Miss Representation and Self-Objectification

       Objectification is an issue that's been normalized over the years through the media. It's the idea of a person being degraded to the status of a mere object and it's most commonly portrayed through men objectifying women. In advertisements, television, magazines and all over social media, women are being shown in various stages of undress just to please men and draw attraction. Objectification draws the focus away from a woman's personality or education, and instead it puts the attention on their physical appearance. Women are reduced from being humans with opinions and perspectives, to their body parts which are usually photoshopped heavily before being put on the internet.
       Objectification is a big issue because it devalues women and makes the fight for equality more difficult to achieve. On top of this, objectification from others isn't the only degrading problem that women are facing. Self-objectification is also a major problem and this is introduced through the movie Miss Representation. Self-objectification is women degrading themselves or even other women and it's extremely common in the world today. This is the idea of girls viewing themselves as just a collection of body parts without a voice. Basically, it's women looking at themselves as an object first, and a human second. Constantly checking your appearance in the mirror, critiquing your image in photographs, and comparing yourself with others in the media are common behaviors included in self-objectification. These things may be completely normal to most people, and they don't even think twice before they do it; but they are very unhealthy habits that lower self-esteem and can even effect your political voice.
       Starting from a young age, kids are exposed to half-naked women which projects the idea that women are too be viewed as objects. This is the first step to rape and violence because as kids get older, they don't understand that these women are people too. Sexual objectification is the idea of viewing a person for having no purpose other than an object of sexual desire. When women's bodies are sexualized, they become objects that contribute to stereotypes and violence against girls. From a study in 2008, researchers at Wesleyan University found that on average, across 58 different magazines, 51.8 percent of advertisements that featured women portrayed them as sex objects.  However, when women appeared in advertisements in men’s magazines, they were objectified 76 percent of the time. This leads to women having anxiety over their appearance, eating disorders, and depression. The amount of girls with depression has doubled from 2000 to 2009. 
       Miss Representation taught me how objectification from men and self-objectification are both results of women being portrayed as objects in the media. Commonly on television, women are seen as helpless and wearing almost no clothing while they wait for a man to come into their life and make things better. This reinforces the incorrect idea that a woman cannot be happy or successful unless they have a male figure in their life. By having women wearing little to no clothing, girls create false expectations about body types and men create expectations of how women should dress. In magazines and throughout advertisements, women are shown to be enjoying a product or walking down the red carpet and they look beautiful and perfect. What viewers don't realize is the amount of photoshop and editing these pictures have gone through. By seeing these skinny, glowing women, girls begin to strive for unrealistic body standards and a lifestyle that no one really lives. And young boys who see these ads then expect highly from women because they want to see girls looking like the models they see in magazines. 

According to nobullying.com, as a result of media objectifying women, statistics show:

• 53% of 13-year-old American females are self-conscious about their bodies; the number grows to 78% by the age of 17. 

According to the movie, Miss Representation: 

• The amount of girls with depression as a result of objectification has doubled from 2000 to 2009.
• 65% of eating disorders are a result of objectification.
• 15% of rape victims are under the age of 12.

This image shows body standards for women based upon her curves and the fact that you can see them from her lack of clothing. In comparison to the man standing next to her who is wearing clothes and not being objectified.


http://darlingmagazine.org/what-it-means-to-self-objectify-and-how-we-can-stop-doing-it/
This link is for a website that talks about what self-objectification is and how we can work to stop it before it becomes an even bigger problem.