization -- Masculine sex objects -- Unsexed women -- Objectification and/in sex work -- Sexual violence and objectification -- Conclusion: feeling bodies
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
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