Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post comes to us via Emily Matthews. Emily is currently applying to masters degree programs across the U.S., and loves to read about new research into health care, gender issues, and literature. Emily lives and writes in Seattle, Washington.

Objectifying women when they want is to be heard is nothing new. But to demean women, as Steven Greenstreet did in “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street”, in a venue where Americans should be joining together to speak up for the disenfranchised class that has risen to an estimated 99% of the population, is in especially poor taste. Trivializing women by focusing on their hair, lips, and eyes goes beyond a minor social transgression.

Much like the crime the banks perpetrated against American citizens, objectification is yet another form of exploitation that renders its victims surprised and speechless at first, without an automatic recourse. The damage is done before the victim knows what happened. It doesn’t take  masters degree to see that this act parallels what happened to the average American citizen when the banks’ and investment houses’ greed left most citizens stunned, with diminishing investments and few job prospects, Greenstreet has robbed these women in his video of the right to say, “No.” He invaded their privacy and paraded their images across America in his video for his own enjoyment.

Women across the country weighed in on Greenstreet’s stunt. [Read more...]