Sunday, April 17, 2016

Reification: Feminism's Greatest Obstacle Is That Feminism Is Part Of The Problem

Alan: In Catholic moral theology, the word "reification" - i.e., the "thingification" of people - is the linchpin of moral degradation in interpersonal relationship.

As soon as we reify another person, we submerge ourselves in serious moral hazard.

Alternatively, if you avoid reification by keeping The Other's personhood front and center, you're on solid moral footing.

MY BODY MY SELFIE

Feminism’s greatest obstacle in the digital age is the commodification of women’s bodies

“SEND NOODZ.” Thirteen-year-old boys are real artists with their text messages. What brevity! What charm! This all-caps imperative sets the tone for Nancy Jo Sales’s alarming new book, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers.

Sales spent two and a half years interviewing over 200 teenage girls across 10 states about their online experiences. While heralded by many reviewers as a “harrowing” window into the teenage mind, Sales’ book is actually an early look at thingification–one of feminism’s greatest obstacles in the digital age.

By thingification, I mean the making of ourselves into “things”–commodities for others’ consumption. By turning our lives into a series of images, and attempting to be desired or “liked” by everyone, we end up in a state of alienation–both from others and from ourselves.

This state of being is at odds with the goals of feminism, which is at its core defined by “self-respect, and respect for others,” as Sales observes in her conclusion. It’s only by engaging with people IRL—in real life and in the flesh—that we can truly treat them as human beings, rather than as objects. One issue is the dehumanizing effect of screens, which create distance between people and frequently foster cruelty. But the larger problem is our constant need to reduce people to inanimate objects in order to easily categorize and describe them. “People wan[t] other people to be things so that they c[an] be dealt with,” writes the late lesbian feminist critic Barbara Johnson in her collection of essaysPersons and Things. “Treating people as things [is what] we normally do, and that reassures us.”

“Everything’s about the likes”

“I guarantee you,” a 17-year-old girl named Teresa tells Sales, “every girl wishes she could get three hundred likes on her pictures. Because that means you’re the girl everybody wants to fuck. And everybody wants to be the girl everybody wants to fuck.”