WHAT IS OBJECTIFICATION?
As the name indicates, it involves treating things that are not objects (so, people, mainly) as objects. It’s generally used in reference to men/women/media treating women as things. This is shown by judging a woman by how she looks. Objectification though is not only about appearance. It could also refer to beliefs that people have, such as thinking that women are not full people and have “assigned uses” like cleaning houses, satisfying sexual needs, or raising children. This generally involves denying or not acknowledging the will, ideas, and desires of women.
WHAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF OBJECTIFICATION?
Let’s think of any famous female athlete. The athlete is really good at her job, but she is also considered very attractive. Unlike with male athletes, people interviewing her ask about her appearance and when they talk about her they mention how hot she is. Men and women consciously or subconsciously pick up on the adoration directed towards her appearance. Eventually a few things happen, among them:
1. Value is determined by appearance
When you treat someone as a "thing" in the physical sense, if you do it frequently and long enough, it’s easy to stop thinking of them as people in mental or emotional matters. But it is possible to look at a person you find attractive and appreciate and still think they’re humans with ideas and feelings and value.
2. The person doesn’t matter, just the package: women are interchangeable
For the "objectifier", all that matters is appearance, and what is in the inside does not matter. An objectifier will think a hot girl is a hot girl, one is as good as the other her thoughts are not important. They are not individuals, they’re things you can swap.
3. Attractiveness becomes a requirement for being in society
When attractiveness is valued above everything, it’s not enough to do your job well, be kind, or be sociable. Keeping up with the demands of being attractive -exercising, loosing weight, cosmetic treatments- can be a lot of effort, costly and very time consuming. That’s fine if it’s a choice, but many times women feel like it’s a requirement.
4. Creates beauty standards
Hardcore objectification leads to strict beauty standards that don’t leave room for diversity and don’t acknowledge that our bodies age. Objectification also leads to thinking you need to stick to beauty standards. You don’t. If the aliens take a look at magazine covers from the year 2000 to 2015, they can comfortably assume that at that time earth was populated by males between the ages 20 and 75 and females ages 22 through 23. And the ladies’ hair ranges from blond all the way to “auburn”.
5. Downgrading women to “things” puts their well-being and life at risk
Take prostitution as an example for this. In Spain, you have one of the most brutal prostitution industries in the developed world. Prostitution rates are incredibly high and the cost of sex is extremely low. Could this not be because the value of women, as human beings, is very low?
6. Rupture in relations between genders
There are men who think they could never be friends with women because they would desire them sexually. That shouldn’t be the case! You can find someone attractive and still perceive them as people. This may be an issue when someone can only focus on the superficial and not on other human qualities. A lack of communication between the genders then leads to genders understanding each other even less.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OBJECTIFICATION OF MEN AND THAT OF WOMEN?
It is true that men get objectified a lot lately. But the nature of the objectification is different. Men are generally valued by their physical strength. Their presence is practically a display of physical power. This is obviously also damaging to men, as they can’t all live up to these standards and also have other attributes (their own sexy brains and talent). But the fact that the main way male objectification is displayed is by valuing six-packs already shows there’s an important difference: women aren’t generally considered more attractive because of a six-pack. In fact, it’s preferable if they don’t have one. Strength is weakness.
Fun fact! Feel free to use objectification also in a political or socioeconomic context. For example, to describe how a society that is extremely capitalistic views low-wage workers.
As the name indicates, it involves treating things that are not objects (so, people, mainly) as objects. It’s generally used in reference to men/women/media treating women as things. This is shown by judging a woman by how she looks. Objectification though is not only about appearance. It could also refer to beliefs that people have, such as thinking that women are not full people and have “assigned uses” like cleaning houses, satisfying sexual needs, or raising children. This generally involves denying or not acknowledging the will, ideas, and desires of women.
WHAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF OBJECTIFICATION?
Let’s think of any famous female athlete. The athlete is really good at her job, but she is also considered very attractive. Unlike with male athletes, people interviewing her ask about her appearance and when they talk about her they mention how hot she is. Men and women consciously or subconsciously pick up on the adoration directed towards her appearance. Eventually a few things happen, among them:
- she is her appearance (she is not an athlete, she is a hot person), and
- we eventually start linking her importance to her appearance (she is important because she is hot). Women who are equally good athletes or even better are not given the time of the day.
1. Value is determined by appearance
When you treat someone as a "thing" in the physical sense, if you do it frequently and long enough, it’s easy to stop thinking of them as people in mental or emotional matters. But it is possible to look at a person you find attractive and appreciate and still think they’re humans with ideas and feelings and value.
2. The person doesn’t matter, just the package: women are interchangeable
For the "objectifier", all that matters is appearance, and what is in the inside does not matter. An objectifier will think a hot girl is a hot girl, one is as good as the other her thoughts are not important. They are not individuals, they’re things you can swap.
3. Attractiveness becomes a requirement for being in society
When attractiveness is valued above everything, it’s not enough to do your job well, be kind, or be sociable. Keeping up with the demands of being attractive -exercising, loosing weight, cosmetic treatments- can be a lot of effort, costly and very time consuming. That’s fine if it’s a choice, but many times women feel like it’s a requirement.
4. Creates beauty standards
Hardcore objectification leads to strict beauty standards that don’t leave room for diversity and don’t acknowledge that our bodies age. Objectification also leads to thinking you need to stick to beauty standards. You don’t. If the aliens take a look at magazine covers from the year 2000 to 2015, they can comfortably assume that at that time earth was populated by males between the ages 20 and 75 and females ages 22 through 23. And the ladies’ hair ranges from blond all the way to “auburn”.
5. Downgrading women to “things” puts their well-being and life at risk
Take prostitution as an example for this. In Spain, you have one of the most brutal prostitution industries in the developed world. Prostitution rates are incredibly high and the cost of sex is extremely low. Could this not be because the value of women, as human beings, is very low?
6. Rupture in relations between genders
There are men who think they could never be friends with women because they would desire them sexually. That shouldn’t be the case! You can find someone attractive and still perceive them as people. This may be an issue when someone can only focus on the superficial and not on other human qualities. A lack of communication between the genders then leads to genders understanding each other even less.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OBJECTIFICATION OF MEN AND THAT OF WOMEN?
It is true that men get objectified a lot lately. But the nature of the objectification is different. Men are generally valued by their physical strength. Their presence is practically a display of physical power. This is obviously also damaging to men, as they can’t all live up to these standards and also have other attributes (their own sexy brains and talent). But the fact that the main way male objectification is displayed is by valuing six-packs already shows there’s an important difference: women aren’t generally considered more attractive because of a six-pack. In fact, it’s preferable if they don’t have one. Strength is weakness.
Fun fact! Feel free to use objectification also in a political or socioeconomic context. For example, to describe how a society that is extremely capitalistic views low-wage workers.