Sexual Objectification of Women

At work a few days ago a lawyer from another firm approached my desk. He was in his late 50s and he said “Hey, Beautiful.” I sorta sat there uncomfortably, feeling really awkward, that I didn’t have my Vladimir Nabakov books for him to sign. After a moment of awkward silence he said “Can you give me a smile?” And, crossing my arms, I said, “Yes I am fully capable of smiling.” Because it’s one thing to sexually objectify someone, but it’s just rude to insult their control over their facial muscles. So he stood there and said “You have a beautiful chest.” And that’s when I lost my temper. Because complimenting a woman’s breasts is the same as saying “Evolutionarily you look like you could competently nourish one of my offsprings.” So I replied, “you would make a horrible father!” I told my friend this story and I was so upset and fraught and he tried to empathize. He said, "Oh, Barbara, I am so so so sorry! I can't believe that you have to work somewhere people lie to you!"

It really sucks to feel like a "thing" instead of a person. According to feminist scholar Linda LeMoncheck, to objectify women is to portray women as something that can be looked at and acted upon, which happens on a social level and in the media.

When I started researching this, several of my male friends were like “how can you let a few douchebag’s perception of you as an object dictate your identity?” And then they went back to watching porn and ignoring their girlfriends. But it’s not really a few douchebag’s perception; it’s everywhere: movies, tv, music, magazines, advertising, pornography, in the workplace, and stand up comedy. The television can’t be turned on without a woman being turned on. I hate seeing charicterizations of women in the media that have less purpose and emotional depth than a fleshlight. On an internal level, sexual objectification, and similarly sexual harassment can cause depression, body image anxiety, depleted sense of self worth, lack of sense of self, increased self consciousness, eating disorders, and sexual dysfunction. Since getting my boobies I have experienced all of these. On an external level, reducing women to objects has very negative consequences because when men begin to view women as a “thing” instead of a person studies show they are more likely to commit violent sexual crimes and gender bias and discrimination overall.

The media is culpable for sexualizing women. Magazines, tv and movies are permeated with images of woman being compared to inanimate objects or portrayed overtly sexualized. It is a trick advertisers use all the time. This effects the way both men and women view women in our society. When you think of a woman the same way you think of a car, you feel less guilty for slamming it into a tree or hanging fuzzy dice in it.

New Yorker writer Ariel Levy argues that Western women wear revealing clothing and endorse exploitation in the media which perpetuate female self-objectification. To research her book “Female Chauvinist Pigs” Levy followed around the Girls Gone Wild camera crew. Levy says that women reduce their self worth to their sexuality, and guising it all under the label of feminist sexual empowerment. She writes, “The proposition that having the most simplistic, plastic stereotypes of female sexuality constantly reiterated throughout our culture somehow proves that we are sexually liberated and empowered has been offered to us and we have accepted it.”

It feels horrible to see men objectify women but it feels way worse to see women willingly do it to themselves. In college I had a friend who used to make out with people at parties to get attention. One time she was having problems with a guy she worked with because she didn’t know how to be friendly to him without having sex with him. I was like, there has to be some middle ground between a hand shake and a bed shake. I thought she was a cool person, but she always seemed to completely lose her identity when she didn't have anyone to "perform" to. When we first started hanging out she told me she had problems relating to me because she was used to sleeping with people to get them to like her. I hate that a woman would do that to herself. She always wore miniskirts and low cut shirts to her job at Microsoft, but I guess you dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I remember watching her user her flirtiness to get attention at parties feeling dirty on the inside. I thought that can’t be healthy, it’s much better to be ashamed of your sexuality. At one party I watched a group of young boys feeding her alcohol and I got really protective of her and I tried to bring her water. Then while she was practically comatose, my boyfriend at the time commented on how hot she was and I felt insanely insecure and depressed. I had a nightmare that night that my boyfriend wanted to have a threesome with the two of us but it just turned into him cheating on me while I sorta sat in the bed feeling ignored.

I was raised by narcissists so I learned to internalize other people's feelings and feel them as my own. So when I see a woman objectify herself, I feel dirty, empty inside, violated, and void of an identity and existence. They think they're being sexually free spirited and adventurous, but if sluttiness is an adventure then I never want to get on that Indiana Jones ride. Sexuality is a varied and dynamic thing, not something that can be wrapped up in spandex and miniskirts. People think there's a power in stripping, doing porn, and flashing on girl's gone wild. And I guess there is a power in that, but it's the power that is pushing down on us, holding and polishing the glass ceiling above our heads.

I hate that girls are growing up in a society where movies and television are portraying women as these empty, vapid beings. I hate that the pinnacle for female sexuality is being constantly shoved down our throats and then bulimically regurgitated over and over again to impressionable minds. I hate that women competitively endorse and engage in self objectification. I can only optimisitically hope that in a culture with such brilliant and genuinely beautiful and thoughtful women as Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Julie Klausner we can grow into a society where women are considered and consider themselves subjects instead of objects.