The point I’m trying to make isn’t about sexualization of women in and off itself. Woman have the right to celebrate their sexuality and there’s plenty of nutjobs that still haven’t come to terms with the sexual revolution.

But what I’m referring to is the hypersexualization of women present in things like adverts, music or film. Prior to the MeToo movement you couldn’t walk a block without spotting an highly revealing or highly suggestive advert of a woman.

Back in the sixtees, the sexualization of women served to promote ideas about the sexual revolution, bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. But decades of commercialization have reduced these ideas simply to “sex sells”.

The thing that makes the hypersexualization of women degrading imo is that it reduces women to a subject of lust, while deflecting any criticism under the pretends that women should be free to express their sexuality.

I think at least part of it is a backlash against the proliferation of pornography (its shocking just how prolific and how degrading porn actually is compared to the ‘good ‘ol days’). A lot of youngsters were first confronted with porn as children through their smartphones.

But a lot of it also has to do with changing attitudes towards woman and sexuality. We’ve had corporations marketing woman and teen girls as sex objects for decades now, but we now also have an increase of violence against woman and we have the manosphere and far-right extremists campaigning against basic woman’s rights like abortion, equal pay and whatnot.

So I guess the real question is, are more people taking offense of nudity because of their conservative beliefs? Or are more people viewing nudity in popular media as a means of sexualizing (and thus degrading) women?

The one that really stuck with me, was Brad Pitt’s ‘blink before you miss it’ scene as a waiter in No Man’s Land 😁

Yes, absolutely. Its by no means scientific (at least I’m not aware of any research on the subject), but I have worked with colleagues from Mumbai for years and I have experienced many situations in which socials norms -especially adherence to hierarchy- strongly hampered results.

In fact, this is by no means an issue limited to the Third world. In my experience this issue also pops up a lot in sectors of Western economies, such as banking, hospitals or construction. Companies that strongly value hierarchy tend to have persistent problems with things like workplace safety, compliance and innovation.

In fact, we have an unique example of how values and beliefs can hamper effectiveness and results in the form of the Trump administration. Trump blatantly favors loyalty and obedience over competence. He has effectively purged nearly all offices of government of political opponents, but in doing so he has filled the ranks with unapologetic yes-men who are utterly incompetent at their assigned task. The speed with which this has degraded the US economy, military power, political influence etc. is absolutely astounding and is very similar to countries considered ‘Third World’.

I get your point: by engaging in this social, economical and political system we are all complicit in the crimes perpetrated in Gaza. But moralism alone won’t actually get you far. The problem isn’t our collective lack of morals, it’s a lack of power.

Case in point: I live in the Netherlands, and a lot of people I know actually do feel deeply uncomfortable by this. Some actually did take to the streets in mass for several weeks. Btw, I am talking about retirees and young mothers, so not your average leftist student either.

However those that did protest quickly learned a lesson about class struggle in a Western democracy: our right-winged parlement didn’t budge an inch. Instead it turned the PR-machine on them, branding them as ‘troublemakers‘, ‘wokists’ and even ‘Islamic youths’. After building the narrative for several days, it started to deploy the riot police. And once they’d mopped up the demonstrators, they blamed the damages on the heartless, antisocial demonstrators who wreaked havoc on our peaceful society.

When faced with state propaganda and state violence, most protesters eventually give up. Gaza is too distant an issue for them to risk sacrificing their social status, relationships or even personal safety. People nowadays are also deeply apolitical, so these protests typically aren’t part of any rooted and well organized opposition.

Back in the 1960’s or 1970’s you had workers parties that would actually connect different groups and social issues to the wider narrative of class struggle and organize sustained and effective opposition. Workers parties could actually throw in in their weight to somewhat counterbalance the state narrative and even attempts at suppressing protests.

But the fall of communism and the rise of neoliberalism effectively killed the political left. Conservatism and corporatism are now the leading ideologies in Western governments. Therefore solidarity with Gaza is quickly branded as extremism. And if the movement then doesn’t dissipate on its own, it is often actively suppressed.