From: rdh@veritas.COM (Robert Hartman)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: man discovers why pin-ups at work are inherently offensive
Date: 4 Sep 92 22:19:23 GMT
Organization: VERITAS Software

Actually, there are two parts to this.  The first has to do with the
question of whether or not a person needs a reason to justify taking
offense at another's taste in workplace decorations, and asking that
they be removed.  After reading about the function of pin-ups in the
workplace as explained by Naomi Wolf in _The_Beauty_Myth,_ the issue
became clear to me.  However, I then wondered why it _had_ to be
explained to me for me to come around.  Why couldn't I just take
women's words for it?

Is it patronizing to ask that a woman explain why she should feel
offended by something?  I can see where it could appear that way.  But
would there be any difference if it were a man raising the objection?

It seems to me that unless a man is part of the local elite, when he
raises an objection that he can't fully articulate, he's typically
rebuffed by men and women alike.  Even when _he_ is part of the elite,
he's regarded as a jerk if he can't justify his injunctions--whether
or not he turns out later to have been right.  Does this mean that men
patronize each other where such sensibilities are concerned?  Perhaps.
But I think most women would have a hard time accepting an injunction
from me "just because I don't like it."  I suspect most men might feel
the same way, whoever such an edict came from.

But that is a bit of a side-issue.  The main issue here has to do with
Wolf's the case against pin-ups.  Her thesis in the book seems to be
that for whatever reason, the cultural imperative to exploit women and
keep them in their place is as active as ever--it's just shifted
guises.  In the '50s and '60s, the mythical role that kept women in
their place was the happy housewife.  Since that myth no longer serves
its function, the myth that grew up in its place is that of
unattainable beauty--which in its way is far more effective.  Since it
entirely subjective and cannot be directly defined, it cannot be
directly refuted.  While a woman can say, "I don't want to be a
housewife," how can a woman say she "doesn't want to be beautiful?"

Now, Wolf argues, in addition to doing the work expected of a man and
then some on the job, the propaganda machine sets expectations for a
woman that require her to take on what amounts to a second or third
shift to maintain a standard of appearance that is both impossible,
and leaves her vulnerable to sexual harrassment.  The presence of
pin-ups in the workplace emphasizes both the impossibility of the
standard for most women, and a woman's vulnerability to sexual
harrassment she does manage to approach it.

If I may quote her (pages 51-52):

"Pinups in the workplace are metaphors for the larger issues of how
the Iron Maiden [anorexic] imagery is used to keep women down on the
job.  At the Shoemaker Mine in the United States, when women coal
miners joined the work force, graffiti appeared that targeted for
ridicule individual women's breasts and genitals; a woman with small
breasts, for instance, was called "inverted nipples."  Faced with such
scrutiny, reports legal scholar Rosemarie Tong, 'the female miners
found it increasingly difficult to maintain their self-respect, and
their personal and professional lives began to deteriorate.'  ...
Women interviewed said that when pinups are on the walls, they feel
direct comparisons are being made.  ... But neither the American nor
the British judicial system shows insight into the fact that this kind
of harrassment is intended to make women in the workplace feel
physically worthless, especially in comparison with the men.  ...  In
fostering in women the feeling of ugliness--or, if their "beauty" is
the target, of exposure and foolishness--it should not have to _lead_
to another injury, ... in order to be understood as discriminatory; it
_is_ already an injury."

Now, as a man who has had occasion to look at pin-ups with both lust
and yearning, I can honestly say that the thought has never crossed my
mind to use them as a deliberate means for putting real women down.

However, the writing that accompanies the pictures often puts forth
such degrading attitudes toward women that I can see where men and
women both might get the idea that this is what pinups are for.  The
fact that they can and are apparently often used that way means that
those simple souls who "just like to look" would be better off doing
so at home.

-r

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