I'll take things a bit out of order here...
Just to be clear: I do think it's wrong to objectify women (in the way I think 'objectify' means). Real women, that is. I find it hard to muster any indignation about treatment of women in the abstract and even more so about treatment of bits of colored pigments on paper.
I think how women are portrayed in media, whether 'real' women or otherwise, is equally important.
I guess I have to ask what you mean by 'objectifying women' and why you think it's bad, then.
I've tried to avoid writing a wall of text, but I'm really getting the urge! Thankfully I *need* to get myself ready and to work, so I'll try to keep this pretty succinct. Apologies if this is a bit of a ramble, I won't have much time to fully flesh out thoughts/proofread.
I thought I was pretty clear when I wrote that the picture says, 'the woman is the breasts.' To put it another way, WOMAN = BREASTS. That's all you need to know to understand this picture.
Now, there've been a few arguments against this being sexist/objectification. They seem to fall into a few categories. 1) There's worse imagery out there. 2) Some real women dress worse/have implants/naturally big breasts/etc. 3) She's not dis-empowered (e.g., restrained, submitting, etc). 4) She's not nude.
I think these are all beside the point. I'm not here to start social commentary on how some women dress, why they feel the need to augment their breasts (but consider: perhaps images like this contribute?), and I don't think something should be judged as acceptable simply because there are worse things out there.
A bit more about the nudity. I don't think nudity = objectification. I think a nude picture of a woman showing her breasts can be perfectly acceptable based on how the imagery is presented.
Let's do a quick evaluation of the cover. I know Andrea said the first thing she saw was the smile (that's a smile?!?), but I think most people would agree that's an exception. Most people will see the breasts before anything else. If you disagree, well, I guess I can't convince you of that.
The breasts are pretty much center in the picture, which coincides with them being _central_ to the message. The character and the background are pretty much separate; there doesn't appear to be any 'story' here. Do you wonder, why is she there? Where is she? What is she about to do?
The picture doesn't present a story, it doesn't make you question anything, it's there simply to provide titillation. You don't think about the woman as a person. You look at the breasts as an object of desire. That's what makes it objectification and sexist imagery.
Let's compare with a different cover for an alien module with a woman - Alien Module 3: Darrians. Here we have a woman in the foreground, a couple others in the background (the middle one could be a man or a woman). The foremost woman is in an interesting pose (though still mildly suggestive), is clearly in the environment, which is itself interesting.
Do I think the Darrian cover is perfect? No, I think the woman is still in a mildly suggestive pose while holding a gun, which I think was unnecessary. But there's a lot else going for the picture; it asks the questions I listed above. There is a story to this image, and it's not 'about' the woman's breasts.
Sorry, I really must be off to work... I hope this helps clarify where I'm coming from.
). Part of the intent of the book was to cover the disonance between perception and reality.
