Sex Object Test

[Alceste]

How does this square with the substantial increase in the academic performance of girls (particularly in relation to boys) over the last few decades?

IIRC, studies on the effects of self objectification generally look at what the consequences are for those girls who are most affected by it. Not all girls will react the same way. While many are demeaned by the acceptance of rape culture, many others seem to be empowered by the rejection of it, if my Facebook feed of former students is any indication.

Studies of academic performance include the whole population. Both the damaged and the empowered. Perhaps there are more of the latter than the former, or perhaps there is more than one single factor to consider when it comes to academic performance overall.

IMO, it would be better if girls didn't have to make that choice of accepting a lack of worth beyond their appearance to "fit in", or rebelling against all of society because that particular role (and there aren't many others on offer) does not appeal them.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Unfortunately, I don't have links, just references. These are the major studies the APA reviewed before releasing its report on the sexualization of girls:

That's fine, I just wanted to check to make sure which APA report you were referencing, which is what I suspected. Just a general note, their report is on the sexualization of girls, and although sexual objectification is a component of that, the report addresses a much broader focus than just sexual objectification.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

IIRC, studies on the effects of self objectification generally look at what the consequences are for those girls who are most affected by it. Not all girls will react the same way. While many are demeaned by the acceptance of rape culture, many others seem to be empowered by the rejection of it, if my Facebook feed of former students is any indication.

And many others may be neutrally affected by images and messages presented through media and advertising. I suspect it's difficult, if impossible, to determine how many individuals fall within each part of the spectrum. Although, I also suspect there are other more immediate risk factors which would influence how somebody is affected by outside influences. As always, good parenting, a stable environment, and appropriate guidance and support go along way in mitigating all sorts of negative influences.

Studies of academic performance include the whole population. Both the damaged and the empowered. Perhaps there are more of the latter than the former, or perhaps there is more than one single factor to consider when it comes to academic performance overall.

No doubt there are a whole host of factors. However, if one is concluding that girls are suffering academically on a societal level due to sexual objectification of women, then one would have to be able to control for such a variable and be able to clearly show who is being negatively affected and how.

IMO, it would be better if girls didn't have to make that choice of accepting a lack of worth beyond their appearance to "fit in", or rebelling against all of society because that particular role (and there aren't many others on offer) does not appeal them.

Although this may be your particular experience, I find that such a dichotomy isn't representative of the "choice" that most girls have to make in today's society. I have seven nieces between the ages of 7 and 17, and they are all well-balanced individuals who excel in school, have healthy social lives, and do not sexualize or objectify themselves for the attention of boys. Of course, again, I suspect that one's environment and parenting, as always, is the primary factor in how we absorb and process society and who we are in relation to it.

 

[Alceste]

This is getting a far afield.
1) Porn & commercial speech are so different that they're subject to greatly different regulation here.
2) Commercial speech (IMO) has a much greater effect because of ubiquity.
3) Projecting an idealized body type is different from (if related to) objectification.

Heaven help society if I ever get to dictate the standard for the ideal woman's build.

Yes, one and two are exactly what I was saying. I'm glad we agree!

3, I agree with this also. But I would suggest that the objectification of women works together with the projection of an impossible beauty standard to cause those harmful effects: the objectification suggests that girls have no inherent value or appeal beyond their sexual attractiveness, and the standard for sexual attractiveness is completely fictional and therefore unobtainable.

I do think the tide is turning. We are seeing increasingly physically diverse and psychologically complex female characters in entertainment (TV series in particular). Nearly as much so as male characters.

Advertising is a bit behind the curve, but I'm sure they'll catch up eventually.

 

[oldbadger]

.............
Heaven help society if I ever get to dictate the standard for the ideal woman's build.

I'd like to see Kilgore gag her........

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I'd like to see Kilgore gag her........

You have to pay for that privilege.

 

[Alceste]

And many others may be neutrally affected by images and messages presented through media and advertising. I suspect it's difficult, if impossible, to determine how many individuals fall within each part of the spectrum. Although, I also suspect there are other more immediate risk factors which would influence how somebody is affected by outside influences. As always, good parenting, a stable environment, and appropriate guidance and support go along way in mitigating all sorts of negative influences.



No doubt there are a whole host of factors. However, if one is concluding that girls are suffering academically on a societal level due to sexual objectification of women, then one would have to be able to control for such a variable and be able to clearly show who is being negatively affected and how.



Although this may be your particular experience, I find that such a dichotomy isn't representative of the "choice" that most girls have to make in today's society. I have seven nieces between the ages of 7 and 17, and they are all well-balanced individuals who excel in school, have healthy social lives, and do not sexualize or objectify themselves for the attention of boys. Of course, again, I suspect that one's environment and parenting, as always, is the primary factor in how we absorb and process society and who we are in relation to it.

I have to wonder why you would assume that particular private battle isn't happening with the young girls you know. What would you expect to see, as a behaviour reflecting self-objectification? Perhaps you're looking for particularly "loud" expressions like dressing like a prostitute, whereas the more common symptoms are more like being reluctant to go out in public without mascara on or worrying whether your butt looks fat in those jeans. Also, sexual performance anxiety in the form of spending more time in bed worrying about your love handles than your pleasure. Not something most young women tend to share with their uncles.

 

[oldbadger]

Oh dear......
What is the APA? I've already read a post which mentions how inexact a science psychology is, but the APA seems to let itself down. Look at this para as printed on it's website ....
Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls

In study after study, findings have indicated that women more often than men are portrayed in a sexual manner (e.g., dressed in revealing clothing, with bodily postures or facial expressions that imply sexual readiness) and are objectified (e.g., used as a decorative object, or as body parts rather than a whole person). In addition, a narrow (and unrealistic) standard of physical beauty is heavily emphasized. These are the models of femininity presented for young girls to study and emulate.

I highlighted the above sections.
Dressed in revealing clothing....... Just look at how male models dress in advertsing, revealing the 'so-called' ideal torso shape, with pecks, biceps and all. Fully revealing.
...Imply sexual readiness..... Men imply this with certain displays, the crotch display is quite common, as is 'Torso profiling', and any aggressive stance or fearture is a sexual display to women, whilst being a warn-off for any nearby males.... often seen in still image and tv adverts.
Body parts rather than the whole person.... Look at the male models again, please...

The whole presentation is biased, probably in connection with APA's survival?

 

[Alceste]

Oh dear......
What is the APA? I've already read a post which mentions how inexact a science psychology is, but the APA seems to let itself down. Look at this para as printed on it's website ....
Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls

In study after study, findings have indicated that women more often than men are portrayed in a sexual manner (e.g., dressed in revealing clothing, with bodily postures or facial expressions that imply sexual readiness) and are objectified (e.g., used as a decorative object, or as body parts rather than a whole person). In addition, a narrow (and unrealistic) standard of physical beauty is heavily emphasized. These are the models of femininity presented for young girls to study and emulate.

I highlighted the above sections.
Dressed in revealing clothing....... Just look at how male models dress in advertsing, revealing the 'so-called' ideal torso shape, with pecks, biceps and all. Fully revealing.
...Imply sexual readiness..... Men imply this with certain displays, the crotch display is quite common, as is 'Torso profiling', and any aggressive stance or fearture is a sexual display to women, whilst being a warn-off for any nearby males.... often seen in still image and tv adverts.
Body parts rather than the whole person.... Look at the male models again, please...

The whole presentation is biased, probably in connection with APA's survival?

"More so than men", old friend. Key to understanding that paragraph. Yes, there are also unrealistic portrayals of male beauty in the media, but "more so" for women.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I have to wonder why you would assume that particular private battle isn't happening with the young girls you know. What would you expect to see, as a behaviour reflecting self-objectification? Perhaps you're looking for particularly "loud" expressions like dressing like a prostitute, whereas the more common symptoms are more like being reluctant to go out in public without mascara on or worrying whether your butt looks fat in those jeans. Also, sexual performance anxiety in the form of spending more time in bed worrying about your love handles than your pleasure. Not something most young women tend to share with their uncles.

None of my nieces have love handles, nor wear substantial (and usually no) amounts of makeup. Regardless, this has little to do with my description of my nieces, their environment, and behaviors which paints your extreme dichomotic "choice" as either false or hyperbolic.

 

[oldbadger]

"More so than men", old friend. Key to understanding that paragraph. Yes, there are also unrealistic portrayals of male beauty in the media, but "more so" for women.

I'm not sure about the 'more so than men', not that I've spent my weeks and months scrutinising adverts etc......

And I've lost my survey groups now, since my mate's squads of under-grad summer-time cleaners have all sodded off back to uni. Pity. 'cos they really like talking about this and any social subject matter.

 

[Alceste]

None of my nieces have love handles, nor wear substantial (and usually no) amounts of makeup. Regardless, this has little to do with my description of my nieces, their environment, and behaviors which paints your extreme dichomotic "choice" as either false or hyperbolic.

Mmm-hmmm. :sarcastic Is it possible you are reading a lot of extra hyperbole and personal emotion into my very boring, research based opinion than is really there? Maybe because you don't like the implications of the research?

Ask any woman whether she thinks HAVING love handles is a necessary prerequisite for young girls to WORRY about their love handles. It sounds like you might be surprised at the answer.

 

[Alceste]

I'm not sure about the 'more so than men', not that I've spent my weeks and months scrutinising adverts etc......

And I've lost my survey groups now, since my mate's squads of under-grad summer-time cleaners have all sodded off back to uni. Pity. 'cos they really like talking about this and any social subject matter.

Here's a little experiment, then. Think of ten sympathetic male characters from American TV (the UK is a little more enlightened) who are a) chubby, b) over 50, and / or c) have a "character" face (i.e. unattractive). Easy, right? Now try women. Whoops!

 

[oldbadger]

Here's a little experiment, then. Think of ten sympathetic male characters from American TV (the UK is a little more enlightened) who are a) chubby, b) over 50, and / or c) have a "character" face (i.e. unattractive). Easy, right? Now try women. Whoops!

Honestly, I'd be useless at this. I have to point to a character on telly and ask, 'What's that bloke's name?' etc. Same goes for stars, celebrities, politicians (I know the US President and our PM..... try me!) but mostly I have never given a damn about who they are, breakfast preferences, you know what I mean.

I've never understood why we make such a fuss over somebody because they can act well in films, etc or sing wonderful songs. ..... when it comes to the rich, famous, powerful, beautiful, celebrated, blah blah I'm just dysfunctional. I remember sitting in a restuarant once and everybody started to get very excited. A couple had entered the place. I asked, 'Who the hell are they, then?' A woman at an adjacent table looked at me crossly and said , ' That, for your information, is -------.!!' I asked again.'Well, who is he? What's he do?' The whole table answered, 'He's our weatherman!'

He was BBC's regional tv weatherman.

I looked at the APA's website, looked through a list of subjects which it's members focus upon, and clicked on VIOLENCE - YOUTH, because I am a UK qualified trainer in Conflict management, reduction, avoidance blah blah... I then scanned through a few lines and came to these two sentences:

What causes someone to punch, kick, stab or fire a gun at someone else or even him/herself?
There is never a simple answer to that question.

.... I left the site.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

What a disgusting comment!

It should be "if she were gagged" because of the subjunctive case.

Subjunctive mood. Case describes nominal, adjectival, participial, and similar morphology to indicate grammatical roles such as nominative, instrumental, dative, locative, ergative, etc. TAM (Tense-Aspect-Modality) markers such as the use of "were" rather than "was" in a conditional construction are verbal.

It is likewise important to distinguish "objective cases" from cases of objectification. The problem with any ~12 minute presentation on so complex and weighty a matter is that 7 talking points are either going to be so broad as to cover basically everything under some interpretation or well-defined enough to exclude actual cases of sexual objectification. All the examples in the clip were, IMO, good ones, but the definitions were not nearly as good and the last in particular was both vague and (again, IMO) more or less wrong. Treating a person's body as a canvas has been a central component of art since Ancient Greece (during which time the female form was for the most part regarded as uninteresting or even boring). As for the descriptor "sexualized" I am reminded of the Supreme Court Justice Potter's "I know it when I see it" remark concerning what constitutes pornography. Yes, we're dealing with adds. However, these are often created by artists and those passionate and educated as well as talented in fields such as graphic design, photography, etc. I recall buying a friend a volume consisting merely of Absolut vodka adds I purchased in the arts section of a bookstore in Harvard square. A volume I have of LIFE magazine's most famous, influential, and important pieces includes several artistic depictions so akin to the example of "a sexualized person as a stand-in for an object" that I suspect it was influenced by one in particular.

I liked the talk. I think, though, that whenever one trials to boil down such an important issue with all kinds of nuances into less than a quarter hour all one really accomplishes is reaffirming that which was believed to begin with rather than a persuasive and influential argument. Were I to show this clip to my conservative father (my even more conservative brother wouldn't watch it, being the only fundamentalist Catholic I know) it would simply serve as yet another imagined way in which "the left" is stifling freedom of speech or otherwise ensuring some 1984 scenario. Were I to show it to several friends and cousins, I'd find they absolutely agreed and might even find it eye-opening in some respects.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Mmm-hmmm. :sarcastic Is it possible you are reading a lot of extra hyperbole and personal emotion into my very boring, research based opinion than is really there? Maybe because you don't like the implications of the research?

No, I think it's more possible that you're trying to deflect from the absolutist dichotomic "choice" you presented which is what I actually addressed.

Ask any woman whether she thinks HAVING love handles is a necessary prerequisite for young girls to WORRY about their love handles. It sounds like you might be surprised at the answer.

Again, nothing to do with my response to you. Try to stay on topic.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Here's a little experiment, then. Think of ten sympathetic male characters from American TV (the UK is a little more enlightened) who are a) chubby, b) over 50, and / or c) have a "character" face (i.e. unattractive). Easy, right? Now try women. Whoops!

I don't contend this is comparable (as male action stars have), but of late males too have had to either develop or fail to conform to a similar standard. A few decades ago action stars in movies and other exemplars of male beauty didn't require the abs of Brad Pitt in Fight Club or the build/cut of those like Jason Statham, Matthew McConaughey, Vin Diesel, etc. Magic Mike indicates how thoroughly demands of male physique matter wile Bridesmaids begin the list you ask for.

I don't mean to imply that the standards are equivalent; far from it. But they aren't as dichotomous as presented in the clip.

 

[Alceste]

No, I think it's more possible that you're trying to deflect from the absolutist dichotomic "choice" you presented which is what I actually addressed.



Again, nothing to do with my response to you. Try to stay on topic.

I just think it's cute that you think you know more about the psychological impact of the ubiquitous objectification of women than women - or the APA. Based on what, I wonder? Did you look up any of the dozens of studies Sunstone cited?

Never mind, confidence is sexy.

 

[Alceste]

I don't contend this is comparable (as male action stars have), but of late males too have had to either develop or fail to conform to a similar standard. A few decades ago action stars in movies and other exemplars of male beauty didn't require the abs of Brad Pitt in Fight Club or the build/cut of those like Jason Statham, Matthew McConaughey, Vin Diesel, etc. Magic Mike indicates how thoroughly demands of male physique matter wile Bridesmaids begin the list you ask for.

I don't mean to imply that the standards are equivalent; far from it. But they aren't as dichotomous as presented in the clip.

It's not only unrealistic beauty standards she is talking about though. It's parts of women's bodies being depicted in isolation. Women literally being depicted as objects, like tables or bottles or whatever. Women being
depicted as continually ready for sex, while often strangely ambivalent or unable to consent.

She's speaking about a subject / object dichotomy. What we refer to as "the male gaze". Images of women are more often "how men see women" than "how women see themselves". For men, it's the inverse.

Please be mindful of the phrase "more often" in your reply, since I have no interest in playing whack-a-mole with isolated examples of the female gaze, like magic Mike.

OTOH, I have quibbles with magic Mike. It started out promising me lots of glorious man bums and sexy dancing and poofed into a stupid, self-important bromance with punching and yelling (and no bums) halfway through. I don't know who wrote that piece of ****, but I'll bet money it was not a woman. The story was told from Mike's POV. So, still the male gaze, but with bums in. Men thinking about men's sexuality.

 

[Alceste]

Honestly, I'd be useless at this. I have to point to a character on telly and ask, 'What's that bloke's name?' etc. Same goes for stars, celebrities, politicians (I know the US President and our PM..... try me!) but mostly I have never given a damn about who they are, breakfast preferences, you know what I mean.

I've never understood why we make such a fuss over somebody because they can act well in films, etc or sing wonderful songs. ..... when it comes to the rich, famous, powerful, beautiful, celebrated, blah blah I'm just dysfunctional. I remember sitting in a restuarant once and everybody started to get very excited. A couple had entered the place. I asked, 'Who the hell are they, then?' A woman at an adjacent table looked at me crossly and said , ' That, for your information, is -------.!!' I asked again.'Well, who is he? What's he do?' The whole table answered, 'He's our weatherman!'

He was BBC's regional tv weatherman.

I looked at the APA's website, looked through a list of subjects which it's members focus upon, and clicked on VIOLENCE - YOUTH, because I am a UK qualified trainer in Conflict management, reduction, avoidance blah blah... I then scanned through a few lines and came to these two sentences:


.... I left the site.

I don't follow. Do you disagree that there is no simple explanation for violence? Maybe I need to see the quote in context.

I would have thought that with your background in training security personnel to overcome the psychological impact of regular conflict, you might lean more toward the belief that psychology can be studied and understood.