Earlier this month we exposed Calendar Club, a retail pop-up store selling a range of porn-themed calendars including sexualised pin-ups depicting women as sexual playthings for male entertainment. You don’t even have to walk into a store to see them – they are right out in the open in busy shopping centre thoroughfares, and in full view of children.
Collective Shout supporters have contacted the retailer and received dismissive cut and paste responses (see below).
Here's our response to these weak justifications for flogging these sexist and degrading products:
“We understand this is a sensitive issue”
The term “sensitive” suggests a need to approach the issue delicately, as those objecting might be easily offended – or “sensitive.” But objecting to the harmful objectification of women has never been about offence or personal taste - it is about the established real-world harms to women, regardless of how any individual might feel about it. One individual might find the images tasteless. Another may not. But this is beside the point. Treating women like sexual playthings for men’s entertainment and use does actual harm to women and girls.
“We appreciate that you may have a different view”
Our ‘view’ – that treating women like things harms women and girls – is not merely an opinion, it is a fact backed up by more than 30 years of empirical research. The evidence shows how sexualising and objectifying portrayals of women contribute to the dehumanisation of women, harm women’s physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, and contribute to men’s violence against women.
Is Calendar Club’s view that it is appropriate and acceptable to objectify and dehumanise women as long as there is money to be made?
“We do not sell pornography or anything illegal”
This is a pretty low bar. Technically it's not illegal to portray women as porn fantasies. But that doesn't mean it's ethical and consistent with Corporate Social Responsibility obligations - and the claims of the big shopping centres that they care about the community. Calendar Club not only profits from these porn-inspired representations of women as masturbation material for men, they do it in public shopping centres and in full view of children. While it may not be illegal to dehumanise women for profit, it is unethical and a failure of Corporate Social Responsibility.
“None of our calendars contain any nudity”
Again, the bar is low. Calendar Club defines a microscopic piece of string between the model’s naked butt cheeks as clothing.
We reiterate that women are harmed by sexist and objectifying portrayals whether there is nudity or not. Imagery depicting women as only bodies, parts of bodies, which denies their humanity or portrays them as existing for men’s sexual use constitutes objectification. When a woman is portrayed as a thing, or as something to serve a function (i.e. men’s sexual gratification) this harms women.
A number of studies have found that the way people perceive and process sexualised images of women is more in line with how we process objects than how we process people. Exposure to sexually objectifying representations of women can trigger a shift in perception of women as a social category to women as objects.
Sexually objectified women are often perceived as having less competence, intelligence, warmth and morality – some of the most basic aspects of personhood. As sexually objectified women are ascribed less humanity, they are seen as less deserving of empathy.
Media which objectifies women sends the message that women are sexual instruments that should behave in ways that facilitate male sexual gratification – promoting women’s role in providing male sexual pleasure and undermining their humanity.
Essentially, the more men consume media that sexually objectifies women, the more they think of women as objects that exist for their sexual enjoyment. The belief that women are objects rather than fully human affects how women are viewed and treated.
“Our range features both female and male models”
Translation: “We occasionally objectify men too, so it’s okay!” First, we don’t support ‘equal-opportunity’ objectification. Treating any person as a thing for someone else’s use is harmful. However, while both men and women can be sexualised, it is primarily women who are being objectified, and women who are far more likely to be negatively impacted by objectification.
Women are routinely sexualised and objectified in mainstream popular culture. Hypersexualised representations of women in media and advertising are everywhere. Women are positioned as passive, decorative objects, reduced to a collection of sexualised body parts, defined by their physical attractiveness and sexual availability, and even depicted as (still glamorous) victims of violence. Women’s sexualised bodies are used to sell everything from beer to burgers to organ donation.
While both men and women can be objectified, the outcome is not necessarily the same.
We live in a culture in which the value of women and girls is determined in large part by their physical beauty and sexual appeal, to the exclusion of their intellect, abilities and contributions to the world. This treatment does not extend to men.
When men are sexualised in media and advertising (and Calendar Club’s Fireman calendars) they are not typically demeaned, portrayed as decorative objects or posed as vulnerable and submissive in the ways that women are. Men are also rarely dismembered and presented as a collection of sexualised or individual body parts. Instead, men are depicted as hyper-masculine and strong.
The sexualising and objectifying treatment of men may serve to enhance their power and status rather than to reduce it. The objectification of women, on the other hand, disempowers them – and is a known contributor to men’s violence against them.
“Some calendars raise money for charity”
Sexism doesn’t cease to be sexism, or to be harmful, because money can be made from it. And call us cynical, but we doubt the intention behind Calendar Club’s sexist and porn-themed calendars is altruistic.
We’ve added Calendar Club to our annual Crossed Off list of corporate offenders who objectify women and sexualise girls for profit. Give them a miss this year – and let them know what you think of their profiting from objectification.
TAKE ACTION
Head to Calendar Club's website.
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See also:
"Is there any woman they won't sexualise?": Ditch the p*rny calendars, Calendar Club
How sexualisation and objectification harms women and girls: What the research says
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