The Objectification of Women

This poem is primarily about the way women are viewed as commodities by the men around them. The first two stanzas, which explore the language of taste, position the women as pastries to be devoured and enjoyed by these men; the women are stripped of their individuality and humanity in favor of the allure of their bodies. The men give the women nicknames — “Oh honey, Oh sugar” (Line 5) — which are interchangeable from one woman to another. Any woman across time can be “honey” or “sugar”. This, along with the fourth-person narrative choice, suggests that these women blend into a single object which exists for the pleasure and consumption of men.

In the following stanza, the women begin to disappear. They “dissolve” and “dim” (Lines 7, 8) as the men’s mental states erode. This suggests that these women exist only through the male gaze, vanishing...