> Objectification doesn't really apply to a still image.

What the what? Care to elaborate on how that works?

> Care to elaborate on how that works?

A fully clothed women in a still image still has no personality, no interactions, no lines, no inherent character. A still image is within itself a prop or an object.

So criticising a still image for objectifying women is inherently both true but also completely redundant. Everything in a still image is static, it is an object, plants, animals, women, men, naked, fully clothed, they're all objects.

The term "objectifying women" (as a negative) originated from turning women into objects or props in situations where they wouldn't otherwise be so. So for example, you take a female character, you remove all of her lines, put her in sexy clothing, then have the male characters stand around and talk about how sexy she is. That's objectification, they've literally turned that women into an object or prop for male character's use.

Calling all sexual images of women "objectification" is simply an overreach. It also doesn't make rational sense when applied to women who couldn't have dialog, personalities, or interactions such as a still image on a t-shirt. It is pretty hard to have ANY women or man on a t-shirt who isn't an object.

You can call it "distasteful" (likely true) or "inappropriate" (again, likely true for work) but you didn't, you called it objectification which it objectively is not.

There is a problem with only thinking logically about such issues. Humans are messy and not entirely rational creatures. We're constantly seeking dominance over one another and weird emotional games come into this. No one wants to be reduced to an emblem. No one wants to be subject to a stereotype, even a positive one. In the end, we all want to be genuinely related to as people.

Strong signals of dominance, emotion, and sexuality should be experienced consensually. The reason why the "bro" stereotype is so annoying, is the apparent insistence on the others around them to feel or act a certain way. The reason why politics and political discussions are so unpleasant is that dominance instincts are brought to the fore by necessity.

I think a truly consensual society should be without the feeling of witch-hunts. I'm not sure if that's possible for human beings, though. Maybe Mao was right, and "All power comes from the end of a gun." In the end it's all the hegemony of one "tribe" over another.

An image is literally an object. It's not a woman. Objectifying an actual woman would be more clearly immoral. Objectifying a shirt - which he literally, legally owns - is not necessarily a problem.

The view that you, as an individual, bring to the world, is exactly what makes the world the way it is. That's why a shirt is a reflection of a reality. Now it is a shirt, tomorrow it is a perfume advertising image. The next day it is a man who thinks that the woman he is married to is his belonging.

That's actually the view academics such as philosopher Martha Nussbaum bring to the world.

See their definition of objectification here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification#Definitions

As you can see, doesn't apply. A static t-shirt image of any sort is always an object but never objectification, because it lacks the context it would need to be more.

Objectification was never about naked Vs. clothed. It was about how women are treated and viewed as individuals. It is about autonomy and being more than a 2D prop for male character's use.

You can be naked and still have a great deal of personality, story importance, and be respected by both male characters within the medium and the writers. See Game of Thrones. There is an absolute ton of nudity in that, and yes, there is objectification (e.g. background sex) but the show gets a pass because female leads are given a great deal of importance, autonomy, and respect. They're nobody's props or objects.

Sexual objectification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_objectification#Sexual_...