Planned Obsolescence
“Women (especially women of colour) are bearing the burden of this capitalist invasion on human connection and all the subtly negative effects that come with it.”
Content warning: This article briefly touches on the subject of abusive relationships.
The practice of paying a dowry is extremely foreign to Western society today, and yet in every way imaginable women are still products being bought and sold in the implicit market for love and romance. Men are the consumers and the producers of female sexuality, love, and affection. Lessons taught to them by their fathers, learnt from centuries of female oppression.
This realization is hard to come to, but once you see it, you can't unsee it; all these small ways that society has encouraged us to not only internalise the language of the market but to weaponize it for oppression. Women (especially women of colour) are bearing the burden of this capitalist invasion on human connection and all the subtly negative effects that come with it.
When we live in a world that grants men money, power, and respect by virtue of their existence and forces women to earn the most basic tenets of their humanity it is only natural that the woman is the product and the man is the consumer. Men are the profiteers in the market that crowds the feminine form and forces women into their place on the shelf.
That then begs the question - what are they consuming?
In truth, the answer is whatever they may desire. When the market outside is rooted in consuming and discarding, we empower men to view women as assets to buy into and opt out of, not people with the same autonomy as themselves. In turn, women become commodities that gain and lose value based on what they might offer - they are like multipurpose appliances, new phones with different, better specs, with more or less to offer. This reduction of women to tools empowers men to use them as such.
Love, children, kindness all become upgrades that elevate female value, characteristics that maintain the patriarchal society that holds our bodies and minds hostage. Who we are is a question that fades into the background, as we market ourselves based on what we can offer. These aren’t shakable aspects of femininity, we carry the burdens of this constant market into every part of life and in turn men continue to “shop” wherever they can.
The modeling industry is dominated by women managed (primarily) by men, that sell to us “average women” an image of sexual perfection, and show men the best that their capital (social, cultural, or monetary) can buy. When I spoke to Ellie, a university student and part time model, she expressed to me her thoughts on this driving force in the modelling industry;
“They [female models] represent what men are supposed to desire, and what women are meant to become to gain the desire of those men. When you don’t fit the archetype of that desire, you are expected to change yourself, to consume the objects supposedly used by these ideal figures in order to imitate them. In the industry, there is a strong pressure to fit the mold of the ideal model, to embody that natural perfection.”
This idea of the perfect woman is simultaneously accessed and obscured by the artificial. The current state of the industry glorifies an image of white beauty, even when it attempts to be “diverse” it continues to place that “natural perfection” as the standard. The women we are meant to aspire to be come to us prepackaged in glistening shrinkwrap on the highest shelves pushing us a vision of ethereal beauty augmented by photoshop but their beauty isn’t inherently abrasive or oppressive - the commodification of their form is. Women on both sides of shrinkwrap are ultimately suffering from the images we continue to see, but in the professional capacity models are undoubtedly worse off.
The lines between the professional and romantic are so often blurred. Ellie highlighted how flirtation is at times necessary for advancement, that casual touches and coy glances make or break your modelling future. Saying;
“There can be a lot of unnecessary touching to fix how clothing is sitting or moving your hair and sometimes it is necessary and other times it is more an act of advantage. A lot of male photographers get agitated if you reject this kind of behaviour, and in some cases it is a well known ‘secret’ that being friendly and flirty and inviting gets you better images for your portfolio, or makes it more likely for them to refer you to other jobs.”
It has become all too commonplace that accepting these subtle cues of potential romantic entanglement advances your position, but this effect isn’t unique to the modelling industry. Beyond the modelling industry, when we expand our scope into the areas of business, finance, even healthcare - these small advancements, that border on sexual harassment at worst and are wildly inappropriate at best, permeate. This was echoed by another woman I sat down with, Elaine Teo.
As Elaine put it;
“When I look across my corporate experience, especially at the start of my career, there was definitely an undercurrent there. From my observations and experiences in the workplace over 27 years, women get subjected to objectification, appearance-based judgment and unwanted, unsolicited interactions often of a flirtatious or sexual manner - often as 'jokes' which one is 'supposed not to take too seriously', yet they can still be affecting, to a degree far outstripping that of men, who can just 'get on with the job'. Which is what I definitely wanted as a woman too, but which was not always given to me.
When I have withdrawn either implicitly or explicitly from letting myself be seen in a certain objectified way - sending certain signals to say you don’t treat me this way, you don't look at me with that regard, with that intention, or with that desire - I have often noted a cooling off, a distancing and an awkwardness. To make it worse, it’s often conducted underneath the surface so it's quite challenging and you never quite know whether you are reading too much into it. To me this is a kind of gaslighting, because you are led to doubt the truth of your own lived experience and perceptions, and because there is a social and political risk to a woman to 'make a fuss' about such behaviour, so often we are led to suffer terribly in silence, suppressing our own voice because we are afraid no one will believe us if we were to raise it, or we will get ourselves and/or others 'into trouble', make things 'troublesome/embarrassing' and so on. This is especially so in cases when those who have made inappropriate comments or behaved inappropriately are popular or in senior positions. I consider myself fortunate compared to other women I know that I have received unwelcome and inappropriate behaviours relatively mildly. But these experiences still leave their scars on me. No one should have to be subjected to such unwanted and distressing experiences.”
The question here is who gave men the right to feel so entitled, to feel so empowered to look at and touch the women they work with in that way. The pressure of sexual advancement is a flagrant abuse of the power men have by simply existing in the workspace only further marginalizes women who now doubt their own experiences and fear speaking up about them. And yet it is her sudden rejection of this subtle lust and attraction makes her less worthy as a coworker?
Everyone, June 17th by Annie Savoy
Female value is directly related to what romantic prospects women offer. We could be the most drop-dead gorgeous model or the most qualified and diligent employee but none of it matters if you aren’t partaking in the quiet sexual politics at play in the background. Television and media teach us to demonise women who “sleep their way to the top” but praise and deify the men who allow for that to be an option.
Whether men are saying it explicitly or not, in or out of the workplace, the quickest way to earning the jaded form of respect they offer to women is by leaving yourself open as a sexual conquest. The juxtaposition is clear, women can't view men as opportunities but men are free to see them as sex dolls. Love and sex are all things men get to see as gateways to respect. When you, as a woman, have to trade in your romantic attention, love, or sex for the feeble respect men have to offer we internalise an idea of love that is rooted in transaction.
Eventually that value runs out as well.
The problem with the way men are socialised is that society encourages them to take and take until either they have taken all that they need or the unfortunate object of their affection has given all that they can.
There is a lot of discussion of what it means to be in a toxic relationship, when I discussed this with Elaine she commented saying: " It’s toxic because it leaves you feeling uncomfortable to be yourself or to be seen” But what are we unconsciously afraid of men seeing?
The answer is, the truth. The nature of internalising the market, of being sentient objects in the market, is that we are hyper aware of the image we are “selling.” In the back of our minds we are constantly thinking about how we are sticking to the script and reflecting only what we know our partner wants - what they desire.
This, however, is a two way street. Men are keeping up a veneer, whether it is about how much they make or how kind or caring they are, the lie is implicit. Women keep up a veneer about their values, who they are and how they look. These most basic aspects of themselves must be concealed.
In a world where happiness is so thoroughly intertwined with togetherness and relationships we all are seeking love at the detriment of ourselves and our true values. While men are gaining the most, they are gaining clout and affection, women are taught that men are often the end goal. But women, by virtue of being the ones without the power, are being shorted in this exchange.
Women must cut away at themselves to put on a show, reflect a false image - one that wants 4 kids, a big house, a high power job, and a mildly attentive husband. When we chip away at our own values and ignore our own minds and eyes we can’t live in true freedom. We are constantly stuck in the shrinkwrap, we never truly leave our place on the shelf, we are still products.
Healthy relationships can’t be transactional. As Elaine continued; “[in a healthy relationship] you are safe to be seen, you are safe to be comfortable, safe to be yourself.” Unfortunately, life isn’t filled with healthy relationships.
When I spoke with Shelly, a physicist, she told me of her own experiences with abusive and toxic relationships. She started off saying; “I thought because I was an educated person I would have seen this coming. I didn’t date people who looked up front like what they cared about was me being some sort of status symbol. I thought I would spot that a mile away but it came to bite me in a different way.”
Shelly shared with me her story of dating a relationship coach who turned out to be fundamentally incapable of handling a relationship. She was intrigued by them, they were spiritual and seemed caring and chill. She was in a place where she wanted to seek that out so she did, they dated for a year and half but she realized by the end that “I was just an object, literally I was just an object.”
There were moments where she was being blatantly gaslit in front of other people about things she was seeing and experiencing with others. Yet, the spell was impossible to break. She continued to explore the intricacies of this year and a half, all these tiny moments that upon reflection paint a clear picture of abuse and manipulation.
What resonated most throughout her story was that when she was no longer useful in one way he pivoted to abusing some other facet of her identity. Suddenly her beauty wasn’t enough, then it was her kindness, then it was her presumed maternal instinct, and so on until he crept his way into her life in unreal ways.
This all came to a head when he was physically abusive. After an altercation Shelly quickly came to understand the way her life had transformed. She knew then that all of these little acts that seemed simple at first were just getting his foot in the door for the next thing. These were just his ways of testing the waters, and her options were clear - run or stay.
While abusive and toxic relationships are the most extreme extension of this sick logic, in most long term relationships women are asked more and more until they extricate themselves from the trappings of heteronormative relationships. It’s more than just cooking and cleaning or having children, it is also the maternal gentling and the burdens of sexual performance.
It takes a toll on the women who have to go through that. As Shelly put it “It’s just incredibly demeaning and demoralizing to be treated as an object when I bring so much more than that. This is not who I am, I am a human being, I am not something that can be reduced to a list of attributes.”
The problem is that men have accepted this shopping list mentality that it's nearly impossible to leave behind. Transaction is an inherent part of the neoliberal society that awaits outside of our homes, but when society allows men to feel this undue power, this unwarranted entitlement - we bring neoliberalism home with us. It becomes something that perverts the most comfortable and seemingly incorruptible parts of human existence.
Love, romance, beauty, they all become marketplaces. The women we know become objects. The men we know, the consumers. And the uncontrollable and unsustainable logic of the market reigns, breeding toxicity and abuse wherever it goes. The boom and bust of what “a good woman” is leaves women chasing behind this or that attribute while men laze about in the complacency of a wealthy existence.
Hayley Headley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley
Annie Savoy is an American photographer who takes self-portraits and overlays them with text. She explores themes of power, longing, desire and ennui. Her pictures are risky and provocative and they question the viewer’s preconceived ideas around nudity, femininity and sex. You can find more of her work on Instagram and Twitter.