Mass objectification is a result of commodification which is.......

[rrneck]

14. I dunno. I never tried.

Lets see. Let's start with some sort of a definition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification
According to the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, a person is objectified if they are treated:[1]

as a tool for another's purposes (instrumentality);
as if lacking in agency or self-determination (denial of autonomy, inertness);
as if owned by another (ownership);
as if interchangeable (fungibility);
as if permissible to damage or destroy (violability);
as if there is no need for concern for their feelings and experiences (denial of subjectivity).

How's that? Work for you?

Offhand, I see three that are necessary to a modern society, and actually are necessary to every society since at least the advent of agriculture. Insturmentality, denial of autonomy, fungibility and subjectivity would describe almost any employee and certainly any soldier. You see, even though we are people, we have responsibilities to others that transcend how we may feel about what we have to do to make a living or survive. Although it is certainly wrong to dehumanize people, we as responsible citizens have to produce and the product of our efforts are subject to objectifying evaluation. In other words, you have to show up to work whether you like it or not and your boss, or commanding officer, has the right to evaluate your output without considering your feelings on the matter. And if you don't like the boss scenario, replace him with mother nature or physics. Sometimes you have to objectify yourself.

But are we really talking about objectifying people here? The current spate of gender conflict started with images of girls in bikinis. So we aren't really talking about objectifying people but images, which are objects themselves. The entire controversy is an exercise in literalism. The images are not people. They are fiction, and should be interpreted as such.