Beautiful Women Have a Hard Life

With recent events (the Fappening and Ray Rice's assault charges in particular), I've been thinking about how women are viewed in our society and I wanted to address some of the conclusions I've come to.

Women are Either Pretty or Worthless

When a male politician is condemned, the speaker attacks his policies, his voting record, and his political leanings.  When the same is done with a female politician, the same criteria are taken into account, as well as her appearance.  I've encountered numerous times online (which I recognize is not the same as real life) when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton were belittled, sometimes justifiably, and inevitably someone would say how ugly they are, connecting their worth as a politician with their attractiveness.

This way of thinking dehumanizes women, turning them into objects of desire.  Now, some women have made careers putting themselves on display as models, but the same rules that apply to them should not apply to all.  We don’t objectify men in the same way at all.  Think about this: when a male actor puts on weight or otherwise "uglies up" for a role, we think that’s just part of his job; but when a female actor does it, she is making a great sacrifice for her art, because women are supposed to be pretty.

Pretty Women are Expected to Share Themselves with Everyone

Beautiful women are harassed constantly.  Ignoring assault (we'll get to that in a bit), I have heard of many complaints from attractive women that when they're alone in public, men are constantly trying to start conversations with them, usually as a way to ask for their phone number.  Whether at the store, the gym, at school, or even just walking down the street, stupid guys will hit on a woman, simply because she's attractive.  And maybe we could say "Well, there’s no harm in trying," bu when faced with rejection, many guys will turn and insult his former object of affection for not being interested in talking to a stranger.  Many girls will lie and say that they have a boyfriend to be left alone, because men find it easier to respect another man than a woman.

On a different level are female celebrities.  While the recent leak of personal celebrity photos was a big one, it's nothing new.  Our celebrity worshiping culture is obsessed with anyone even arbitrarily famous.  But make no mistake, woman have it worst.  Case in point, one argument in favor of the leaked photos is that they shouldn't have taken any pictures that they didn't want leaked to the public.  That argument falls apart when you consider that none of the photos were of male celebrities.  People want to justify their curiosity and criminal behavior by turning it around on the victims.  The only time a male celebrity has a personal photo leaked is when he accidentally (or "accidentally") releases it himself.

Men are not Responsible for Their Actions When Women are involved

The other day when I was in the locker room at my gym changing into my workout clothes, I heard a couple of other patrons discussing the Raven's decision to suspend Ray Rice for assaulting his fiancee.  Since I don’t follow sports or sport news, this was my introduction to topic.  These two guys at my gym were justifying Rice beating his fiancee because "you know how women be."  Like I said, I wasn't familiar with the issue, but I was dumbfounded that they were trying to make it the victim's fault.  This is just another version of "she was asking for it" and I’m ashamed that we still live in a society where that argument holds water.

When I actually made it out to the gym floor, I saw one of the TVs showing a loop of the surveillance footage that filmed Rice hitting his fiancee and knocking her off her feet.  And he was only suspended?  The leniency shown to him is pretty shocking on its own.

I wish I had solutions to solve these despicable problems.  Unfortunately, the state in which we find ourselves living in has been developing for a long time, so it will take a long time to undo.  However, I believe that my opinions in this matter stem from my faith and knowledge of the gospel.  As we work to share the gospel with the rest of the world, these problems can start to go away.  A woman shouldn't have to fear harassment or worse simply because she's a woman, beautiful or not.

(And no, I still don't consider myself a feminist.)