Objectification and objects

In my last post, I objected to the objectification of women in various sexist cliches like the 'evil demon seductress', the femme fatale et al...In an earlier post on 'object-oriented philosophy', I explored the positive aspects of objects. So objects are good and bad...? How is that consistent? Well, my dark comrades, it depends on what you mean by the word 'object'.

Graham Harman's object-oriented philosophy uses the concept of 'objects' in a specific way. As he writes, an 'object cannot be reduced to the definitions we give of it, because then the thing would change with each tiny change in its known properties (p. 16).' The object is specifically not limited to human limitations and purposes. It 'partly evades all announcement through its qualities, resisting or subverting efforts to identify it with any surface. It is that which exceeds any of the qualities, accidents, or relations that can be ascribed to it (p. 16).'

Therein lies the difference between an 'object' in a positive sense and how we use the word 'object' when we talk about the act of objectification. Harman's object is a deep structure. Stereotypes and cliches, on the other hand, are reflective surfaces returning the preconceived notions of the gazer. In the case of sexist stereotypes and cliches, the reflective surface reveals the misogynist ideals of the male viewer: "Mirror mirror on the wall, what woman is not a femme fatale?"

So clearly a surface like the 'femme fatale' is not an object in Harman's sense. And the act of objectification is precisely (and paradoxically) to reduce a multidimensional object into a one dimensional point in a control system where meanings and qualities are strictly defined and limited. In the case of the 'femme fatale' by men. For men.