The Shadows Of Objectification Of Women

The objectifications of a woman have been known to be centered around the actions of a man. Cat-calling, slut shaming, and men being in a superior position while women are inferior or counted as their ‘objects’ are all parts of the dehumanizing nature of objectification. This indicates that women are centered around their appearance and feminine demeanor, and nothing else needs to be accounted for. However, there are other influences that have contributed to the vicious cycle society has on degrading women. Women objectify other women over similar matters as men, but not similar relevance in sociocultural context. Another contributor to women objectification is women’s self-objectification, in which they internally reflect on their appearance and demeanor to seek the approval of the observer. The last and most dominant factor that has been deemed the main culprit of turning women into objects is the culture of advertisement. Advertising has sexually objectified women for years, and is the backbone of the degradation of women in the real world. It also depicts unrealistic images of the female body and attitude that no female human being can actually live up to. The media has introduced the actions of sexual discrimination and harassment, and has influenced the ideas of how women should be treated. The combination of these three components are continuing the cycle of the objectification of women.

Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing

There is a huge controversy in whether or not young girls are sexualized in the media. I absolutely agree that young girls and women are sexualized, us women are shown as sex objects and the world thinks its right. As a community, we should not let the media provoke women in the way they do. It disgusting on how they show women in tiny bathing suits. When did beauty ever become on what’s on the outside of a human being, beauty is on the inside; what’s in the heart. The media has set crazy standards for young girls and everyone is to blind to realize.

In todays society media has many different represtionations of womens body ideals and they are portrayed in many different ways. The majority of body images are female and represented with negative connotations. Women are plasteted on billboards magazine covers and play an very important role in the way young women are viewed and how they feel they should look. Through out this essay I will look how media has such a massive impact on our lives and the power it has to control the ideals of young women and how the industries with in the use of media are exploting women of today and how they are benifitting from it to make multibillion companys with out the a second thought to the explotation and harm it is causing to our socity and health with in the new generorations. I will also explore how some organistions are fighting against this ideal and how this is creating a more healthy view of women and challenging what we have had drummed into since an early age.

Women in society feel they are being objectified, and feel as if they are not getting the same respect as men. Through many examples it is shown that not just women, but men are also being objectified. After the realization of men being objectified as well, there is a combination of objectification towards women, and men throughout all forms of media, for the reason of publicity.

Being female has affected my life in many ways, both positive and negative. However, when I compare them the negatives outweigh the positives. Almost all the negatives on my list seem to lead to double standards. A double standard defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary is “a set of principles that applies differently and usually more rigorously to one group of people or circumstances than to another; especially a code of morals that applies more severe standards of sexual behaviour to women than to men.” I feel this is very fitting as even in the definition itself it refers to gender double standards that apply to women more than men. I have experienced double standards from sexual objectifications to social pressures and stereotypes.

There has been a growing trend of hypersexualization of women over the span of all forms of media. The women within these images are made to look perfectly flawless. They are extremely thin without a trace of fat or cellulite to be found. The people who consume this media are exposed to the idea that the women they are observing are models for true physical beauty. These standards are accompanied by an alternate message from the media that pushes the idea that women’s value comes from their beauty. While some women may understand that the messages about the ideal woman are unrealistic and false, it is found that adolescent girls are vulnerable to the media’s strategies due to their lack of media literacy as well as the search for their own identity during this developmental stage in their lives. The exposure to these standards of beauty can have several negative effects on the girls such as lower self-esteem, higher body dissatisfaction, depression, and eating disorders. SPARK and 4 Every Girl are two of a growing number of campaigns that are working to fight against the sexualized images of women in the media and the negative effects it can have on the viewers.

(Heubeck 2006) For many young people, especially girls, the ideal continues to chase them as they grow into young women. Young girls begin to internalize the stereotypes and judge themselves by media’s impossible standards. The power that the media holds in impacting the lives of young girls is detrimental and eventually affects their body image, their satisfaction of their own body, and portrayal of their body as an object.

Images of females are everywhere. The image of females portrayed through advertising for the most part gives off a negative message to girls who struggle with body image and even women who want to look a particular way. The most negative message that advertising portrays is objectification of women and violence towards them. Women and girls need to recognize the true meaning behind the advertisements that we see in all aspects of media. They should not allow themselves to be objectified in any way, nor accept that this is the way the female gender is portrayed.

Self- objectification is causing women to feel horrible about them because of women’s bodies, that they are seeing being used in advertisement and it is teaching young girls that to be sex. Self objectification is the “viewing one’s body as a sex object to be consumed by the male gaze.”(Heldman,323) Self-objectification causes anxiety, depression, low self- esteem, and it can also cause women to receive lower grades. But according to Caroline Heldman’s , a PhD and is an assistant professor of politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles, article “Out-Of-Body Image” women have self-objectification when they view the media and see models that are impossibly skinny and have their bodies digitally altered and women want to be more like the

In general, a photographic practice that involves illustrations of the nude female figure that is created for art projects face the problem of objectification. Even though, artists have battled the female objectification by employing various photographic techniques to alter the perception of the eroticism, it is not possible to escape the arising sexual interpretation, when most of the time the portrayals of unclothed female literally depict the identifiable parts for sexual arousal. It cannot be denied that the images are erotic. However, they are not created to appeal to the male auditory. It can be clearly distinguishable what is displayed, but usually the reason is refraining from being a sexual imagery, instead it is much deeper of what

Over the years a debate over who is to blame over the decline in how girls perceive themselves has arisen. With Photoshop being the societal norm concerning the media, it has become difficult for many to understand where the line between real and near impossible standards lies. Youths see an image edited to “perfection” and strive to reach the standards that they imagine due to the images displayed on magazines, television and social media. From Disney to magazines like Vogue the mass media bombards audiences with fake beauty that they, as normal people, will never be able to achieve. The mass media is responsible for causing the rise in the number of people with a poor body image, eating disorders, and cosmetic surgeries.

Beginning in 1848, women have wanted to have the same opportunities and rights men do. Since then, women have made great strides to reach that goal; however there is still so much to do! Women Against Feminism (WAF) is a page created on Facebook that eventually ended up on the major social media pages. This page makes it evident of how much further we still have to go as women. The title alone makes you believe the page is about women disagreeing with all feminist ideals; however, after actually scrolling through the page it is clear most of the women posting have not truly grasped what exactly they are claiming to be against. If women are going to chastise feminism they should at least understand it. If they do not, what is the point?

According to JP II, love is to will the good of the other, while objectification is use of the other (as a means to an end). Paraphrased - to use is the opposite of love . This being the case, the inference that objectification is the absence of love is a safe one. Where in life is there an absence of love?

Mass media is a large part of what the population consumes and identifies with; the fact that so much of life is influenced by the media is unhealthy especially considering how some of its messages are inherently sinister, and reach a worldwide audience. It has the ability to progress or devolve a society of people with the imagery it chooses to display. In the documentary, ‘Miss Representation’ by Siebel Newsom, the point is raised “The media is selling young people the idea that girls’ and women’s value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality and not in their capacity as leaders. Boys learn that their success is tied to dominance, power, and aggression. We must value people as whole human beings, not gendered stereotypes” (2011, Siebel Newsom). Infantilization, hypersexualization and dehumanization/objectification of women are epidemics that spread throughout the media to a point where it is rare, and jarring, to see a woman represented without those things. To contrast, men are often portrayed as powerful and/or of a high status. They are allowed to age and given permission to be given genuinely human traits and characteristics. This can severely impact the mindsets and behaviours of the individuals who consume these images. When young women and girls are subjected to these images hundreds of times a day for years, side effects include low self-esteem, eating disorders, and self-objectification.