(June 9, 2013 at 1:17 pm)Dena Wrote: Me? I try to treat them as a person. I acknowledge their presence, make eye contact, smile, say thank you and consider them an actual person with thoughts and feelings. So no, I try not to treat them as if they exist only for the purpose of preparing and handing me food.
And that's applaudable. I have worked many retail and fast food jobs so I appreciate that you treat those workers kindly. But treating them kindly doesn't mean they aren't being objectified. If you come to the counter and the guy behind it expresses that he won't be taking your order because his girlfriend broke up with him and he's feeling too depressed to work, chances are you won't be taking that excuse and neither will his manager. If it was your friend behind the counter (someone you have a close inter-personal relationship with) you would be more likely to have enough empathy towards his situation to not care if he is going to cook your burger. But with someone you don't know, you are more likely to report him to a manager and put his job in jeopardy, despite that he may be a father of three with a wife in chemo. Because in the end, he didn't cook your burger.
(June 9, 2013 at 1:17 pm)Dena Wrote: Making an excuse for bad behavior based on another similar behavior isn't much of an excuse anyway. I've seen fast food works and retail workers being treated like shit. That isn't an excuse to portray women as sexual objects void of thoughts, feelings and autonomy.
It's not that I think that sexual objectification is right, but look at it this way. As a dude I can tell you that I have absolutely no hope that men will ever stop objectifying women. Some of us may be able to, but for the vast majority of guys you are asking for something impossible. However, I do believe it is entirely possible that women should be able to sexually objectify men equally. For me I see no reason why we cannot put sex on ground level rather than putting it on the pedestal as something of great significance. Women should be allowed to objectify men as equall as men do to women.
