Ladies, Don't Be Just Another Slave Girl

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Just in time for Comic Con, this Break.com PSA reminds ladies that there are more sexy female cosplay costumes besides the classic princess Leia salve outfit. We'll soon see if this has any impact on the female cosplayers visiting the convention this year, but honestly, there is always a ton of variety at the convention.

Via Laughing Squid

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However, as Bartky points out, objectifier and objectified can be one and the same person. Women in patriarchal societies feel constantly watched by men, much like the prisoners of the Panopticon (model prison proposed by Bentham), and they feel the need to look sensually pleasing to men (Bartky 1990, 65). According to Bartky: ‘In the regime of institutionalised heterosexuality woman must make herself ‘object and prey’ for the man. … Woman lives her body as seen by another, by an anonymous patriarchal Other’ (Bartky 1990, 73). This leads women to objectify their own persons. Bartky argues that the woman ‘[takes] toward her own person the attitude of the man. She will then take erotic satisfaction in her physical self, revelling in her body as a beautiful object to be gazed at and decorated’. Such an attitude is called ‘narcissism’, which is defined by Bartky as the infatuation with one's bodily being (Bartky 1990, 131–2).

Interesting, because Gautama, oh, some 2500 years earlier, said:

"A woman of the world is anxious to exhibit her form and shape,
whether walking, standing, sitting, or sleeping.
Even when represented as a picture,
she desires to captivate with the charms of her beauty,
and thus to rob men of their steadfast heart. "

So maybe, "patriarchical" is giving too much credit to men and not enough to women for their sexual objectification of themselves.