Preview

Essay On Objectifying Women

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
789 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On Objectifying Women
Throughout world, and particularly in mainstream media, women and girls are depicted in a sexualizing manner. I know that this exists because I have grown up in a society that objectifies women and it has had a negative effect on my whole life as well as the lives of all my female friends. Sexual objectification is vicious and it needs to stop because it is harming women everywhere; women are essentialized as sex objects rather than individuals with personalities, thoughts, emotions, and their own desires.
So, what exactly is objectification? It is treating an individual (in this case, women) not as a person with emotions and thoughts, but as a object. In most cases, it means thinking of the person as a sexual object, who is only there to provide pleasure to others. It suggests that women are objects to be ogled at, or used, things to be
…show more content…
We as a society got to this place of disrespect and general disregard for individuality as it pertains to a woman’s importance outside of the bedroom. It does not take exposed genitalia or sexual presentations of a woman’s body to objectify women. Objectification does not just objectify the individual person in question: the model, the singer, the porn actress, etc. It objectifies all women and girls. It sends the message that this is how women and girls can be viewed, and used; it is a commentary on women’s value as a whole. I do not have to be depicted in an obviously objectifying ad to be objectified by people; I am objectified simply by being a woman in a society where images like this are normal, accepted and prevalent. The same is not true for men; of course some people may argue that men are also objectified, and this is true. However, the majority of objectification of men in our culture is different from how women are presented; the main difference is that men are given

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Are women viewed as equals in the Tales From Ovid or are they no more than objects? Some argue that Ovid shows a sympathetic side for women due to how much he poured into their characters, but there is a difference between the author portraying women sympathetically and to how they were actually treated in the book. Women are objectified in Ovid rather than viewed as equals to men which can be clearly seen in the accounts of Pygmalion, the excursions of Jupiter, Tereus, and other violations enacted upon women.…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Scorpion King is a primary example to the objectification of women in movies. The main female character, the sorceress, has been used her entire life by King Memnon. He’s kept her prisoner since she was a child to use her visions to give him the upper hand in battle. He forces her to have a vision every day and then tell him if he is going to win or lose his next battle so that he can pick his battles and be more successful in his goal to rule everything. At one point in the movie, Memnon basically tells the Sorcerer that when he’s done using her for her visions he’s going to start using her for his own sexual pleasure.…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Society by default places people into categories. The most prominent example of this is the gender binary, where each person is labeled and judged based on where they fall within that binary. Male versus female, one side is already at a disadvantage. Described in the films The Codes of Gender: Identity and Performance in Pop Culture and Miss Representation, women face many obstacles in today’s society, such as objectification and scrutinization. Media illustrates and reinforces these issues by portraying women as subordinate sexual objects for a man’s pleasure. Codes of gender breaks down the methods in which photography portrays the subordinate female. In Miss Representation, we see the analysis of the hypersexualized objectified female.…

    • 1734 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why is this a problem? To begin with, the hyper sexualization of women in the media (see “The Disney Princess effect”) does not just alter the way women think of themselves, it influences young girls’ minds as well. (Hanes) The Dove Self Esteem Project found that ‘81 percent of 10 year old girls in the United States are afraid of being fat’ (UNICEF). In addition to affecting the way young girls view themselves, sexualization in advertisement affects how men view women and how boys view girls. One example of this can be found simply by surveying the comments on the YouTube video for Hardee’s Super Bowl commercial. A female commenter laments the sexualization of women in the media, especially during such a high-profile television event as the Super Bowl. This woman was met with many male commenters saying things such as, “Get over yourself you stupid bitch”, “F*** off you retarded feminist”, and my personal favorite, “Women only watch the Super Bowl because their dudes are watching anyways.” (Youtube)This is example is trivial compared to how the sexualization of women in media normalizes violence against women. Boys see that their bodies are linked to control and aggression, and then they see that women’s bodies are linked to submission and sexuality. (UNICEF) This only aids the unhealthy stereotype…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Executive Summary Journalists, child advocacy organizations, parents, and psychologists have argued that the sexualization of girls is a broad and increasing problem and is harmful to girls. The APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls was formed in response to these expressions of public concern. APA has long been involved in issues related to the impact of media content on children. In 1994,APA adopted a policy resolution on Violence in Mass Media, which updated and expanded an earlier resolution on televised violence. In 2004, the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children produced a report examining broad issues related to advertising to children.…

    • 4199 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Zimmerman, Amanda, and John Dahlberg. "The Sexual Objectification of Women in Advertising: A Contemporary Cuitural Perspective." Journal of Advertising Resaearch (2008): 71-79. Print.…

    • 258 Words
    • 1 Page
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    There has been many changes in the equality of men over the years. Just like women, some things are right. Men usually don’t get much said about them when it comes to equality. It’s usually the women. Well now it’s time to talk about the men.…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sexual objectification occurs in most ads today. Many ads focus on attractive people and how their body can lure viewers in to buy their product, advertisers use this person’s body as an attractive object rather than a person to be respected, for example women are objectified in ads by being taken advantage of, as well as being represented as a product not a person. Many ads feature women covering parts of their body or for instance laying on a couch with sexual slurs surrounding them. Companies are trying to attract men to their product by sexually pleasing them, thus dehumanizing women and degrading them. By broadcasting them nude in many different ways. De humanization is represented in the “sex sells” ad by telling us that some women sell their body for sex, thus dehumanizing women and giving some a stereotype of being easy and it being socially accepted to do…

    • 990 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Objectification is defined as treating or seeing someone as an object or when one chooses to assess themselves based on how they look. The way people in society view themselves, how they are treated and seen by others is often determined to a considerable degree by the media’s representation of them. Sexualised cultures pressure women into objectifying themselves. Sexism is a problem which is often the outcome of certain cultures. Many believe the media play a pivotal role in teaching society to objectify themselves. As women are seen as objects they are constantly conscious of how they look.…

    • 199 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The ideal woman is thin, light skinned and tall. Any women who does not fit this definition is demonized, victimized and isolated (Kilbourne, 2010). Sexualization and objectification of the female body have a negative social impact on women who struggle to achieve unsustainable and unachievable standards with serious emotional, physiological and physical impact.…

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sexism In America Essay

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the previous couple of days, Clinton advocates have actually provided a minimum of 3 descriptions, or perpetrators, for why the race is so close: James Comey; "incorrect equivalence" in the media; and also sexism. In each situation, they are into something.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Objectifying Women

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Although we may not realize it, but media is a very powerful source of influence. Influence that can affect people in many ways that may be positive and beneficial for corporations, but not so much for the general public. Media uses a variety of means such as advertisements, movies and music videos to convince its consumers and potential consumers in buying their products, or following their lifestyles. Majority of these means are dominated with portraying different views of women. Whether it is a detergent ad, a sports themed movie or a popular pop song, each and every source of media is focused on objectifying women.…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women in the past did traditionally change their last name to their husband’s last name. I absolutely do not refute that was due to women being viewed as the “lesser gender”. It essentially states that women do not have the brain capacity to choose for themselves and they needed a man to tell them how to live their lives and what to call themselves. It makes them out to be inferior. That a man defines the woman. Obviously this is morally corrupt and bankrupt and you would have to be an ignorant buffoon to still think this way. With the exclusion of the occasional sexist most people in the United States I personally don’t believe think this way anymore. Some people are more sexist others to a varying degree, but overall society has come a long…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A key emergent theme present in the music videos screened for this discussion post is the objectification of the female body. Female objectification is, in essence, when women are deconstructed for the sexual enjoyment of another individual (Burgess & Burpo, 2012). As previously discussed, women in music videos (and other forms of popular culture) are often represented in parts, instead of a whole. In advertisements, for example, women are frequently displayed in body parts, such as their lips, legs, eyes, breasts, or stomach. When women are represented in parts, they are portrayed as objects, not humans. In other word, “when objectified, women are treated as bodies – and in particular, as bodies that exist for the use and pleasure of others” (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997, p. 175).…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Women have bodies, men have bodies, all humans have bodies. All society and schools got to do to stop sexualization of female bodies, is recognize that human beings have different body shapes that come in different sizes, not matter what the gender of the person may be. To press on the topic of female bodies being sexualizal by soiecty, is that sexualizaling a women can cause damage to their self esteem and bring down their views on themselves. “Why my objectification and sexualization was paramount in our relationship, while my achievements and personality fell by the wayside, unexplored, uncelebrated. Only years later did I begin to process the emotions I felt that day and the interaction that lead to them.…

    • 1421 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays