honey and sting

Go, read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/books/review/18egan.html?8bu&emc=bu

Then come back and talk to me. (If you aren't registered with the New York Times, you'll be prompted to do so -- no charge, no spam if you don't check off the notifications boxes.)

Basic idea: highlights the dyanamic in which "Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. . . . The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object." John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972. The author of the book being reviewed posits this hasn't much changed, that too many women are confusing sexual power with power, and objectifying themselves in the process.

The reviewer says, further, beginning with another quote from Berger: "Men survey women before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated." But things have changed a lot since 1972. Many women can buy their own plane tickets and pay their own rent. They can treat themselves. Why, then, do they persist in watching themselves through male eyes?

Discuss.