The Object of Desire

“Love is consent to the fact that there is authentic otherness.” – George Grant

“The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today’s woman has become her ‘beauty.’” – Naomi Wolf

George Grant was a 20^th-century Christian philosopher and Naomi Wolf is a contemporary secular feminist, instrumental in the rise of Third-Wave Feminism. But the two seem to express similar sentiments. Objectification of other human beings is always wrong. Every human person is free unto himself and must be recognized as such. To objectify another thinking being is to transform a person into something for one’s own use or gratification. Their choices of words obscure this fact, but there is commonality.

What I find most stunning about this is how little common ground feminists and Christians have managed to find. Admittedly, their paths may ultimately diverge, but to work against a culture and society bent on objectification through diverse phenomena seems a common goal, a goal worth striving toward.

For Christians, their opposition is rooted in God’s love for His creation. Every single human being is sacred insofar as he is made in the image of the divine. It is to play God to turn another person into nothing more than a means for power, psychological gratification, or lust. As St. Augustine said, “If you love the Head, you love also the members; if you love not the members, neither do you love the Head.” Or as Anti-Climacus would have put it, to love other human beings means to love God.

Secular feminists are opposed to objectification because men have too long claimed absolute authority over women. For millennia women have been unable to fulfill most positions by fiat and their bodies have too often been used purely for the gratification of their mates. A woman is no more an object than any other human being is.

That is true both for Christians (and perhaps most religious people) and feminists. In that sense, the two need not see each other as antagonistically as they often do. Perhaps secular feminists and believers have long sought different means and even different ends, but there is some common ground.

Naomi Wolf once said, “Abortion should be legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Sometimes the mother must be able to decide that the fetus, in its full humanity, must die.” As I am sure that scares many Christians, I would respond with the words of St. Augustine: “For He foresaw that many would pay Him homage because of His glory in heaven, but that their homage would be vain, so long as they despise His members on earth.” Love is the path and love is an end in itself. Begin in love and let meaningful dialogue begin.