Objectification Theory - An Introduction

I had some more TED Talks on in the background whilst I was doing some research and I heard someone on one of the videos mention something called 'Objectification Theory'. I hadn't heard this term before so gave it a quick google and was pliantly surprised with how well this was linking up to the thoughts i was having about my essay. 

"Objectification Theory posits that girls and women are typically acculturated to internalise an observers perspective as a primary view of their physical self."

"This perspective on self can lead to habitual body monitoring. This increases women's opportunities for shame and anxiety and reduce opportunity for peak motivational states and also diminish awareness of internal bodily states."

This is just a snippet of information that I've found as an introduction to what objectification theory is. I feel that it would be really interesting to explore objectification theory, how this in turn links in with the 'Thin Ideal' and how self-objectification is detrimental to the self-esteem and confidence of young girls and women of society. 

TED X WanChaiWomen - Dying to be thing - Su-Mei Thompson

I started to look at TED talks, as I know these are a great source of learning and finding out about loads of different things. I started to look at body image, body dissatisfaction, and self-objectification

This one called 'Dying To Be Thing" from Su-Mei Thompson focuses on the promotion of the thin ideal across advertising and media. The thin ideal is the concept of the ideally slim female body. Thompson talks about how the advertisements and media that we are exposed to on a daily basis and how more and more girls are moving towards the thin ideal that ever before. Looking at advertising that promotes thinness as a solution or as an ideal leads women and girls to believe that thinness equals success and happiness. This coupled with a constant promotion of diet and weight loss can lead young girls and women towards depressions, unhappiness, and eating disorders.

Su-Mei Thompson also starts to talk about how advertising and media are starting to take responsibility for the content that they're promoting, and how they can use their brand ambassadors to promote the diversity of different female shapes and sizes. She also talks about the individual responsibility we can play in changing how media portrays women. By using the power of social media, you can call out the brands, companies etc that continue to objectify women. She emphasises the need to place less worth on the physical being and outward beauty and more worth on the confidence and aspirations of young girls and women.

I feel that after watching this I would like to investigate more into the thin ideal and how this is linked with objectification and how the aspiration to be thin is linked with positive life outcomes. I would also like to maybe develop my visual journal to look at how we can empower women and girls and promote body positivity, self-love and confidence over appearance.

MissRepresentation - Documentary and Campaign

Whilst trawling the internet for my initial research, I stumbled across a campaign and documentary named 'MissRepresentation'. The campaign focuses on the under-representation of women as leaders in the media. They state that young girls women are sold the idea that their value lies in beauty, slimness, youth and sexuality and not in their capacity of leaders and that boys learn that their leadership is tied to dominance, aggression and power. The campaign aims to teach people how to value others as beings and not as gendered stereotypes.

The campaign comes along with a documentary that is available to rent on youtube, I was pretty interested and it only cost a few pound so I didn't see the harm. The documentary covered a vast array of topics and revealed the medias limited portrayal of women and the effect that this is having upon young girls and women. I wrote down a few notes and statistics whilst watching the documentary so i'm going to put them on here to refer back to at a later date.

"To be a woman means to be constantly striving for perfection and beauty - eating disorders - self worth"

53% of 13 year old girls are unhappy with their bodies - number increases to 78% by age 17

65% of women and girls have an eating disorder

17% of teens engage in self-injurious behaviour

Rates of depression amongst girls and women have doubled between 2000 and 2010

U.S. women spend $12,000 to $15,000 a year on beauty and salon services

The number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youth under age 19 has more than tripled from 1997 to 2007

Self-objectification has become a national epidemic - APA - Negative consequences including shame, anxiety, self-disgust

The more women and girls self objectify, the more likely they are to be depressed, have eating disorders, lower confidence, lower ambition, lower cognitive function, lower GPA's

Gender-Bias - women make up 51% of american citizens, yet only 17% of congress

Film & TV

- Women are very rarely protagonists, unless it's male related drama
- Only 16% of protagonists in films are female
- Movies contain more violence, sex and profanity than a decade ago
- Women in their teens, 20's and 30's are 39% of the population, yet are 71% of women on tv
- Women 40 and older are 47% of the population yet are 26% of women on tv
- News hosts often consist of an older male and a younger female - childlike - lower status


Media is overwhelmingly in the hands of men

Women comprise only 16% of all writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and editors

Symbolic Annihilation - The absence of representation or underrepresentation of a group of people in the media 

Objectifying and dehumanising a person is the first step towards justifying violence - rape - sexual abuse 

1 in 4 girls experience teen dating violence 
1 in 4 women are abused by a partner in their lifetime 
1 in 6 women are survivors of rape or attempted rape 
15% of rape survivors are under the age of 12
Rape survivors are more likely to suffer depression, abuse alcohol or drugs, contemplate suicide

Men are taught to have a lack of emotion expressed - Manifests in violent and mysoginistic ways

**Watched 5/4/17 on youtube**

The quotes and statistics that stuck out to me most here where the ones that involved the impact that media was having on our mental health. I feel that this is something that I would like to explore further. Last year I looked at sexualisation of the female form so I feel that I have some background into what i'm wanting to research into. Although this time I want to be looking at self-objectification and the impact that that is having on women and girls.

Study Task 5: Initial Ideas

I feel that my focus for the visual journal will be looking into collage based imagery that reflects the themes I have been identifying throughout my research. I feel that collage relates back to the theme of society as through collage you can re-use existing images to create your own interpretation of the society that your research represents and communicates.

Initially, I want to begin to look at self-objectification and how women treat themselves as objects as a pose to the traditional view of males treating females as objects. I would then like to begin to move on to provide an alternative perspective on what it is to be female, looking at how we can value identity and mind over the body and place less emphasis on the ideal of being thin.

Visual Research Starting Points

I've taken some time to look at some existing illustration work that relates to my chosen question and the themes that i have identified throughout. The themes are as follows:
- self-objectification
- internalization
- body image
- self-esteem
- identity
- self
- diversity

Anna Toman for Girls Get Busy Zine
Hand drawn imagery, still with a cut and paste kind of aesthetic
Line based with added colour to add emphasis to the image
Delicate colours contrast with an aggressive image and message

Linda Sterling
Collage based imagery
Exploring objectification through the combination of female form and objects
Could also be an exploration of domestication

Fred One Litch
Simple collage based imagery
Includes text cuttings in order to emphasise message
Text and image run alongside each other to create an image of power

Frances Cannon
Line based, black and white illustration
Focus on self-acceptance and body positivity
Back catalogue of work that encourages positivity and self-acceptance within females

Barbara Kruger
Collage based imagery
Black and white photo with contrasting red boxed text - emphasis on the message
Message sits alongside a young female in heavy make-up and extensive hair style
Emphasis on how value is placed on beauty from a young age

I feel that from researching into feminst art and illustration that relates back to my themes within my essay, I can see that collage is a strong way forward with how imagery is produced around these subjects. This of course leads back to dadaism and the DIY underground movement of riotgrrrl. These are things i already have an interest in and I have already done soem research on zines and zine making so feel that collage would be a good proccess to carry forward. I also really enjoy the hand drawn elements to some of these pieces and feel that this is something that I'd be interested in combining with collage at some point through my visual development.

Change of direction

Whilst researxhing into zines and zine culture, I started to drift mroe and more towards feminist zines and the content that they include. This in turn got me thinking about the work that I did for COP in first year and I decided I wanted to extend that specific part of my knowledge. I was also becoming increasingly bored of m proposed research question and feel that this is because I was just using COP as an excuse to make some more zines. Due to the visual journal element, this isn't something I can follow through on and I would rather investigate this area of practice in my own time or throughout other modules.

To develop a new theme/question, I started to look at some starting points from last year:

Feminism
Femzines
Gender
Femininity
Gender Stereotypes
Body Image
Sexualisation
Objectiication
Narccissism
Objectivity

After highlighting some key themes and ideas, I started thinking about gender and how media/image starts to construct our idea of gender, what gender already means to us, and how this can contribute to everyday sexism/discrimination. Media is something that we incorporate into our everyday lives on a huge scale. It influences almost every aspect of our lives wether we are conscious of it or not.
This led on to me starting to think about gender and identity, and how the media influences our personal construction of identity. I started to come up with a few questions that could be the starting point for my essay:

"How does the media impact the way in which women view themselves?"
"How does the media impact our views of gender?"
"How do role models in western media influence the construction of identity?"
"How does media influence womens construction of identity?"

When I started to think about media and it's influence on women and identity, I started to think about how social media can influence our personal choices and how we view ourselves. I read an article somewhere online about how social media was linked to the downfall of young girls health and education as the were prioritisng their online image over anything else. Social media is shown to have links with depression in young girls, which in turn is linked with higher obesity rates in young girls. These heightened rates of depression and obesity are having a knock on effect on how young girls view themselves and how they perform in school. I found this really interesting and feel that it is something that I would want to explore and examine further.
Possible question:
How does media impact the physical and mental health of young girls?

Study Task 3 - Triangulation

In Laura Mulvey's 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' (1975), Mulvey argues cinema highly depends on the ideology of scopophilia, a Freudian theory in which people gain pleasure through the objectification of another person, Mulvey rationalises this claim by stating that women in cinema are 'looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact' (Mulvey 1975). In comparison, John Storey in his text 'Cultural Theory and Popular Culture' states that the audience views 'women as a sexual object', further backing up Mulvey's claim of women in cinema being viewed and treated as objects and as something to be looked at and displayed as a pose to an actual person.

Although sometimes critical of Mulveys text, Dyers 'Stars andAudiences' also backs up the claim that women are objectified through cinema by exploring how the male is represented within the narrative. He explores the idea that male-pinups are used in an image in a way that suggests they are not an erotic object and that 'this can involve looking off as if disinterested in the viewer, glancing upwards to appear lost in a higher spiritual form of thinking, or staring to confront the fact of being looked at'.