> I can barely turn a corner anymore without being accused of objectifying women somehow. Every movie I want to watch, every video game I want to play, everything "objectifies" women somehow now, as long as it has any hint of sexuality and male demographic.
> So you haven't come across and/or recognized that yet. Good for you, you're living in an ideal future and I someday hope to join you there.
Not at all.
A huge amount of mainstream media and art is aimed towards men, marketed to men, designed to titillate men, and involves objectification of women. To be completely honest: I don't think that completely removes it of any artistic merit (or fun factor for video games) or that it means you shouldn't be allowed to enjoy it.
Similarly, I firmly would defend a woman's right to enjoy (the small, percentage wise, and often looked down upon, culturally) pieces of media which are marketed to women, aimed at women, designed to titillate women, and involve objectification of male characters.
I honestly believe that people should be allowed to enjoy the media that they enjoy as long as it isn't harming other people, as long as they are willing to do some critical thinking about what enjoying it means. If you have done some critical thinking about what your enjoying of media that objectifies women says about you, your sexuality, and etc., and are comfortable with that, then who am I to stand in your way? If, however, you believe that all media should be that way, I'd have a bone to pick. If you don't believe that all media should be that way, then perhaps you should consider sampling other forms of media (including those aimed at women! Some romance novels can be /quite/ fun: I'd personally recommend Eloisa James, as her novels are accessible, adult without being particularly pornographic, and quite intelligent, and have quite interesting female leads) or pushing for media that is more accessible for people who aren't you. If it seems like 'absolutely everything' you want to consume involves objectification of women, then perhaps your taste in media leans towards the kind of mainstream media that doesn't include well rounded female characters, and perhaps those desires would be worth delving into and examining critically.
My root point is, though, that asking for well rounded, realistic female characters in what people are marketing as the primary pieces of an art form is totally reasonable, just as it would be reasonable for me to demand art or media that doesn't only portray "tall dark handsome men who're bad boys with a streak of gold" male characters. The problem is when two dimensional characters who are comparable in depth and characterization to the male leads of some romance novels are the only or the primary examples of female protagonists, or trumpeted as beacons of equality.
> Sure, it's primarily women that fight those initiatives, but they're not acting in their capacity as a feminist. They took that hat off first.
Women, even women who identify as feminists, do not always act completely in accordance with the principles they espouse. It may surprise you to learn that religious people, democrats, republicans, libertarians, etc. also fall victim to this. I don't know the details of the things you're referencing, but tbh it sounds like a bunch of college students behaved as a mob. That kind of thing is never alright.
> Feminists say that fictional women (Barbie et. al) are representative of women as a whole, and should be treated as such. If this is the case, then a fictional female character has the right to be represented as a complete character, sexuality and all. If you're telling me it's otherwise, then why does a fictional female character's sexuality even merit discussion?
Barbie, as a product, is marketed as an ideal that all (or most) (white?) women should push towards. If there was a good, interesting range of complete portrayals of fictional women in mainstream film, television, and video games at all, then one or two or even a genre of uniform female characters wouldn't be a problem for me (or, indeed, I think most feminists--do you hear many women decrying the two dimensional female characters in grocery store spy novels, which I'd claim are probably the male equivalent of romance novels? I certainly haven't heard a lot of uproar over that.), just as a genre or piece with flat male characters wouldn't be a problem! It is when all or most representations of women in all or most media are two dimensional and unrealistic (and this is being called 'progress') that there is a problem. Unfortunately, that's largely also the current state of affairs! There has been a lot of great movement towards interesting/nonstandard female leads in recent television (Interestingly, I'd say that Mad Men comes to mind as a very strong example of this, despite its period setting.) and I think that trend is moving into movies as well, so hopefully this state of affairs won't last forever.
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/06/...
That's an interesting argument, although to be completely honest it seems kind of ridiculous. Replace "women" with "people" in that article and aside from needing to fix the statistics RE: violent crime, you have a pretty standard (if slightly overwrought) argument against imprisoning most nonviolent offenders--which isn't completely beyond the pale and something I could get behind.
> http://metronews.ca/news/ottawa/1000093/protesters-shut-down...
College students are dumb. They always have been, they probably always will be. The funny thing is, they almost certainly have legitimate complaints about the campus culture, society, and the world, but they're likely behaving in such a juvenile fashion because they feel like it's one of the few ways they /can/ affect change. Judging every anti-war protester by the actions of the Weathermen would also paint a pretty bad picture of anti-war protest.