The objectification of women has seemed to be a problem that is continually getting worse. Dr. Nussbaum invented a criteria that explains objectification and fashions them into seven main losses of personhood. First, objectification occurs when a being takes another person and acts as though they are only a means. The being becomes solely an object that is for everyone’s use. There is a denying of individuality. A personhood is stripped away from someone by another. The person becomes inert and lifeless. Their point of living becomes minimal because if there is no life, there is no point in complex existence. A person who is objectified is considered replaceable, like Walmart employees. There is the notion that one could always be replaced by something better. Objectification means being volatile with the ‘object’. Violability when applied to persons takes away the right of someone to be acted upon in an appropriate and caring mannerism. It is a complete denial of teleological uniqueness. Every being has hopes and dreams to become and transcend. When objectified it no longer matters because the person does not matter. Finally, objectification by one means they can own and use the being like property. Objectification is a method of destroying and stealing personhood.
Personhood is taken away from women much more than their male counterparts. Women are constantly dehumanized and forced into objectivity in the pornography industry. Most of what exists on the promiscuous internet is male-dominated, and in the perspective of what a man would want to see. Sex has become so profitable and exploited that objectification is following. The sexualization of women exists everywhere, even inside many women’s minds. Girls grow up to fill what a ‘dream man’ would want to see. In most high schools, young promiscuity equaled popularity. Kant discussed in his categorical imperative that it is morally wrong to use one as a means to an end. Using a person as an object reflects that as a person, you have no respect for others. Kant insists that persons, in order to maintain personhood themselves, must be fair and treat others as persons too. Everyday young women are videotaped, spit on, ejaculated on, and demoralized in order to maintain pleasure for men. The amount of pleasure gained for mankind by pornography DOES NOT hold weight when compared to the pain and suffering that comes from this industry influencing culture. The loss of personhood extends to the penetrators as well, because their demoralizing acts diminished their own sense of self.
Dworkin finds the pornography business to be mirrored against slavery. Modern slavery exists, but not as blatant. Dworkin discusses how women are constantly berated and judged. Women are expected to grow up and live a certain role and think a certain way. There are shackles placed in women’s minds when they grow up from the time they are born. Now, with the sexualization of women expanding, more young girls are maturating faster and feeling pressured to be more promiscuous. The pornography industry makes it seem that women are only to be sex objects and their faces or inner works do not matter. Anne Garry exposed the double standard that exists. Why does this not happen to men? Men have a sexual facticity, natural urges that cannot be controlled. Women are more refined and can control their behaviors better. Men are naturally aggressive beings, but it does not make it morally acceptable to be aggressive towards women. Men want to ‘screw or smash’ that ‘hoe’. Those words are all derogatory and demeaning to women, but for some reason that is what is culturally appropriated in the United States. Music, pornography and media are leading contributors to this ethical pandemic. It is time to open our eyes to the injustices behind the screen because they are making an everlasting impression on our youth, a.k.a. our future.