Entry 3: Male Objectification
![Picture](/uploads/1/5/4/6/15462974/7927391.jpg?313)
Hello dear sirs,
This is going to be a very interesting entry to write.
As I would like to try and have a little variety in my TOK entries, I googled the word math and clicked the news option to see whether or not there were any math related issues that I could tackle in this entry. Turns out I was right in the wrong way.
The article that caught my eye was titled “The World's Hottest Math Teacher Says He's a Victim of Male Objectification” (double meaning intended). When I clicked on the article, I found that the claims in the article’s title were justified: the math teacher was incredibly attractive. His claims that he was being objectified, though, were also justified. In the article, he described how he had been groped in the butt by female students on multiple occasions. He then discusses the double standard between men and women and how many of the things that women do to him would be completely unacceptable if the genders were swapped. I could take this entry into a debate about the double standards between men and women and rant about how “MEN JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND!”, but I have decided to look at this issue from a different angle.
Sex sells. This teacher has been modeling and posting pictures of himself on social media. In his pictures, from the way he is under-dressed and his poses, it is clear that he is posting them with the intention of being attractive. After seeing the pictures of their teacher, the attitudes of the female students completely changed. Instead of seeing his as a professional individual who they were to respect, they now saw him as an attractive male who was sending mating signals (as I will call them) to them. As he was now a potential mating prospect, he no longer warranted the level of respect or personal space allotted to an individual who was not a mating prospect. I am in no way saying that their actions were justified, I am only explaining them in a way that makes sense to me.
Moving on, the objectification of the teacher- regardless of his level of attractiveness- was clearly unethical, especially in the ways the students were touching him. It is also clear that the attitudes of the female students only became extreme after they viewed the modeling pictures of the teacher. This issue can therefore be translated into the following knowledge question: sense perception greatly affects ethics. That knowledge statement can then be translated into the following knowledge question: to what extent are ethics influenced by sense perception?
Please click the link below to read the article! :
http://www.etonline.com/news/163728_the_world_hottest_math_teacher_says_he_a_victim_of_male_objectification/
Please click this link to explore the knowledge question: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/15-endangered-species-that-are-still-on-the-menu/delicacy
See you next time as we continue to ponder our existence!
-Jo
This is going to be a very interesting entry to write.
As I would like to try and have a little variety in my TOK entries, I googled the word math and clicked the news option to see whether or not there were any math related issues that I could tackle in this entry. Turns out I was right in the wrong way.
The article that caught my eye was titled “The World's Hottest Math Teacher Says He's a Victim of Male Objectification” (double meaning intended). When I clicked on the article, I found that the claims in the article’s title were justified: the math teacher was incredibly attractive. His claims that he was being objectified, though, were also justified. In the article, he described how he had been groped in the butt by female students on multiple occasions. He then discusses the double standard between men and women and how many of the things that women do to him would be completely unacceptable if the genders were swapped. I could take this entry into a debate about the double standards between men and women and rant about how “MEN JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND!”, but I have decided to look at this issue from a different angle.
Sex sells. This teacher has been modeling and posting pictures of himself on social media. In his pictures, from the way he is under-dressed and his poses, it is clear that he is posting them with the intention of being attractive. After seeing the pictures of their teacher, the attitudes of the female students completely changed. Instead of seeing his as a professional individual who they were to respect, they now saw him as an attractive male who was sending mating signals (as I will call them) to them. As he was now a potential mating prospect, he no longer warranted the level of respect or personal space allotted to an individual who was not a mating prospect. I am in no way saying that their actions were justified, I am only explaining them in a way that makes sense to me.
Moving on, the objectification of the teacher- regardless of his level of attractiveness- was clearly unethical, especially in the ways the students were touching him. It is also clear that the attitudes of the female students only became extreme after they viewed the modeling pictures of the teacher. This issue can therefore be translated into the following knowledge question: sense perception greatly affects ethics. That knowledge statement can then be translated into the following knowledge question: to what extent are ethics influenced by sense perception?
Please click the link below to read the article! :
http://www.etonline.com/news/163728_the_world_hottest_math_teacher_says_he_a_victim_of_male_objectification/
Please click this link to explore the knowledge question: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/15-endangered-species-that-are-still-on-the-menu/delicacy
See you next time as we continue to ponder our existence!
-Jo