“In my utopian alternative, society would be less concerned with aesthetics and more concerned with their auditory perceptions.”
Listen
Modesty is made for men who gaze,
spectacles are sent to sinfully seduce,
objects othered by ogling egos,
value invisible unless it’s visual.
Old used bodies are out of order,
pristine virgins are void of guilt,
people paid are pleasure tools:
interchangeable individuals.
Art aesthetics —an apt excuse—
ethnic exclusion or exhibition.
Women’s work is tamed or “wild,”
models merely a mirror for man.
Stereotypes of society stifle,
phallic phantom in females’ minds.
Reinforced standards irrevocably wrought,
sexual subversion a sensitive bind.
Doing looks denotes our difference:
physical features to floating norms.
Words are thoughts that lead the way,
focused ears will follow.
*
A lot of the issues identified in the course readings for “Bodies at Work” are consequences of society’s emphasis on the visual. I think that individual differentiation and features are important, but people tend to use physical appearance as a way of categorizing without discretion; for example, through what Elizabeth Wissinger refers to as “lookism.” In my utopian alternative, society would be less concerned with aesthetics and more concerned with their auditory perceptions.
Iris Marion Young’s alternative metaphysics of objects suggests that our separation of object and subject was established in response to the distance afforded by the male gaze. Therefore, if the gaze was replaced by the simultaneous nature of touch, there would be “no clear opposition between subject and object”[1.Iris Marion Young, On Female Body Experience: “On Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays (New York: Oxford University Press), 2005. 81.] Additionally, if value was derived from what an individual has to say—rather than what they look like—prejudices and classifications based on inconsequential physical differences would be reduced.