“One of the founding insights of feminist criticism has been to point out that the idealized, beloved woman is often described as an object, a thing, rather than a subject. But perhaps the problem with being used arises from an inequality of power rather than from something inherently unhealthy about willingly playing the role of thing. Indeed, what if the capacity to become a subject were something that could best be learned from an object?”

Barbara Johnson, 2008, Persons and Things.