Hey, a little late to the party (I entirely blame WFA for taking so long to update, and not my own inability to read around ;)), but there's a few things I wanted to mention, with regards Mr Mouse's original post and your response to it.
Firstly, I by and large agree with what you're putting forward, particularly the latter part of your entry, about the problem of conflating the act of sexualising something with simply finding something sexy - something which Mr Mouse seems to be doing.
I also think that Mr Mouse was being overly facetious with his argument - I doubt (and I'm sure you don't believe) that he was seriously trying to argue that Wonder Woman's outfit was entirely identical to underwear. However, at the same time I think you may be a little too critical of his depiction of it thus: as you point out, her outfit is somewhat impractical for its purpose, and indeed male superheroes tend to be better covered by their outfits (even if many of said outfits are so skin-tight as to be seemingly useless as protection). While Mr Mouse may take things too far, he is in his own way drawing attention to the exact same problem - that female characters (specifically WW) are drawn in a way which is already somewhat sexualised, accentuating their sexual attraction.
Aside from that, I have only one other comment to make, and to be honest, it's the one thing in your post I really disagreed with: "SEXUALIZATION is something that is done to a person**. When directed at women, sexualization is almost always an act of sexism."
I agree with the sentiment somewhat, but I would argue that a fairer analysis would be "SEXUALIZATION is something that is done to a person**. Sexualization is almost always an act of sexism.". I'm not going to pretend that it's anything near as big a problem for men than it is for women (i.e. it's far more commonly applied to women, and still generally seen as more socially acceptable for men to sexualise women than vice-versa), but it's important to bear in mind that objectification (and what is sexualisation if not a specific form of objectification?) is a problem even if the person being targeted is a white male.
Um, and that's it. If you disagree with me utterly I'd be happy to hear your (or anybody else's) response - similarly, if I've mis-interpreted you, please let me know!
(PS - my second attempt at posting this - the first one contained a typo which made one of my arguments entirely nonsensical. Hopefully tidied up now!)
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Firstly, I by and large agree with what you're putting forward, particularly the latter part of your entry, about the problem of conflating the act of sexualising something with simply finding something sexy - something which Mr Mouse seems to be doing.
I also think that Mr Mouse was being overly facetious with his argument - I doubt (and I'm sure you don't believe) that he was seriously trying to argue that Wonder Woman's outfit was entirely identical to underwear. However, at the same time I think you may be a little too critical of his depiction of it thus: as you point out, her outfit is somewhat impractical for its purpose, and indeed male superheroes tend to be better covered by their outfits (even if many of said outfits are so skin-tight as to be seemingly useless as protection). While Mr Mouse may take things too far, he is in his own way drawing attention to the exact same problem - that female characters (specifically WW) are drawn in a way which is already somewhat sexualised, accentuating their sexual attraction.
Aside from that, I have only one other comment to make, and to be honest, it's the one thing in your post I really disagreed with: "SEXUALIZATION is something that is done to a person**. When directed at women, sexualization is almost always an act of sexism."
I agree with the sentiment somewhat, but I would argue that a fairer analysis would be "SEXUALIZATION is something that is done to a person**. Sexualization is almost always an act of sexism.". I'm not going to pretend that it's anything near as big a problem for men than it is for women (i.e. it's far more commonly applied to women, and still generally seen as more socially acceptable for men to sexualise women than vice-versa), but it's important to bear in mind that objectification (and what is sexualisation if not a specific form of objectification?) is a problem even if the person being targeted is a white male.
Um, and that's it. If you disagree with me utterly I'd be happy to hear your (or anybody else's) response - similarly, if I've mis-interpreted you, please let me know!
(PS - my second attempt at posting this - the first one contained a typo which made one of my arguments entirely nonsensical. Hopefully tidied up now!)