Objectification Is A Word That Has Many Negative Connotations

If you turn on the television or flip through a fashion magazine, it is very likely you will presented with many displays of hypersexualization of girls and women in advertising images and in media. There are many components to sexualization. It occurs, according to the American Psychological Association, when “a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics.” This person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness with being sexy. “Sexualization” happens when a person is sexually objectified- that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than being seen as a person with their own independent actions and abilities to make decisions. Oftentimes, sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person without their knowing it or consent. Sometimes, researchers use the word “hypersexualization” to describe roughly the same idea. In the article, “Media’s Growing Sexualization of Women”, hypersexualization is defined as, “The act of making something extremely sexual and erotic.”

She writes about how women are motivated to consume themselves about their own beauty, as crucial to their appeal and sexuality, creates an area of total misunderstanding between men and women and keeps them apart. Wolf also talks about how men miss out because, in being taught to view women as “two-dimensional erotic objects “ instead of fully complete, intriguing human beings, they can miss out on sexual gratification and satisfaction. Wolf contemplates what would happen if “women and men were free to love one another, to appreciate and eroticize one another precisely as they are: as human beings; as people with a past, present and future; as identical partners; as unique, cherished individuals.” That would be a shift in the way men and women looked at each other.

Sexual objection and non-sexual objectification were mainly measured in body exposure and body movements. The different areas of a woman’s body being displayed were used to operationalize the idea of sexual objectification. Similarly, camera angles such as panning down bodies and shots down shirts were tallied to create a solid definition of “sexualizing” for the purpose of this research. (see Appendix A and B)

Even after all the trouble women go through to look according to society’s norms, people still catch every small thing that is not perfect to society. According to Lois Tyson, “she is objectified…defined only by her difference from male norms and values, defined by what she (allegedly) lacks…” (92). Women are unmistakably different from men biologically; so why is it such a shock when she has a small part of her skin showing, just because it is her breast or any other ‘forbidden’ areas? If a woman shows her butt cheeks it is disgraceful, but if a man shows his butt cheeks, it is hot. It is the same body part just of difference sexes, yet society has labeled it differently for each sex. Women objectification should not be seen as her fault, because like every woman around her, she is doing what she has to to stay comfortable.

Media influence has caused beauty to evolve into ideals that can’t actually be attained. In addition to this, women are objectified and seen as sex objects, being sexualized by men without consequence due to the normalcy the media has created for genders. In fact, men are even encouraged to sexualize women. During her TEDTalk, Kilbourne presented a photo of an adolescent boy wearing a shirt that stated “pimp squad,” showing how our society is comfortable with men sexualizing women from a very young age. In contrast, women are labeled as sluts or whores without even engaging in sexual activity. I, for example, have been called a slut for wearing leggings, merely talking to a guy, and even wearing shorts— in the summer.

Regardless of race or gender people in today’s society have probably seen something on the media and have strived to be more like that image. Women objectification is very common like in Alabama’s sorority recruitment video, they only showed the prettiest of girls with the nicest body; the whole video did not tell of any offers or why an individual should come to their college, instead it only showed girls playing around in bikinis or minimal clothing (WKRGNews). Although this recruitment video was later taken down due to the controversy it caused, it shows that women objectification is out there and very common. Men are similar to women in the fact that they are also objectified. Objectifying men is seen as not as big of a problem than female objectification but it is equally important. Magic Mike XXL objectifies men by portraying Mark Wahlberg and other actors with great bodies by dancing and other classic chick flick scenes (WarnerBrosPicture). Actors in movies like Magic Mike XXL make the average man look plain disappointing as well as women in magazines or other movies. The average person in today's society can differentiate between flawless and average but none the less objectification of men and women occur frequently in the

According to Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture, “In a society that equates the body with both self and moral worth, cultural meanings are attached to physical differences, so that the body provides a foundation for oppression based on gender, class, ethnicity, and age—all social characteristics that are deeply embodied.” (Gimlin 141) In the end,

The article, “Looking at Women” by Scott Russell Sanders published in The Norton Reader, 13th edition, embarks on a journey to find out why men look at women. Sanders starts off with his personal encounter as adolescence were he was told not to look at women out of lustful desire, because women would not want to be stared at like that. He also wondered from his early college days, were his bunkmate had pictures of nude women and he and others would endlessly stir at these pictures. Sanders questions whether women enjoy being looked at by men and how should men look at women. He uses quotes from people and facts to find answers to these questions. He also analyses the problem from global perspective. He wonders why women try so hard to look good. He concludes with the fact that women like looking good, but they sometimes don't like it when men stare at them. Sanders opines in his thesis that " to be turned into an object – whether by the brush of a painter or the lens of a photographer or the eye of a voyeur, whether by hunger or poverty or enslavement, by mugging or rape, bullets or bombs, by hatred, racism, car crashes, fires, or falls – is for each of us the deepest dread; and to reduce another person to an object is the primal wrong” (188).

Despite the fact that many men continue to deny that women are objectified, being viewed as an object created solely as a means of pleasure for men is a reality for anyone who was born biologically female. Proving that women are considered less valuable than men is the statistic that women make only 70% of what men in a similar career earns (Ravelli & Webber 214). The sexaul double standard contributes to this idea as well which means that women who engage in sexual activities are “promiscuous” (Ravelli & Webber 237) or “whores” (Ravelli & Webber 237) while men who behave similarly are “Studs” (Ravelli & Webber 237) and women who do not engage in sexual activities are “virgins” (Ravelli & Webber 237) or “Madonna’s” (Ravelli & Webber 237). There are only two portrayals of women and both of these refer to her sexual activities. There are also outrageous definitions of beauty portrayed in the media to

Miss Representation then defines a self-objectification as a female seeing herself as an object. It is the thought engraved in our mind to characterize women as objects, undervaluing them, and thus, dehumanizing them. According to the American Psychological Association, in

This is admittedly a horrible way to think and while the sexualization of people is bad, it’s the only form of sexual attention some women and men know so when they want to feel validated sexually they will look for that reassurance from random strangers. Bartlett even states, “Am I blessed to be sexually invisible and given a reprieve from something that has troubled women for centuries? It certainly does not feel that way.” We want what others have, and in this instance it's to be sexualized because we only see the positive side of being sexualized and have never experienced the horrible things that come with

In an effort to change this objectification, O’Grady suggests that female artists must begin to reconstruct the subjectivity of black female subjects in art. They should reclaim the black female body as something to embrace and admire rather than just glance over. It is a slow and steady process but a necessary one. Furthermore, she strongly argues that the artist must do so even if her audience is uncomfortable with it because it is the best method to deconstruct a pre-existing idea of the black female subject.

This binary relationship manifests itself in Levy’s work in another way, as well. Toward the very end of the book Levy claims she has no complaint against women who do gain genuine sexual pleasure from “their vaginas waxed, their breasts enlarged” (Levy, 198). On one hand, Levy recognizes that sexuality is personal and that everyone’s own experiences and preferences are unique. Yet at the same time, by drawing the line between “authentic” and “fake”, she must impersonally interpret these experiences in order to classify them as “problematic”. This desire to judge yet not judge women’s sexual nature represents an underlying tension within the book that threatens to unravel her arguments.

The common reoccurring intersectionalities that are shown in media are upper class people, people of the white race, able bodied, young to middle aged, thin and fit body figures, and assumption of heterosexuality. All of these intersectionalities are sexualized in American culture. “Ads use women’s bodies to sell products also sell ideas of sexuality,”. The media has shown these social categories in a specific way for several years in hopes of selling products but it has also has gathered many more negative outcomes when including sexualized people leading to effects like unrealistic expectations of reality, eating disorders, body shaming, and depression. The culture of America has changed in ways that females as young as 7 years old are self conscious of body types.

Basically, the word "objectification" is used only in relation to advertising that is not quite right. This phenomenon is quite extensive, and if try to enumerate all