What does it mean to "objectify" someone?

You are going to open up that can o worms, subjective / objective

I would say that to objectify someone is to depersonalize / dehumanize them.

I think the philosopher Martha Nussbaum has it:

* Instrumentality – treating as a tool for one’s own purposes;
* Denial of autonomy – treating as if lacking in self-determination;
* Inertness – treating as if lacking in agency;
* Ownership – treating as if owned by another;
* Fungibility – treating as if interchangeable;
* Violability – treating as if permissible to smash;
* and the denial of subjectivity – treating as if there is no need to show concern for the ‘object’s’ feelings and experiences.

I’ve gone through this with a few people and the above description rings bitterly true.

Feminists and maybe even non-feminists seem to complain that men judge women by their beauty and sexiness only, and nothing else. Women become sex objects. They are valuable only insofar as they please the man sexually and confer status upon him because of their beauty.

The opposite gender objectification is when women treat men as success objects. The women don’t care about anything but the size of the man’s wallet.

It’s ignoring the individual personhood. When a man treats a woman as if she is interchangeable with any other woman, that’s objectifying her.

If the man doesn’t care about her feelings because he’s only interested in what use she is to him (as in, sexually), that’s objectifying her. If he doesn’t care about her feelings for other reasons—because she’s an ex and he’s tired of the drama and just wants her to GO AWAY—that’s not really objectifying her.

@daloon So what happens when those two types marry each other?

leading question

definitely means to dehumanize a person. like using words like sand n@!#$r or chink, or terrorist, makes them easier for people to scream for their blood.
Oops, got a bit political on that one.

I’m just about to start studying philosophy so i need to start getting my head round these things… omg what have i let myself in for!

some schools of thought would suggest that we are all merely objects anyway and that therefore it is not possible to depersonalise anything since we are all objects and therefore subjective and can never just see a box as a box…

she’s making it up!!!

It is a pretty broad term that can be applied in many different situations. However, generally speaking when you objectify someone you typically ignore their qualities that make them human, and only acknowledge their other qualities. For example, strippers are objectified and the only quality that is important is their ability to attract.

@cprevite: They stay together until the man thinks she looks too old, and then she takes him for half his estate—or rather, half his visible estate. Unless they signed a prenup, in which case she gets whatever she agreed to in the beginning.

He’s a john. She’s a ho. Everyone’s happy.

Yes, the definition could include those words, it comes from regarding the person as an object, callously disregarding feelings, or individual traits. It specifically mean seeing a person as an object, such as a statue with no human characteristics.

Theres a girl in my office that i often think of as a table.
she just sort of stands around holding things.

Silly humans, we objectify the person and personify the object.

All hail the mighty ego!