On the objectification of women and the workplace-bedroom relationship between the genders

     In this article I will attempt to continue my work on the differences between the genders and their respective jouissance in order to understand how each gender relates to the following four concepts: subjectivity, objectification, the workplace and the bedroom.

    It's important to understand that here I will refer by "gender" to "gender roles" and not to gender identity or biological sex. The gender roles that I describe here have a biological and evolutionary component, but sexist societies and environments amplify these evolutionary differences. This means that in a perfect society with no discrimination between the sexes, man would still be more likely to be put in the masculine gender role and woman to be put in the feminine one simply due to their biology, although the more traditional a society is, the more these differences split apart.

PART 1: The biological differences between the sexes

    We must begin by understanding that in any species, males by definition produce more and smaller eggs than the female, which produces fewer and larger eggs. This creates an imbalance of desire in any animal, including humans: more males will compete for fewer females. Males will desire females more than females will desire males, and thus the females will get, on average, the greater opportunity to be "pickier" (more selective).

    Where does this lead us in humans, who are not only animals but also conscious speaking beings, who are aware of their own awareness of themselves? It leads us to two different societal relations towards subjectivity and objectification. However, this can't be an essentialist differentiation, that is, these statements can't be true for all men and all women, respectively, but are simply tendencies. For example, women will be pickier about men than vice-versa, but with exceptions. However, the gender roles in society are fundamentally based on archetypal tendencies of the "typical man" and the "typical woman", so the exceptions become irrelevant when we are describing these general roles that you can end up in when living in society.

PART 2: Desire asymmetry between genders

    How does the sexual asymmetry present itself in the genders? Men will tend to be placed in society as desiring subjects and women as desired, because of reasons beforementioned (women are more "in demand"). However, as we know from Lacanian psychoanalysis, any subject is a desiring subject, and hence any subject outside a social context (alone) is inherently a masculine subject, a subject who desires (wants) but can't easily obtain what they desire (just like men want women but can't easily 'obtain' them). This tendency of any human to have a masculine (desiring) side, as well as the asymmetry of the genders in their interactions, can only lead to one thing: the objectification of women in society, and in the interactions between the genders.

    Lacan had a name for this social role that women are more often put in than man: the object of desire, also known as the "imaginary phallus". The big emphasis here is put on the object of desire, and not the subject of desire. This is due to the inevitable passive nature that this object (or "objectified subject") ends up in: take, for instance, the classic gender roles that are present in fairy tales: many men are the main or secondary characters of the story, doing stuff, competing with each other, in order to obtain the princess. The princess is obtain by the "best" man by the end of the story, a princess who has usually done nothing the entire story but sit on a chair and look at them. This is a passive subject, a human who has done so little the entire story that it's as if they're not a human anymore, but an object who looks at you, and this is the building block of objectification.

    What is the natural counterpart of this? Feminist literature has always talked about the objectification of women, but this can only be mirrored by the reversed process in men; let's call it "subjectification". Gender roles in society incentivize or even force men to reduce their status as passive objects as much as possible, and to recognize themselves as human beings experiencing consciousness and agency in the eyes of the Other. As a man, you are not allowed to "sit down and do nothing", you must always choose, decide, lead, want, desire, wish and take control over your environment.

    It must be made clear again that these are natural tendencies ("averages") that men and women end up in society. There are many exceptions, the classic exception is of the famous rapper who is wanted by many fangirls after his concert, wanting to have sex with him. Now the gender roles are reversed, the rapper is put in the feminine role ("object of desire", pickier) and the groupies are put in the masculine role ("desiring subjects", picked).

    While these differences will always be present to an extent due to the biological asymmetry of desire, such differences were amplified in the past, when societies were much more systematically sexist*. The classic example that could be given here is how women did not have the right to vote: they were reduced to a passive object of men's desire. Despite technically being subjects who desire a certain political entity more than another (as they are still human, and all humans desire), they were forbidden from expressing their desire through vote. We can say with no exaggeration that their status as human was repressed, and thus "objectification" could also be reformulated as "dehumanization", since all humans are subjects who desire, women were forbidden from also experiencing this role. This is also reflect in the English language, in how in the past, and to a certain extent even now, "man" and "human" was synonymous.

    What about the concept of jouissance from Lacan, that I've mentioned in the beginning? Jouissance is left untranslated from French, in context Lacan uses it to refer to a mix of pleasure and pain, or a pleasure that is to intense/powerful that it's painful. The jouissance is both "good" and "bad", is both an advantage and a disadvantage, it's both rewarding and punishing simultaneously. The masculine and feminine jouissances are clear here: men get the jouissance of being undesired while women get the jouissance of being desired. Without going into too much detail, as I've already covered that in a previous post, to desire more than you are desired (masculine) is both good and bad, it's bad if you want attention, but it's good if you want less attention, and vice-versa for women. Women tend to complain about too much masculine attention more while men tend to complain about too little feminine attention. Typical masculinity means having objects of desire (money, cars, women) while typical femininity means being an object of desire for men. No role is "better" or "worse", life fucks you either way. But with our knowledge from this article, we can reframe the jouissance of being desiring vs. desired also as the jouissance of being a subject vs. an object.

PART 3: What is "work"?

    In capitalism, however, we can add one more tendency that the genders gravitate towards. Marx correctly pointed out the "surplus value" inherent in capitalism (profit) - any work is geared towards generating profit, so unless you believe in the Austrian school which states that in a free market economic profit is zero and all accounting profit is actually the opportunity cost, then in capitalism money makes money. We can distinguish this from the previous mode of production, feudalism, in which money existed, but it was used as a means to an end and not an end in of itself. In feudalism, you have a need, you work in order to generate money, and then you use that money in order to satisfy the need (ex: buy a product). The order is material goods -> money -> material goods. In capitalism, this is twisted in on itself: you have money, you use it to invest and then to make even more money from it. The order is money -> material goods -> money. The difference is whether money is placed as a means to an end (feudalism) or as an end in of itself for society (capitalism). 

    This endless "thirst" for money (unsatisfied desire) can only sustain itself in a system which creates desire out of nowhere. This is why Lacan says that it was Marx who first discovered the symptom, not Freud. This human tendency to always want and never be satisfied is now reflected in our economic system, which sustains itself by creating a desire which has not existed before. If you do not want our useless product, we will make you want it, and now it will be useful to you. Now capitalism made you addicted to all this shit that you previously did not even need. This order was reversed in feudalism in which desire created a demand for a good or service. In feudalism people want something, it is produced, and then they buy it. In capitalism, a good is produced, people don't want it, people are made to want it (through marketing, or it being required in order to use some other product, etc.), and then they buy it. We could say, with a little exaggeration, that capitalism is a machine made to make you addicted to consumerism. Without a surprise, Lacan connects the concept of "surplus enjoyment" with the "object cause of desire", which he clearly differentiates from the concept of "object of desire".

    Hence, we could define the concept of "work" as the process of generating surplus value. When humans "work", they do not engage in an activity that is pleasurable as an end in of itself (like in the activity of "leisure"), but as a means to an end. You do not want this job for the sake of the job usually, you want this job because it gives you money that you can spend on the things that you actually want in the end. Freud had a more general term for any such activity: the reality principle. The reality principle is when a person sacrifices pleasure on the short-term in order to gain more pleasure on the long-term. Modern psychology calls it "self-control", or maybe "will-power". For example, I want to eat this cake, but I also want to lose weight, so while eating the cake will be more pleasurable on the short-term (acting on impulse, pleasure principle), controlling myself is a better strategy on the long term (self-control, reality principle). 

    Work is a specific case of the reality principle, a "proper subset" so to speak. When people work, they engage in an activity that is a means to an end specifically because it directly or indirectly creates a good or service that is useful as an end in of itself. For example, the example with the diet is a reality principle but not work. An example of work could be a farmer living alone in the woods, growing crops. He does not enjoy farming, but he enjoys the harvest, so he makes a sacrifice: the reason he works in farming is not because farming is pleasurable in of itself, but because it is an activity that generates something that is pleasurable in of itself (crops). In this case however, the worker lives alone, so he keeps all the surplus value to himself (the surplus value of the work being the crops).

    Now, I will state something that will please both the socialists and the libertarians: in any society or community, the surplus value of your work is not kept to you 100%. Regardless of the economic mode of production, the only way to keep 100% of the product of your work is to fully isolate yourself from society. If you live in a society, you will have to share the product of your work. In capitalism, part of the surplus value goes to your employer as profit. The rest goes to the government as taxes. Even in a socialist mode of production, you still can't get rid of taxes.

    This leads us to a natural conclusion: in any economic mode of production, your body is not fully yours. Other people directly or indirectly use your body for their own gain. It is here that we can finally get back from this tangent into the topic of gender differences: the worker is an inherently masculine role. This can also be seen in how the most sexist societies do not allow women to go to work. The man's body is not fully his, he does not have full possession over his own body, since his body is partially being used by the government and/or his employer in order to generate surplus value.

PART 4:  The workplace vs. the bedroom

    Where is the feminine gender role in this? Well, if men are used by society as workers (their body is being used as a means to an end), then women are used by society as sex-objects (their body is being used as and end in of itself). Hence both men and women are "used", and none of them can ever have full agency over their own body unless they isolate themselves, the difference is whether your body is used as a construction worker (as a means to an end) or as a sex worker (as an end in of itself).

    Therefore, it should be pointed out that while women are "fully objectified", men only experience a "partial subjectification", so to speak. They are subjects over women, but objects of their employer. Employers objectify their workers just like men objectify women. The social masculine role implies experiencing being both a desiring subject and an object of desire, while the social feminine role implies experiencing being only an object of desire. The "archetypal man" desires, objectifies and abuses women but is desired, objectified and abused by their employer.

    What does this imply about each gender's relationship towards their workplace and their sexual life? This is the statement that I think we should remember at the end: men are "haunted" by their workplace even in the bedroom, and women are "haunted" by their bedroom even in the workplace.

    Women experience being objectified and sexualized even when they do not wish to be, such as in the workplace. This will be inevitable to happen in any society, because of biological differences, but sexist societies amplify these biological differences to an extreme. This is the jouissance of being attractive (desired). The more attractive you are, the more you are an object of desire of others and your status as a subject with agency is reduced. This is why I call it a form of jouissance: because being attractive is both a bless and a curse. The curse is that the more attractive you are, the less people will pay attention to what you have to say. Your body is paid attention to more than your words or your thoughts/ideas.

    This is what feminism should talk more about, instead of pointless discussions about reducing the wage gap or women being "underrepresented" in certain jobs, discussions which make no sense, defy biological reality and make the working class fight within itself instead of going against the government and the employers. How about we take a look at the reduction of your status as subject in your relationship with others when you are a woman, a phenomenon which is amplified the more attractive you are and the more sexist your society is. As a man, you can even be a pornstar and people will still look at you and treat you mostly the same. As a woman, it is harder to be taken seriously if you wear more revealing clothing, or worse, if you open up something like an OnlyFans and everyone has seen you naked. 

    The feeling is objectifying and dehumanizing: your status as a conscious human being is reduced in the eyes of others and you are perceived less as a "soul" and more as a body**. Your words and ideas are paid less attention to, and you know that even in the cases where men at your workplace are respectful and avoid unnecessary comments, they are still all thinking more about your body than your words. A woman in society has to constantly struggle to maintain her status as a subject, one wrong move where you are sexualized and it's almost as if your body becomes devoid of a soul. This is how a sexualized person becomes viewed as a body without thoughts, consciousness, agency or original ideas, and woman are way more likely to be put in this role. 

    The experience of everyone admiring your body is a form of jouissance, a bless and a curse: it can feel nice to get all this attention, to be a "trophy" for others that they have to win, but is also a curse as it puts you in this passive position of an object. With a little exaggeration, a sexualized person is like a dead person. You lose your soul.

    The main conclusion about the feminine role is that it's characterized by having its bedroom dragged into its workplace. What is pleasurable only in the bedroom while having sex (being admired, desired, used for pleasure) you now have to deal with at work too.

    The flipside of the coin is true for men, who have the opposite problem. If women have the problem of wanting to keep it about work, and the conversation still ending up towards sex, men have the problem of wanting to keep it about sex, and the conversation still ending up towards work. Thus, men have their workplace "dragged into" their bedroom. If women wish they could forget about sex-related topics when they are at work, but not being able to, men wish they could forget about work during sex-related activities, and not being able to.

    In any society, when men want to pursue sex, they might inevitably be confronted with problems such as: how much money do you make? How much wealth/expensive cars/expensive clothing do you own? Do you have a stable workplace? A certain degree of this "haunting" is inevitable due to biological predispositions of the sexes, but again, sexist societies amplify the already existing biological differences to an extreme.

    It also way harder for them to be objectified. Some exceptions may arrive in homosexual relationships and crossdressers, but even then it is still very hard compared to how easy it is to get objectified as a woman. This may sound perplexing - isn't it a good thing not to be objectified? But in certain situations in life, you want to be metaphysically "dead", so to speak, and lose your agency as subject and simply be a passive object admired by the Other's gaze and manipulated by the Other's desire. Many man wish they could receive the attention that women receive too much of. Even the most attractive 1% of men with a six pack do not receive the same kind of attention, even if they receive more attention than the unattractive man. 

    You can be the most macho fit bodybuilder, in that case straight women will be attracted to you, but you will still not be objectified most likely. The archetype of the "most masculine alpha man" is indeed also an attractive man, but also a subjectified man, not an objectified one. The fit pornstar with a six-pack is perceived by society as a man that is superior because he has many women, not because women have him. He is still placed as a desiring subject, not as an object of desire. But he will not likely experience feeling "pretty" or "sexy", which is a disadvantage. They are more likely to feel the experience of having or "owning" someone who is pretty or sexy, but not being sexualized themselves.

    The conclusion of all this is that you are fucked either way. The fate of masculinity and femininity is a fate of getting either too little or too much attention, of experiencing the jouissance of being "too alive" or "too dead" as subject.

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*: By systematically sexist, I am referring to sexism that reflects itself in the laws and policies of the state, not the specific sexism of individuals or certain private corporations. 

**: For more on the body-soul relationship, check out my previous post about this subject: https://lastreviotheory.blogspot.com/2022/08/are-traps-gay-and-organs-without-body.html