INTRODUCTION Being a teenager can be difficult, especially when trying to establish who you are and how you act. Often, young adolescents feel pressure to look and act in a certain way – feeling inadequate unless they reach the standards that they perceive to be ideal. Unbeknown to teenagers is the fact that a substantial part of this pressure that they feel stems from an internalized viewpoint adopted by themselves; a phenomenon is known as self-objectification. Self-objectification, a term first used by Barbara L. Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts, is explained in the Fredrickson and Roberts document as a theory that “posits that girls and women are typically acculturated to internalize an observer 's perspective as a primary view of their …show more content…
This piece of literature further proves the counter-notion that self-objectification only occurs in women and not in men. Throughout the document, there is no male-empathetic statements that acknowledge the pressures felt by men to attain a certain physical appearance. This source also confirms the undeniable presence of self-objectification in the twenty-first century, as I proposed in my introduction to this research task. Reliability: this source is reliable because it clearly states on the front page of the document that the document “has been accepted for inclusion in McNair Scholars Research Journal by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@EMU.”, which means that the document has been analysed and deemed suitable for public access. The company would not have authorized the publication of the document if it would tarnish or jeopardise the company’s name. Usefulness: this document has offered facts and explanations regarding self-objectification that I believe will be beneficial to me in terms of better understanding self-objectification as a …show more content…
The research journal is based primarily on the findings of others and thus provides no further progress into the scope of self-objectification as a whole. • Objectification theory: toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks. “This article offers objectification as a framework for understanding the experiential consequences of being female in a culture that sexually objectifies the female body.” Validity: this document (Fredrickson and Roberts) is one of the most commonly referred to documents throughout self-objectification research compilations. I believe that the content within this source is valid because practically each statement made is substantiated and backed up by a quotation from other research done on that specific
Individuals go through a process, called socialization, by which they internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a given society and learn to function as members of that society (Conley 118). In the essay, “Out-of-body Image” by Caroline Heldman the reader is exposed to a contemporary problem that women face in the modern world of consumerism. Heldman is effective in making her call to action in regards to the problem of self-objectification that has emerged through mass media by targeting women through an amalgamation of logical, ethical, and emotional appeals. Heldman’s purpose in writing the essay was to not only inform the reader of the current predicament that women face, but to make an effective call to action in which women
The objectification of women has lead to sexual abuse, self esteem issues, and judgement based on their eroticism. The understanding
Sexual Objectification as the Wonderful Part of Sexual Life Sexual objectification is oftentimes – and mistakenly - used to portray women as being dehumanized sexually, often reduced to objects, things and commodities. Nussbaum argues that careful evaluation demonstrates some objectification can be compatible with consent and equality, and even be a wonderful part of sexual life. Sexual objectification, I argue, does have positive implications for women, since it can sometimes be humanizing, enhance mutual respect and social equality, as well as promote and respect autonomy. Sexual objectification, a complex concept and often ambiguously defined, has been argued by feminists to describe the treatment women as mere things to be controlled
Starting from a young age, things, such as Disney princess and even the unrealistic shape of Barbie was showing us that, that is what we are supposed to aim to look like. In the end we lose our self-respect, dignity and even jeopardize our health to maintain today’s society beauty standards. We as women stop at no cost to be accepted and branded as beautiful. Throughout history, women has been objectified by the media and put down in order to buy into whatever the companies were
A research by McKinely (1999) demonstrated a negative association between body surveillance, often used as a proxy for self-objectification, and autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations, purpose in life, self-acceptance and body self-esteem. Additional research has shown that body surveillance is related to decreased flow during physical activity (Greenleaf 2005) and lower levels of adaptive and positive coping strategies (Sinclair and Myers 2004). Thus there is a small but suggestive body of literature that highlights the negative impact self-objectification may have on women’s overall well-being. However, more research is needed to examine the effect of self-objectification on other aspects of
This constant fixation on physical perfection has created unreasonable beauty standards for women, ones we cannot possibly achieve on our own. Such standards permeate all forms of popular media, particularly fashion magazines and advertisements. Women are bombarded with the notion that we must be thin in order to be desirable. These images project an
Society and popular culture influence how a girl can experience girlhood by presenting expectations and constructing ideas. The biggest issue of girlhood is sexualization. This differs from the concept of the sexual, referring to expressions of sex and practices of intimacy (Kehily, 2012). Sexualization can be defined as “processes that make the sexual visual, commonly involving forms of objectification viewing individuals solely in terms of their value as sex objects for the pleasure of others” (Kehily, 2012, p.256). This concept does not appear because this is what young girls want to see, but it is what they are being constructed to see from adults; in other words, sexualization of young girls is an adult construction (Kehily, 2012).
According to Hannah Frith and Kate Gleeson’s article “Clothing and Embodiment: Men Managing Body Image and Appearance”, It is often assumed that men are uninterested in fashion and clothing. — However, Frith and Gleeson argue that men do engage in modifying their appearance, via clothing practices, to conform to the idealized male body— that is tall, muscular and slim. Their research focuses on clothing practices as a form of body management, while exploring men’s feelings and whether they use clothing to alter appearance of their body. Thematic analysis has revealed four key items to managing the body image and appearance. Those four are practicality of clothing choices, lack of concern about appearance, using of clothing to conceal or reveal
The social norms and patriarchy have made people think it is acceptable part of life. These unacceptable behavior and equalization of women goes on to influence how women see themselves and how they think they should look. The pressure on young girl’s and women to look like the “ideal” women is immense and this all stems from media, advertising, society, for example cat calling, and will continue to exist until these norms are broken. The objectification of women still exists today because patriarchy has defined women as inferior to men. Objectification of women is seeing them as an object instead of a human being.
One way this is achieved is through the “male gaze”. I examined the question, how does the “male gaze” play in the media? The “male gaze” looks upon women in a way that makes them appear as an object created for male pleasure. As Fredrick and Roberts stated in their objectification theory, “Sexual objectification occurs whenever a woman’s body, body parts, or sexual functions are separated out from her person, reduced to the status of mere instruments, or regarded as if they were capable of representing her.”
The author discusses how the modern society objectifies the female body, and how females have come to view their body from the eyes of society by living through the standards set by society. The chapter also talks about the negative effects associated with self-objectification such as body shame, appearance anxiety, and depression. The book also discusses recent research developments on self-objectification of women and various scales for measuring self-objectification. The researches carried out showed evidence for and the causes of self- objectification including psychological consequences , and associated mental health
“Body dissatisfaction, negative body image, concern with body size, and shape represent attitudes of body image. ”(Dixit 1), women are so obsessed with looking good that they are missing out on enjoying
The definition of Sexual Objectification is given as “A person is sexually objectified when her sexual parts or sexual functions are separated out from the rest of her personality and reduced to the status of mere instruments or else regarded as if they were capable of representing her.” (Bartky 1990). As explained by Tracy Moore, in her book The Sexual Objectification Scale: Continued Development and Psychometric. Objectification takes women 's sexuality away from her and makes it the viewer’s property. Moore also concludes that “it is predominantly women who are reduced from subject to object.”
Then, more specifically the objectification has begun to attract the attention of researchers. With these developments, the objectification has quickly gained momentum as a research topic in psychology since the nineties. Today many researchers
And certainly, we can recognize the numerous ways in which we are called to participate in our own constant self-monitoring-mirrors in bathrooms, health magazines at the checkout counter, celebrity endorsements of cosmetics, clothes, and diets, and often feel pressure (sometimes intense) to fulfill the definitions of beauty and appearance they endorse” (Braithwaite and Orr). This statement really resonates with our society as it is primarily beauty driven society and because people are constantly regulated and defined by their bodies there’s more interest in bodily appearances, fashion, and body size. The expectations for our bodies comes from the media, peers, and family. “The dominant norms of feminine beauty, for example, are represented within an extremely narrow range of race, age, facial features, hair texture, skin color, body size, shape, implied sexuality, and able-bodiedness” (Braitwaite and Orr). We get our ideas of sexiness from constricted views from our culture and perceptions.