Stop Staring: Why Are We Obsessed With Breasts?

By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted February 12, 2009.

But, you're right about my reference to "beautiful women" rather than just women in general. All women deserve respectful attention. 

CricketDave wonders if there is a solution:

Can't we get over our obsession with breasts?

Well, no, probably not. Certainly not unless we try to figure out the cause of the obsession and to identify some treatments for it. The author wrote nothing in that direction; instead, she simply described the problem. Very thoroughly.

...

Though I don't like to be pessimistic (really I don't), I for one do not see a solution in the big picture. Neither does this author, evidently, or she'd have described it. After all, we're primates; we have primate brains. There's just so much you can expect from us, and no more. We're not even bright enough to take care of our planet.

HeroesAll offers an obvious solution, albeit one that is difficult to put into practice:

I think there is one thing that we could do, and that's to reshape our society so that women's bodies are not commodified. Hey, I didn't say it would be easy. But our current society, driven by our badly skewed economic system, uses images of women as triggers to sell just about every product there is, and those images become progressively less nuanced and more cartoonish all the time.

Talkville agrees that the objectification of women is rooted in inequitable economic structures:

In the central economic component of Property and theories of ownership, trade, production and reproduction, exchange, etc., what can be more central than Land and Woman, the female in her concrete or elevated representational and symbolic forms?? Boobs sell!! Just like any other attribute of a woman, in theories of trade, exchange, value, etc., what can be more lucrative than the Body of a Woman? Consider the vast industries risen up around just this one Object, in its various Parts, as well as the Whole!!

So, indeed, as this writer aptly and progressively points out: it would indeed be a Great Leap Forward, one almost, but not quite, unimaginable to ... "get over it!!" Can we? A bit of Hegel might be worth checking out: this would be not a "transcendence" -- it would be an "Overcoming."

In the final analysis, it's about Property -- who has it and who doesn't and why.

henkle110936 also argues that the problem is that all aspects of our lives, including our bodies, have become commodities:

Put the blame and guilt where it belongs ... on the carnal advertising world where concepts of beauty, desirability, the "in things," the sexual standards, the "role models" for men, women and children are set in the executive rooms in order to "SELL, SELL, SELL!" Because we expose ourselves to these false standards daily, we come to believe the lie. It has nothing to do with reality or your self-concept, unless you buy into these degenerate and false ideals of human worth and value.

See more stories tagged with: media, women, sexuality, sexist, sexual harassment, breasts

Tana Ganeva is an assistant editor at AlterNet.

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