Because woman = commodity…

I saw the headline for this article, that headline being “Naomi Watts is world’s most profitable actress” and thought: “Hmmm. ‘Profitable’ is usually used to describe to a thing, an object, a commodity. Fuck.” Then I thought: “Please tell me that’s just the sub-editor, and that the article is actually about women AND men, because it’s bad enough treating people as commodities in the first place, but…”

And then I clicked through to the article and found that no, it’s just about how much money can be made through the commodification of women in films. Nothing about male actors.

The assumption I immediately made was that someone has clearly realised – even if subconsciously – that it would be demeaning to men to treat them in this way, as commodities.

And then I thought: “I wonder whether it’s the people who compiled the list or the reporter that’s at fault?” So I clicked through to Forbes and, whaddayaknow? It’s Forbes’s list, and there’s not clearly a comparable one for men (nothing in the “related links” section, for example).

Then I did a search for “profitable actors”, and found that there was an equivalent list for men, put out over a month ago. So, ok, Forbes is off the hook. Mostly.

But what about the good old SMH, where I spotted the story in the first place? I wouldn’t necessarily have noticed the article on men a month ago, even if it was accompanied by a picture and a splash in the sidebar, like this one was. So I used both the SMH’s internal search engine and google – but nope, no result.

Good on ya, SMH, for being so happy to splash words around about women being treated as commodities! Thanks for contributing to the sexism we are all soaking in.