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Thursday, April 23, 2015

"You wear that outfit, and men look at you, and it cheapens you. But when I wear it, it cheapens them"

Via a comment on Empowering Versus Objectifying: How Power Matters:

Classic X-Men 34


Mastermind (thinking): Quite decorative. The Hellfire Club has its... eccentricities when it comes to style. A dress code that can symbolize a power and wealth that bars no extravagance. But on this awkward, brainless trollop...

... such possibilities are reduced to nothing. She is a mere trinket, an object in a cheap, degrading package.


Mastermind (thinking): How vulnerable and exposed she is.

And the way she allows me to just openly stare at her! It's so base it embarasses me!

Servant: Will there be anything else, Mr Wyngarde?

Sir?

Sir?


Servant (thinking): What am I doing here in this stupid place, in this outfit? My every instinct tells me it's wrong. Lord, that man is so horrible!

How he stares, how he strips me, humiliates me!

Servant: Oh, Miss Frost! Don't you just hate wearing these outfits!

I hate being gaped at, the Black King is so rude! Don't you just hate this job, this place, I mean the pay is obscene, but is it worth it?


Servant: Isn't it all so sexist? I mean, shouldn't we protest, on principle? It's our skills, as servants, that should count, not how we look. I mean, am I right?

Shouldn't we stick together, as women, and refuse to dress like this?

White Queen: What are you babbling about?

Who do you take me for? Just another servant girl?

I am The White Queen! Yes, you wear that outfit, and men look at you, and it cheapens you.


White Queen: But when I wear it, it cheapens them. Let me explain a few things about sexism, girl. It's all in what you use it for!

But it's really about personal domination.

My clothes are my battle armor! I dress to go to war! My looks and body are weapons on par with a man's fists.


White Queen: I am going to do battle now. You may come watch, as you serve us drinks -- but you will not see much.

As with the Samurai, one look tells who is the superior fighter.

The best swords stay in their scabbards.


White Queen: There is no such thing as sexism, unless you give them that power!

No one dares look at the White Queen. In that way! I fight my battles without getting a speck of dirt on my gloves, not a hair out of place!

Servant: I just don't understand! Why fight at all? Who would want that kind of power?

You're horrible! You're all horrible here.

White Queen: Idiot! Why do you think they call this the Hellfire Club?


Here, X-Men articulates a different perspective on female objectification - it is not always a bad thing.

Then again, fictional characters "cannot" give consent. Hurr hurr.
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