...Cultural and gender norms are ever present in the modern world, which creates social constructs for women. This determines the way people perceive them and the way they perceive themselves. Media today tends to judge women based on the way they dress or their physical appearance (Breger 39). Furthermore, mainstream media portrays women as sexual objects, or entities, specifically when they are required to bring sexual pleasure to their male counterparts through the way they look or act. Such media, therefore, is implying that women’s sole purpose is to bring men sexual gratification (Wright and Tokunaga 956). This increases the sexual objectification of women, specifically in magazines, television, and social media platforms, demonstrating...
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...It was only a short one hundred years ago that the social norm for women was to wear dresses. Since then, fashion has evolved alongside technology, and media has influenced how both men and women perceive women. With this change, one of the major problems in the society we live in today is the sexual objectification of women. While it is widely believed that sexual objectification is caused by dress codes, sexual objectification actually occurs because of the media and previous objectification, where standards of dress in fact promote a more positive environment, and discourage from sexual objectification. Contrary to popular belief, it is the way that women are portrayed in media independent of a dress code which causes sexual objectification....
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...females have been portrayed, most of these females need validation from people in order to feel beautiful and confident thereby posting this type of pictures. The media also encourages sexual objectification of women through advertising, magazines, and especially the television. Some of these television stations have created shows, specifically beauty pageants for toddlers and young girls that encourage sexualization of women. In these pageants, you can see how it is emphasized that the young girls have to walk, dress, talk, and be skinny in order to be considered...
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...In several instance throughout history, women are often subjected to objectification, as well as learning a proper women’s duty. This is demonstrated numerous times throughout different time periods, especially during the fifteenth century. Similar to the medieval age’s history, Game of Thrones has shown multiple instances where women are merely seen as a way to suit a man’s needs, and to be seen and not heard. Overall, Game of Thrones shows striking similarities to the fifteenth century in regards to how women were treated. To begin with, women were typical seen as incompetent during the middle ages. Many were not allowed to occupy powerful ranking jobs, which required a higher education, and often many women were denied. If offered a job,...
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...Objectification of women Vs. "Sex Sells": Where is the Line drawn Why is it that we have become impervious to the objectification of women today? Why do a large group of men and women allow and condone this type of behavior? A perfect example of this is my friend Chad. He is your stereotypical play-boy. In his mind he is God's gift to women. One day we were at the bar. He was doing his usually "surveillance" as he called it. Looking around trying to find out which girl would be most likely to go home with him just by their physical appearance. I thought of it more as his predatorily stalking like a hyena looking for a wounded calf in a herd of buffalo. (No objectification meant) His eyes fixated on a women in her mid twenties with red hair and a super model body. It wasn't an hour later that he left the bar with her, leaving me in the company of a sweating Heineken and a $53 tab. Two days later we met up and lounged on his porch in the late afternoon enjoying the cool weather. He began to brag about the red haired woman he took home. He nicknamed her "Lips" for reasons I prefer not to get into but spoke of her actions during their little sexual escapade. He spoke in graphic detail about things I just didn't care to hear. After a few minutes of this assault Chad asked me what I had done after he left. I don't know if it was anger that compelled me but something motivated me to do something I have avoided doing in a long time. I began to speak of an explicit encounter...
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...Psychoanalytic Objectification of Women – When Women Literally Become Objects (Revised) The story “The Babysitter” is fraught with sexual language, addressing sexual behavior directly and nonchalantly in discussing characters’ interactions with non-sexual objects. Psychoanalysis relies on the Oedipus Complex; the assumption that male behavior is a result of a deep-seeded unconscious “castration anxiety,” whereupon a young boy loves his mother and wants to have sex with her and competes with the father, resulting in an unconscious fear that his father will castrate him. In adulthood, a male “fetishizes female beauty as a way of defending against the anxiety brought about by the spectacle of woman as representing ‘lack’ or castration” (Gabbard, 161). This fetishizing female beauty, or in other words, objectifying women, is a defense mechanism against castration anxiety. Psychoanalysis offers multiple explanations for the objectification of women. Objectification is also considered to be a result of the disturbance of the relationship between mother and baby. Objectification is a compensation for the loss of “the blissful relationship with a mother who has no autonomy or otherness but exists only to serve the baby’s needs” (Gabbard 166). Objectification, then, is a result of the male trying to recreate this perfect maternal symbiosis in which the mother serves the baby’s needs, and is essentially used as an object of need-fulfillment in this way. Thus, the characters’ objectification of...
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...Women. Oppressed. Desire for Equality. Eager to express the situation on modern situation, I was quick to turn to feminism. Despite being advanced in technological field, the modern society has yet to show signs of improvement in communities: women are to this day, are not treated equally for their salary is 70% of what men earns, and constantly sexualized, sometimes even labeled with slurs such as “whore”, “bitch” or “slut”. In order to go against society’s view of objectifying women, I chose to illustrate the grace and beauty of them. Kamee Nuzman’s artwork of pink swirls advocated to the audience the whirl of beautiful emotions inside of women’s mind, which was what I was attempting to prove. Therefore, my personification of females...
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...In the essay “Out-of-Body Image” by Caroline Heldman, Heldman illustrates the strain on the relationship between a woman and her body caused by the manipulation in the media. Early on in the essay, Heldman makes it clear that the media has an issue sexualizing women and she does it through tone and the words she chooses. In the introduction of the essay she discusses the typical body figures people see in advertisements; they are “impossibly slim (and digitally airbrushed).” The words impossible and digitally suggest this sense of fabrication and falseness, a perception that cannot be reciprocated by a typical woman. She continues by suggesting that the depictions of women in the media is poisonous and highlights just how bad the impact of the media is, that it is comparable to poison and is harming not only women but young girls who view these advertisements as well. Heldman also demonstrates the direct effects the “poison” has, she mentions that self-objectification leads to eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. These disorders stand out from the essay because they discuss a serious disease that could affect young girls and women. Heldman then focuses on the young girl aspect of the problem when she mentions the American Psychologists Association investigative report. The report found that girls as young as seven years old were learning to objectify themselves after watching advertisements and across other medium. Heldman states, “Teaching them to think of themselves...
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...chance that her normal body functions will also be affected. It is appropriate for sexually transmitted diseases to also be discussed under this topic. Sexually transmitted diseases are those that are transmitted form one person to the other through sexual acts or sexual intercourse. It is important for women to be aware of the effects of sexually transmitted diseases on their sexual health. They can often affect the normal functioning of their body parts, thus hindering them from living a sexually safe life. For women the situation is even worse because it does not affect them alone. For example, when a woman suffers from a disease like...
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...Throughout the history of the world women have been lagging men in terms of rights to the individual. Even today, in some countries, women have little to no rights making the men in charge of everything. Women were not allowed to vote in the United States until the nineteenth amendment was passed in 1920. Women groups had to fight for the simple right to vote for who represents their common interests and lead the country they live in. Sexism is defined as, “The systematic oppression of women and the prepetition of violence against women because of their gender” (Womens International Network News, 1993). The ideology of sexism is based on the idea that men have more natural rights and are superior to women from birth. There is much debate on...
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...Root Of Violence Against Women " Each year an estimated 2 to 4 million women in the United States are abused by their male partners. Many of them are severely assaulted, and thousands are killed" (thehotline.org). Statistics such as these are phenomenal. Domestic abuse does not only appear as physical harm but there is a lot of damage dealt with psychological abuse which is just as bad. Domestic violence is a widespread issue throughout the world, mostly due to fear created by the abuser. This problem is recognized worldwide and many theorists such as Nussbaum, Mackinnon and Dworkin have shared and organized their thoughts as to why such an uproar of violence has been rising within our society against women. In order to understand why violence against women is at such a high percentage we must first take a look at and understand what are the contributing influences and factors which play an active role in causing the abuser to inflict acts/thoughts/desires of violent intent onto a female. I shall analyze and go into depth of the theories coined by the names mentioned above as to what they think the root of violence is. But first we need to understand that violence against women does not only consist of physical/emotional damage, but also violation of their entitled rights as an individual human being. When we begin to treat a person as anything less or begin to expect more we have committed an act of violation on their human rights. "Objectification entails making into a...
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...Women's Health Journal describes it best in their article, “The trafficking of women: a human rights issue” when they say “The sexual trade of women constitutes a human rights concern which reveals the gross inequality between the sexes and the subordination of women on a global scale.” (“The trafficking of women”). A common misconception is that there is not much we can do to stop this international issue, but by simply increasing awareness and decreasing everyday objectification and gender roles in our society we could lessen the number of victims. One reason that human trafficking has become just a global issue is “The gender inequalities which are at the root of this problem are directly related to the objectification of women in the sex industry; traffickers profit from this overall context of vulnerability in which many women and children live” (“The trafficking of women”). This proves again how dangerous the social stigmas our in our society, they are not small things; they are the seed of a problem that destroys the lives of thousands of people every...
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...Standpoint Theory A standpoint is a place from which we view the world that determines what we focus on as well as what we don’t know. The standpoint is a specific location in time and space that determines how one sees the world. The social groups like sexuality, socio economic status, gender, etc. we belong to shape how we see the world and how we communicate. Not that everyone in that social group will have the exact same view point but they’ll be closer to each other. Now, the problem is that these social groups influence the way we see the world, but all the groups were not treated as equals. For example, poor people might be oppressed by the rich community; historically, women were not considered as important as men; blacks and whites were not treated equally, etc. Therefore, it was observed that some groups were treated better than others and some group oppressed others. Societal inequalities generate distinctive accounts of nature and social relationships. The standpoint theory argues that the perspective from the lives of the less powerful provide a more objective perspective than lives of the powerful. So, poor people have a better and comprehensive way of seeing the world compared to the rich people. The standpoint theorist idea suggests that dominant people have a less objective view of the world. Privileged groups are not forced to observe the realities of inferior groups; therefore their standpoints are more narrow and biased. In Indian context as we see, there...
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...Since the early 1800’s women have struggled and strived to obtain equal rights of the average man. It was not up until 1920 when women were even granted the right to vote and it was not until 1981 when the United States finally appointed a woman Supreme Justice (Weinbaum). It has been a long and tedious process to acquire equal rights for women and fairness in politics. After over two centuries, women have almost completely overcome the gender barrier and established an equal dominant role in society as men. However, the recent provocative portrayals of women in the media have questioned the idea that, if in fact, the years spent overcoming this gender hardship was to ultimately come back to square one. With television programs such as “The Bachelor” presenting a dozen women competing for the attention of one man and television commercials highlighting a woman's thigh to sell sneakers, it is difficult for society and especially the youth to not to be influenced by the overpowering message to objectify women (Coleman). Television shows portraying woman in explicit dogmatic behaviors like “Flavor of Love” or “The Bachelor” make it difficult for the everyday women to process exactly why the media allows such depictions of women to be viewed and accepted around the world. According to author Breanna Coleman, “Television programs show slender, unrealistically curvaceous, and vulnerable young women, who are dependent on male figures for strength and survival, not their own sense...
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...This article is a detailed, academically supported body of work, designed to retort the following questions: How and why are semantically sexualised women used as a perceptive marketing stunt’ and ‘what role does the media play in legitimizing gender discrepancies through framing and cultivation strategies? Coaxed by the issue of female objectification in the mass media, the following research was conducted both practically, and theoretically, to overtly annunciate the social and democratic problems associated with advertised female subordination. The relative research involves a semiotic analysis of two sources, coupled with a survey of 40 candidates of varying ages. Furthermore, theoretical mechanisms of media framing and cultivation have been deconstructed throughout this article to uncover the impact of magnified female subordination on the domestic expectations of children and young adults. Through the collection of data, it was able to be conclusively recognized the impact of objectification on social attitudes. Results had shown the many conceptions concerning the female purpose, these include; a woman’s role as a domestic and sexual slave to her male partner. Through the convergence of data, semiotic analysis and academic theory, it may be meticulously understood how female objectification in the mass media is a social complication in the construction of an egalitarian future. ‘Women’s bodies are predominantly valued for its use to others’ Fredrickson & Roberts 1997 ...
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