Sexual Objectification and the Effects on Women Essay

Women within the western culture reflect the hypersexualization of those images within the context of a global market in which the mainstream of sexual objects of women has increasingly been accepted as the norm. In the book Women in Popular Culture: Representation and Meaning, Marian Meyers’ states, hypersexualization is the representation of women as highly sexual objects (p. 6). Hypersexualization among women in the media has affected the way society represents women by portraying them as fragile, passive, vulnerable, less intelligent, and powerless figures, compared to men. This paper will focus on the way women are stereotypically portrayed and will emphasize the pornogrification of women as sexual objects in advertising; and bad effect in reality. Hence, women in the media are represented as hypersexual objects that differ from women in reality. However, people in the society are strongly advocating abolishing the society phenomena that promotes hypersexualization of women. There is scholarly evidence to support the thesis in addition to class discussions on Wesleyan College and Charles University will stand as sources, which includes: the women in popular culture by Marian Meyers, Philosophy

Women are sexually exploited in the media. In today’s society if people watch television programs such as Chingy featuring Snoop & Ludacris – Holidae; Charlie's Angels; the Z100 commercial with Britney Spears; or Baywatch they will see that the feminine image is presented differently than the masculine. In these programs men are typically placed in sexual situations fully clothed, while women are presented in provocative clothing or less. The camera will frequently zoom in on body parts to focus on the woman’s buttocks, midriff, and legs. Society is still dominated by men who control what people see. As a result women are increasingly portrayed as sex symbols as a way for a media company to turn

In the American culture today, women are becoming more sexualized at a younger age due to the influences of the corporate media. Corporate media and society form the perfect idealistic body that women should have and is constantly being promoted making younger girls start to compare themselves to them at a young age. Certain shows and movies, such as Disney, influence young children and teenagers through their characters as to how a woman is supposed to be accepted. The way the corporate media and society make this body image they want women to have starts in a very early stage in a woman's life without them knowing. There are these childhood movies, such as Disney, Barbie and Ken dolls, programs such as Netflix, teen

The sexualization of women and girls surround Americans and is damaging to females as well as to American society. Females receive the sexualized messages regarding their appearance and how they should act via the media, retailers, and American society’s acceptance of these behaviors. As a mother, Girl Scout Leader, and school paraprofessional I cannot help but to question are these messages inflicting psychological damage on girls? Whom can I hold accountable for sexualizing female youth? What can I do to prevent sexualization from affecting all of the young girls in my life? The sexualization of girls is unacceptable because it is degrading to females, can cause serious life-long psychological damage and sexist attitudes, and may lead to violence against women and girls.

But I can’t help but believe there is something deeper than that – an issue of desensitization. If females of her generation are desensitized to that kind of material now (as research suggests), what does it mean for their understanding of sexuality? Perhaps more importantly, what does their intrinsic (although, perhaps, involuntary) acceptance of sexual behavior mean for men?

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.

After examining multiple sources, the damaging effects on women that is influenced through media involves many different aspects as it includes body dissatisfaction and body shaming, mental disorders including eating disorders, depression, and low self-esteem, and impacts on sexuality based on how women are portrayed in media. It can be concluded that they hypothesis was correct in the sense that the media is influencing the sexualization of girls and causing these negative effects to occur.

On all platforms of media women, and even young girls are oversexualized, which leads to men viewing women as no more than breasts, vaginas, and legs or any other body part men prefer. Even in current television shows, movies, comic books, and advertisements, women are still depicted as sexual objects. Everyday billboards portray women in a suggestive manner for people of all ages to see. The over-sexualization of women's bodies causes girls to have little confidence and causes boys to believe that girls are only sexual objects for their enjoyment. Girls cannot be blamed for their sexualization; they are just emulating what they see in the media.

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.

1. American Psychological Association,Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. (2007). Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-full.pdf

Christine Swanton et al., in “Treating Women as Sex Objects”, illustrates what it means to sexually objectify women and holds that sexual objectification is wrong because it extends from the individual to an entire class of people through the usage of a real of fictive image of an individual. (Swanton, p. 11-12). Timo Jütten, in “Sexual Objectification”, defines sexual objectification different from Swanton, but nonetheless, holds that it is always wrong in all circumstances because it violates the autonomy and equal social standing of women and that it does not require actual use of a woman (Jütten, p. 29). On the other hand, Patricia Marino, in “The Ethics of Sexual Objectification: Autonomy and Consent”, shows support for Nussbaum’s theory and holds that sexual objectification need not always be wrong, as it can be consented to between adults, given the right social and political context and that weak instrumental use of a person is benign

It seems since the creation of men and women, the woman have always been perceived as less compared to their male counterparts. This can be traced back to biblical times which created this idea that a woman is less. This separation goes further to even separate the amount of respect that is given to each woman depending on their age and race. There is a further argument about the sexualization of women. This sexualization can prevent women from excelling in the workplace and also put stigmas on certain women and their races. The sexualization of women has hindered them to the point that it is sexual for a woman to even breast feed her child in public. Doing many things down to the clothes that they wear and if it should be their actually size or not to cover their curves. There are different body types in this world and women with bigger hips and glutes and/or bigger breast tend to be restricted in their dress because of these blessings. This sexualization of women not only exist in everyday life, it is also exist in television shows some who are supposed to be for children. This problem of Sexualization not only exist in the United States of America it exists in all countries. There are genres in

One may ask why does any of this matter? Why should I care about sexy prostitutes in video games? What’s the real harm in sexually objectifying women? When men use female NPCs as tools or commodities, their actions of doing so actually make them powerful. So these interactive actions highlights male heterosexual dominance, which simultaneously reinforcing the view that women’s primary role is to satisfy the desires of men.In fact, the negative impacts of sexual objectification have been studied extensively for years and the effects on people of all genders are quite astonishing and fearsome. Researchers found exposing to these negative portray of women would impact players’ perceptions and beliefs about real world women and encourage them to

Women are prone to objectification with the constant vulgar advertisements and sex industries. In a social perspective, objectification means to treat a human as if he or she was a thing, or an object, without any regards of their emotions or dignity. Objectification can also include treating someone as a belonging to another person (usually belonging to a man), used as a tool for self-fulfillment or needs, and also permissible to use, abuse, damage, and destroy. Furthermore, sexual objectification is a culturally masculine perspective aimed towards women being solely objects for sexual pleasure and disregarding the intelligence capabilities of a woman. Sexual objectification derives from feminist theories and is said to be the cause of gender

Our sex saturated media is also generating conflict in young girls’ development. The portrayal of women as sexual objects is discussed in the article “The sexualization of Girls is Harmful” by Olivia Ferguson and Hayley Mitchell Haugen. The article cites statistics of “prime-time television shows popular among children” remarking that “12% of sexual comments involved sexual objectification toward women” and “23% of sexual behaviors involved leering, ogling or catcalling at female characters”.(par 6) The feature provides www.aboutkidshealth.ca/ as an “online resource for information about areas of children’s health and family life”. (Par 1) This web site states “depression, low self-esteem and eating disorders” as consequences for media sexualizing women. (Par 2) The research defines “the objectification theory as a psychological theory explaining the