Often when people hear the way I feel before seeing me, they either think I am large and overweight or an unattractive woman (an uneducated assumption). It makes people feel better to believe this, because they think it would make my opinion less credible. If it is less credible, than people can close their eyes and ears and do not have to face the truth. My eyes are wide open.
Over the last number of years, I have noticed more and more half naked women being plastered all over billboards, television, movies, magazines, and the internet. I can go into Blockbuster and see at least three or four movies per shelf unit with a half naked woman on it, or at least very sexualized. How many do I see of men, maybe three or four in the entire store? When I type in “sexy” on the internet, nearly everything that comes up are women.
I hear people say, “sex sells”, but what I think is really selling are women's bodies. People say “sex sells” as if it applies equally to men. It is just a way of masking what it really is. Women are increasingly being portrayed as sex objects, and they are increasingly expected to conform to a standard of beauty set by the media that is unhealthy and unrealistic for most women. The way women are objectified and their beauty defined is a social problem. Social problems are sustained by different aspects of our society's culture such as our beliefs, myths and the degree we individuals are blinded by the truth.
Overall however, there appears to be a lack of interest in women over this issue. I think that unlike other women's issues that are at the forefront, such as domestic violence, sexual assault, etc., the objectifying of women continues to be largely accepted, and considered the norm. After all, it was legal and acceptable for men to beat their wives in the past, and acceptable for women not to be considered “persons” under the law. Sometimes we just need to open our eyes to the injustice.
Recently many feminist undertones can be seen in recent television shows and movie depictions of women. The idea of “girl power” has become popular, and has often been termed as “pop feminism”, with music artists carrying this theme such as “Pink” and “Christina Aguilera”; in movies such as “Underworld”, “Electra”, and other movies featuring super-heroines. While women are finally being featured as capable, heroic, and strong instead of meek and passive, a common theme continues. This theme is that women are still over-sexualized. I guess you cannot be a female hero unless you are skinny with large breasts, wearing tight clothes in high heels.
Women have come to highly scrutinize their own bodies, and are subject to the same scrutiny by the public. One major contributor to these is the media's role in emphasizing the beauty only comes in a white, thin, able-bodied, and heterosexual body. Only this form of beauty is deemed acceptable as being, “sexy”, “acceptable”, “lovable” and “worthy”. “At the same time, women's bodies have been culturally constructed as a site of sin, corruption, and uncleanliness” (Mandell 2004).
Many challenges face changing this unhealthy and “toxic” image of women. One of these challenges are from the “power holders”. These are people who have control and power over the current conditions, and those who have an investment in, and benefit from the current state of affairs. “Power holders” over the objectification of women are cosmetic companies for one. Cosmetic companies earn billions of dollars by making women feel unattractive. They imply that women are not good enough the way they are. Using only very “attractive” women to advertise this makeup is purposeful, so that you feel even less attractive, and actually believe you can look more like them by using this makeup. Their purpose is to make money off of you; they do not care how it affects you.
Diet programs are most often targeted at women as well. Women are constantly told that they must be thin in order to be attractive and beautiful. If women began to be perceived as being beautiful even though they were not as thin as the portrayed ideal in the media, the sales and services of these diet programs would plummet. Very few women want to lose weight for their health; it is primarily to look slimmer. If our society valued the weight of the average women, this would also cause diet schemes to lose much of their value.
Another power holder of the objectification of women and women's “beauty” is the pornography industry, who has a huge investment in the sexual objectification of women. Sexual objectification occurs, whenever a woman's body, body parts, or sexual functions are separated out from her person, reduced to mere instruments, or regarded as if they were capable of representing her” (Rubin 2004). The pornography industry also make billions of dollars off this condition. Marketers and producers of pornography have admitted to the harmful consequences to women they produce and its links with sexism. Do they care? Of course they do not. It does not hurt them directly; they make money.
