Sunday 30 April 2017

Notes on Objectification Theory, Self Objectification and Body Image - Calogero

"In general, media portrayals are considered sexually objectifying when the visual media spotlight women's bodies and body parts, especially when depicting them as the target of a nonreciprocated male gaze"

"by viewing and treating themselves as sexual obejcts, it is argued that girls and women act as their own frist-surveyors, in anticipation of being evaluated by other"

"when girls and women view themselves through this self-objectified lens, they take a peculair stance on their own bodies that is fundamentally disruptive to the self-body relationship"


Naomi Wolf - The Beauty Myth

"Women breached the power structures meanwhile eating disorder rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing medical speciality."

The Iron Maiden

"urgent social expedient that would make womens bodies into the prisons that their homes no longer were"

"the iron maiden put the shape of a near skeleton and the texture of mens musculature where the shape and feel of a woman used to be"

"the orginal iron maiden was a medieval german instrument of torture, a body shaped casket, painted with the limbs and features of a lovely, smiling you woman. The unlucky victim was slowly enclosed inside her, the lid fell shut to immobilise the victim, who died either of starvation or, less cruelly, of the metal spikes embedded in her interior. The modern hallucination in which women are trapped or trap themselves is similarly rigid, cruel and euphemistically painted. Contemporary culture directs attention to imagery of the iron maiden, while censoring real womens faces and bodies."

Naomi Wolfs analogy of the Iron Maiden perfectly describes what I am trying to get at in my essay. The idea that women are held to a limiting, unrealistic beauty ideal is one that is not new to Wolf. She perfectly describes how women are trapped and trap themselves in a beauty ideal that is going to do nothing but hurt their physical and mental wellbeing.

Notes on Objectification Theory - B. Fredrickson and T. Roberts

Objectification Theory

- provides a framework for understanding the array of psychological experiences that appear to be uniquely female

- formulates a life-course analysis of some womens' mental health risks

- organizes existing empirical data regarding womens' lives

- offers specific predictions to guide future empirical work

- women adopt an observers perspective on their physical self

- attractiveness functions as a prime currency for women's social and economic success

- physical beauty = power - if i am thin/pretty/sexy, i will achieve

Shame

- exposed constantly to images of youth, slimness and whiteness

- comparison that a woman makes between herself and the ideal

- ongoing efforts to change body and appearance through diet, exercise, fashion, surgery, eating disorders - reveal a body based shame

- body correction is motivated by shame, this elevates the task of meeting societal standards of beauty to a moral obligation - obliged to change

- shame that is recurrent, difficult to alleviate and constructed as a manor of morality

Anxiety

- experienced when people anticipate danger or threats to self - threats are ambiguous, as a pose to fear

- appearance anxiety and safety anxiety

- not knowing when/how a body will be looked at and evaluated

- roots in early-life social experiences - negative body comments

- manifests in checking and adjusting ones appearance

- fused with concerns about safety - some men who rape see attractive women as a threat to their power

- "asking for it" - refers to appearance

- more attractive rape victims are assigned more blame

- sexual objectification is a component of sexual violence

- continuous stream of anxiety provoking experiences

Peak Motivational States

- activities interrupted when others call attention to their appearance/body functions

- become more infused with direct overtones of heterosexuality - appearance, weight, breast development

- lose self-consciousness in order to achieve flow

- womens internalisation of an observers perspective on their bodies by definition creates a form of self-consciousness

Awareness of Internal Bodily States

- habits of restrained eaters may lead to a generalised insensitivity to internal bodily cues - hunger etc




Visual Journal Development

Whilst watching the MissRepresentation documentary, the idea of role models was briefly presented. They offered that young girls and women find role models wherever they can, do not settle for the people that are being presented to you already. This led me to start thinking about role models and women that promoted positivity, self-love, and body positivity. I decide to integrate this into part of my journal as I believe seeing people accept themselves no matter what shape or size, is a step towards the women of society being able to accept themselves and shrug off the notion that their is only one definition of beauty.

I also decided to look at presenting the woman as a literal object. Something that is used or to be looked at on a daily basis. This in turn led to a brief exploration of framing the female. Frames are used to house pictures, something that is to be looked at. Combining female body parts and female imagery into frames allows us to understand how a woman is put on a pedestal and regarded as something to be looked at rather than an actual person.


Beginning to Explore Magazine Content

I've started to look at developing the themes I'm coming across in my research and essay planning into my visual journal. I started to look at imagery I found in everyday magazines and I how I could alter this in order to communicate some of the themes within my essay. I've tried to place emphasis on the body being looked at and speculated over. I've also tried to use skeletal themes and imagery to run alongside the Thin Ideal. Fragmenting portraits of women was a further way to investigate how women are cropped and edited in order for them to not be viewed as a whole person.

Revised Essay Plan

With my new theme and change of direction, I thought it would be best to produce a revised Essay Plan that integrated my new theme and research and gave it more structure and meaning. I feel that this will make it easier for me to understand where I'm heading with this, what areas I need to research more on and what areas/idea aren't relevant to my question. I am also hoping that this will help me to find some starting points for my visual journal, as this is something I am struggling to get started on.


PLANNING & STRUCTURING AN ESSAY
Suggested Research Question.
This can be a topic or theme, but please try to be as precise as possible.
 How does the objectification of women in advertising and media affect women in society?
- Objectification
- Thin Ideal
- Self-objectification
- Internalization



Which Academic Sources will you reference?
Include a Harvard Referenced bibliography of at least 10 sources. (or what you have found so far)
 Benn, M. (2017). What Should We Tell Our Daughters?. 1st ed. London: John Murray.

Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing. 1st ed. London: British Broadcasting Corporation: Penguin Books.

Calogero, R. (2012). Objectification Theory, Self Objectification, and Body Image. 1st ed. [ebook] Norfolk, VA, USA: Elsevier Inc, pp.574 - 580.

Fredrickson, B. and Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification Theory. 1st ed. [ebook] EBSCO Publishing, pp.173 - 198.

Gauntlett, D. (2002). Media, Gender and Identity. 1st ed. London: Routledge

Gill, R. (2007). Gender and the media. 1st ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Wolf, N. (1991). The Beauty Myth. 1st ed. London: Vintage.



What Images / illustrations will you analyse?
Include at least one image to analyse in depth (but no more than three)

Examples of the Thin Ideal within advertising and media:
Ralph Lauren
Victorias Secret Body Diversity Campaign

Examples of advertising media that combats the thin ideal:
Dove Real Women Campaign
Essay Map
Using the Study Task Handout, construct an essay map outlining the FOUR main points of your argument.
This essay map should include a sentence which states your thesis, and how it will be addressed. It should also include FOUR sentences, each outlining a different element of your central argument.
You should also refer to how this essay map links to the key sources that you have highlighted and the example(s) of Illustration practice.


The promotion and internalization of the thin ideal leads a woman to self-objectify herself and in turn has drastic consequences upon both her physical and mental wellbeing.

The first thing the reader needs to know is how advertising and media objectify women and how they place emphasis on the body and the looks of a woman above her actual being. The reader then needs to be informed of the Thin Ideal, how it manifests itself within media and advertising and how it can be internalized

The next thing the reader needs to understand is what objectification theory is, what it encompasses and how women objectify themselves. The essay will then go on to explain the effects of self-objectification on the mental wellbeing of a an individual and how this can escalate to more drastic and serious mental and physical health implications.

Upon realising the thin ideal and it’s self-objectifying consequences, the reader then needs to be presented with an alternative. This will take the form of examining an existing body-positive, all-encompassing campaign and look at the positive impact this can have. The essay will then explore the idea that we ourselves can begin to influence a more body positive and accepting society, as well as how media must change in order to stop the self-objectifying effect it is having upon women.

The reader will then be informed of how the practical body of work that accompanies this essay begins to explore objectification, self objectification and moves onto explore self-love, body-positivity, supporting each other and allowing confidence to grow.

The essay will then be concluded with an argument for the change in media and advertising that we need to see in order for self-objectification and its ramifications to be lowered.


Peer Feedback – How could this Essay Map be refined / developed?
Show this form to a fellow student. They should record their feedback in the box below





Study Task 8 - Rationale

In order to complete the visual journal, i will explore the themes and ideas that i have discovered whilst researching and writing my essay. These themes include objectification, self-objectification, the male gaze, internalisation, fragmentation and cropping and the idea of role models. I will explore these themes by using collage and imagery found in magazines to compile a selection of work that investigates how these themes can be represented and communicated using collage.

I will then move onto looking at the concluding aspect of my essay, and start to create imagery based around self-love, self-acceptance, diversity, equality and the idea of 'girl power'. This will make up the main body of my work as I propose to provide imagery that offers an alternative from the narrow beauty ideal that the media represents and communicates. I believe that to combat this, imagery must be made that focuses less on the body and more on the being. I will look at using collage to create fun, playful imagery that communicates an atmosphere of acceptance, moving against the current media trend and supporting girls to grown and develop their own sense of self-worth and confidence.

Feminist Perspectives on Objectification

Seeing and treating a woman as an object - Martha Nussbaum identified seven features that are involved in the idea of treating a person as an object

Instrumentality - the treatment of a person as a tool for the objectifiers purposes
Denial of Autonomy - the treatment of a person as lacking in autonomy and self-determination
Inertness - the treatment of a person as lacking in agency and perhaps also in activity
Fungibility - the treatment of a person as interchangeable with other objects
Violability - the treatment of a person as lacking in boundary-integrity
Ownership - the treatment of a person as something that is owner by another (can be bought or sold)
Denial of Subjectivity - the treatment of a person as something whose experiences and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account

Rae Langton added three other features to the list

Reduction to Body - the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts
Reduction to Appearance - the treatment of a person primarily in terms of how they look, or how they appear to the senses
Silencing - the treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity to speak

The Thin Ideal

INTRODUCTION TO THIN IDEAL 

The thin ideal is the concept of an ideally slim female body. The common perception of this ideal is that of a slender feminine physique, a small waist and little body fat. The size of the thin ideal is constantly decreasing, whilst female obesity is increasing. This in turn makes the iconic slim body difficult for real women to achieve and furthermore, maintain. This creates a gap between the actual appearance of the average womans' body and its expected appearance, which depending on the extent to which the thin ideal is internalised, may have serious physiological effects. Women generally relate the ideally thin body to positive life outcomes such as happiness, confidence and romantic success. Consequently a majority of women value the thin ideal to some extent. 

LINK TO OBJECTIFICATION THEORY

Social studies have linked exposure to media that contain ultra-thin ideals to increased body dissatisfaction, thin-ideal internalisation, self discrepancies and eating pathology in young women. 


After researching into the thin ideal a little bit, i can clearly see the link between the thin ideal and objectification theory and i can see how both of these ideologies can help me research and construct an essay that explores the physiological impact that advertising and media can have upon women of society.

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?