613. Commodification And Objectification Of Women Are A Teleological Fallacy

613.   Commodification And Objectification Of Women Are A Teleological Fallacy
 

Men commodifying, obectifying and abusing women are an example and specific case of the general teleological fallacy.   

As outlined in entry 612, nothing has an independent purpose.   Any purpose is always and only in a person's mind, while an object is produced, used or considered for use.   

Using something merely because of its apparent and alleged purpose sometimes seems superficially as correct behavior and thus justifiable but it is a fallacy.    No properties of any object, which make it appear as if it were perfect for application in a person's pursuit of a purpose, suffice to automatically justify or excuse the use of this object.  There is even less such justification for the use of a human being wrongly mistaken to not differ from an object.  
 

To the contrary, the use is not justified unless there are sufficient legal and moral rights.  Moral obligations require to refrain from harming people and damaging their property without consent in exceptional cases.  

The fallacy of commodifying, objectifying and abusing women is unfortunately enhanced by several factors: 

1.  Religion  
 

According to christian fairy tales, a god has allegedly created the first woman from the first man's rib only as a favor fulfilling his wish.   

This can be translated and generalized easily into the typical male fallacy of believing that 

~in the god's initial plan, men sufficed and women were superfluous.   

~the god consciously created men as beings with the property of recurrent sexual dishomeostasis.  

~a god is perfect by definition and makes not mistake, therefore the recurrent need for homeostasis is something valuable and not a fault in the design.     

~the god created women especially suitable to be used to restore male homeostasis.  He created them for the purpose to supply men with such bodies.  

=>  Therefore these men believe it to be the god's will and plan, that men use women and that all harm to women is justified by being the god's responsibility.   

2.  Natural selection
 

As sad as it is, procreation and the survival of the human species depends on the physical abuse of women's body by the harm, pain and discomfort of pregnancy and birth.     But the property of having wombs and thus being suitable to reproduce does not automatically imply, that women exist for the innate purpose of breeding.    

The more women are willing to self-abuse and the more men are inconsiderate and ruthless to abuse, the more offspring they have thus contributing to the gene-pool.  

3.  Evolution of the telos drive
 

Pararajasingham's suggests (http://www.reasonism.org/main-content/articles-by-other-authors/item/285-the-telos-drive-a-neurobiological-basis-for-religious-belief) the telos drive as an explanation for religious beliefs.    I would rather explain both religion and the teleological fallacy by the biological fact, that breeding is inherently harmful for women and would not be chosen by women, who are fully intellectually and rationally free.     

The telos drive could alternatively be explained as a co-evolutionary coping strategy due to the emerging cognitive dissonance between men's instinctive urges to use haphazard female bodies for homeostasis and the evolving cognition and ability to have empathy, which enable men theoretically to appreciate women's brains along with learning to solve survival problems by reasoning and to use self-control motivated by consideration.
Would they only solve this dissonance by having an isolated belief of women existing for their use and convenience, this would easily be recognized as irrational.   But a more general dysfunction of the brain towards teleological thinking and a telos drive make the belief of women existing for men's purposes consistent with the more ubiquitous fallacy of imputing a purpose to life, to the universe and to the will of some creator.  
  

Promiscuity and the teleological fallacy of believing that women only exist for the purpose of maintaining male sexual homeostasis are two sides of the same coin.   Promiscuity is the logical behavioral expression of this false belief.   
The teleological fallacy of ascribing to women the purpose of being used enables, enhances and reinforces promiscuity.    

Unfortunately it is very difficult for some men to gain insight and awareness, that acting based upon a fallacy of an alleged purpose can be morally wrong due to harming the victims.   The denial of the victims' suffering is a part to the fallacy of ascribing a purpose.    In reality, the fallacy of women's purpose to be used by promiscuous men does not diminish the harm to the women, it only disables men from comprehending, what harm they do.