The Effects Of Objectification Of Women In Society

Growing up, traditional social norms have dictated certain gender roles for men and women in my culture. Men have generally been regarded as dominant, masculine, and independent, whereas women are often depicted as weak, sensitive and dependent (Basow, 1986). Throughout many decades women have been struggling to be equal to men, whether it is at home or the work place. Women have come a long way and are certainly fighting to gain that equality, but gender roles are very important in our society. They have become important in life from birth, and society continues to push these gender roles. Unfortunately, these gender roles have an effect on how society view women. Although women have been slowly progressing through history by gaining equal rights to men, they continue to be objectified by society, especially through mass media. As a result, women that are objectified by society tend to have certain effects.

When feminists complain about the objectification of women, most people immediately think of the images that are shown in our magazines, movies, adverts and the Internet, of women in varying stages of undress, dolled up and presented for the male gaze. The sexual objectification of women in the

Every dog we see is a ‘he’, every stick figure a ‘he’, humans thought of as simply ‘mankind’. There are exceptions, though. Boats, cars, bikes and ships always seem to be ‘she’, but this is hardly exciting once we realise that they are all objects, and possessions of (usually) men, at that. Anyway, the cumulative effect of all this is that we are socialising generation after generation to view the world, and the women in it, from the point of view of men. As a result, only men are seen as full and complete human beings, not women. Women are objectified - this means we are denied agency, and are seen from the outside, our own consciousness, our thoughts and feelings, utterly overlooked. (Goh-Mah,