What the responses so far don't understand is that all of our speech has a context, whether we like it or not. No matter what we say, we cannot escape the male-dominant societal backdrop.
Yes, Katy Perry can be seen as a "shiny object", someone who is used to provide flash for a campaign, distracting others. And on first glance, my impulse is to agree with that idea.
But it's wrong.
Women historically have been literal objects for men. They have been used by men, and we learn little about the few that fought and kept their agency.
When we look at that picture, and say--"ooh, a shiny object", we are stripping Katy Perry of her agency. She is not an object "used" by the Clinton campaign. She's a living person with intelligence and the emotional capacity to decide her path in life.
The classic response to this is always, "ah, but we could say the same if it was a man". And it's true--you could. But given our societal context, those words will never mean the same thing when directed at a woman. It's the same with many parts and structures of our language.
Call her a "distraction", call her a circus for the masses--I won't care, and I'll probably not disagree.
But we need to work on our language and communicating with our cultural context in mind in order to make progress. The little stuff like this counts.
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