Women’s body objectification
How social media negatively influences in the women’s mental health through the objectification and dehumanization of their bodies.
Introduction
Since the beginning of advertisement trend on different social media, women’s body have been frequently used in marketing campaigns to increase profit to different companies, especially in the Western consumer Culture, where capitalism and patriarchal system dictate the standards of beauty and behavior. This wild trend of social media is leading a sick and disconnected society from the real world by affecting many people’s mental health. Woman’s appearance and body couture takes precedence over their internal attributes and self worth. Many of the advertisements of different consumer industries such as fashion, cars, alcohol, and make up companies project the female body in a particular way that attempt to make the product more attractive. Most of these companies are focused on women with hourglass figures, proportionate size of breasts, the size of buttocks, as well as fairness of skin and commonly these women have their bodies presented in a sexualized way. Nowadays, advertisements take place mostly in different social media platforms, particularly on Instagram, where pictures of women become the focus of how money is made for these advertising companies. These companies frequently produce advertising campaigns that project women in a certain way that then sends their audience the idea of a perfect body. This idea of the perfect body perpetuates the society in a way that negatively influences the perception of women, both the models and the audience, on their appearance and bodies. Thus, the purpose of this research is to detail how these advertisements on social media negatively influences women of different cultures and how the internalization of beauty standards effect women’s mental health, based on the objectification and self- objectification theories. Before the conclusion, I will briefly explain how the toxic masculinity, has fundamental role in the perpetuation of those beauty standards and the objectification of women’s body. And lastly to end with the perpetuation of this sick patriarchal and capitalism standards, we all have as collective, fight together to stop and minimize the effects of this toxic masculinity by decolonizing people, especially men’s mind and behaviors.
1- Industry of beauty, advertisements and Instagram
Before delving into the Objectification and self objectification theories, it is important to understand how the industry of beauty had been influencing negatively women’s life by leaving several harmful experiences. The first of this is the stereotyping of women and the establishment of unrealistic aesthetic standards and how beautiful or ugly, sexy or fat you are or how good or bad you are to represent the product for those companies. And consequently, those standards of “perfect beauty” ends to exclusion and depreciation of women who do not meet these standards. Those imposition of the “perfect beauty” affect not only people that are often expose on social media, but women in family or professional environments as well, by being harassed because of their weight, height, hair, waxing, body shape and other physical attributes. Another harmful consequence of this phenomenon is low self-esteem and socialization damage.
The main and most important focus for those companies is to make huge profits by selling the “perfect woman’s image”, imposed by the current trend of beauty that sustains the capitalistic system. Those norms often sexualize, idealizes, and stereotypes images of women and men that deeply influence the public’s attitudes toward the “perfect body and appearance” by emphasizing and glorifying the materialistic pursuits, such as money, possessions, and social status (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Obviously, this kind of “perfect woman” that they created does not exist in the real life, because is notable that most of the contents involving the female figure go through photographic editions in order to remove “imperfections”. However, some vulnerable consumers believe they should pursue these perfectionists and materialist’s standards in order to achieve personal and professional success. Today, Instagram is the most popular image-focused social media platform, reports 300 million daily users (Instagram, 2016). Through Instagram, users can create and share self-images for immediate feedback (e.g., likes and comments) from others, usually women expose themselves in self-objectifying ways that they typically receive more positive audience feedback in comparison to other types of self-images. However, the problematic trend of those social medias is the prevalence of plastic surgery body and face filters that try to emulate the perfect beauty. It is notable that even most of the celebrities that had already undergone to plastic surgery only post selfie on their Instagram Story using plastic surgery filter on, that means the filter becomes an inextricable part of the way that their Instagram audiences see their face. (Bell & Cassarly & Dunbar, 2018). Because of those influences, young girls are searching for bigger lips and contoured cheeks in a bid to emulate their filtered selfies on social media. Thus, this obsession for the perfect appearance and comparation with others, can leave significant impact on a people’s self-esteem and the perception of beauty worldwide, especially among young girls that are not fully physically developed and are constantly emulating celebs to achieve the beauty standards. In the article “Selfie-Objectification: Self-Objectification and Positive Feedback (“Likes”) are Associated with Frequency of Posting Sexually Objectifying Self-Images on Social Media”, by Bell, Cassarly & Dunbar, 2018 they present the first research which examine the psychological and behavioural of self-objectification on social media among young adult women. Their studies indicate important understanding and effects of frequent body and self-image postings that promote self-objectification and positive audience feedback (likes) in comparison to other types of images.
2- Objectification and Self-Objectification theories
According to Bell, Cassarly & Dunbar (2018), “the objectification occurs when a person is deprived of their personhood to the extent that they are perceived as or behave in an object-like way relative to a human”. In other words, sexual objectification occurs when the individual values more how the other will see their bodies, appearance and sexual function than their internal attributes and human values. The authors pointed that when individuals internalize and prioritize more cultural patterns of beauty, they are more prone to increased body shame than moral issues. These beauty patterns change according to the stereotype of different culture and period of time followed by the idea of perfect beauty. Fredrickson and Roberts (1997), explained that the objectification and self-objectification theories, young girls and women who are repeatedly exposed to sexual messages adopt a perspective of external recognition of their own bodies, characterizing them as an object of consume. The social media, Instagram provide a novel opportunity for understanding how women who self-objectify present themselves to others and how objectified self-presentations are received through likes of approval and follower (Bell, Cassarly & Dunbar, 2018). Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) exposed important framework to understand the factual consequences of being female in a culture where women’s bodies become oppressedand objectified. The objectification of the bodies are consequence of the oppressive systems and the internalization of an outsider’s point of view about their bodies. With the advance of technology, advertising, marketing, and fashion industry had always been the most powerful influences to perpetuate the patriarchal and oppressive standards, especially by promoting messages that are often disempowering, depreciating women and anti-feminist content. Sadly, is notable that this new trend of constantly approvals and have “perfect appearance” can bring serious consequences to people’s life, health and wellbeing.
3- Plastic surgery and Self-Presentations
Another self-objectification trend that is taking place all over the world, especially among young women is the plastic surgery all over the body in order to achieve the beauty standards. In different culture, we can recognize how the imposition of beauty standards dictated by the industry of beauty is affecting women’s overall mental health. According to Ching and TengXu (2019) today China has become the third largest market of cosmetic surgery after the United States and Brazil, where 70% of the surgical procedures in china involve young women at a university or high school. The authors pointed that the current adolescents represent the first generation raised in a culture that considers cosmetic surgery a common and acceptable way of appearance. Sadly, some parents had been influencing negatively their children by encouraging them to undergo to cosmetic surgery because they considered attractive appearance a valuable long-term investment for their daughters’ career and marriage. Not only in China, but around the world, Instagram and ads have become a very popular dictator of beauty and a profitable business that determine the idea of women’s success for their beauty rather than talent, while men are predominantly judged by their wealth and skill. Moving to western culture, in Brazil, for example, the consolidation of the perfect body had significant influence by the Carnival dancers followed by Instagram where the marketing industry are focus on curved and perfect bodies and faces. One example of bad succeed to achieve the “perfect body” was the case of the Miss BumBum Andressa Urach, Brazilian women obsessed about beauty and vanity almost ended up with her life trying to achieve the perfect body by undergo plastic surgery procedure, likechemical filler injections for more full looking legs. But in 2013, the fillers started rotting her body tissue and Urach had to be hospitalized because of an infection on her leg after applying hydrogel. However, the real trouble began during a procedure to remove the chemicals and she went into septic shock, probably because of an infection from an unclean medical instrument. Doctors saved her life, but now she’s confined to a wheelchair and has large holes in her legs where doctors reached the harmful chemicals. Urach said. “I’d go to the doctor like I go to the supermarket, saying I wanted this, that and the other. I just wanted people to look at me and think, ‘wow’ “. This was just one examples of many others, of how many people are can end their lives to achieve the “perfect body” expectation that truly doesn’t exist in the real life.
Evidence indicates that persistent self-objectification and body surveillance are associated with internalization of the status that society gave it influencing how this one sees itself. The influence of media and advertising industry in the sexual objectification can generate instrumentalization of bodies and dehumanization of human’s life. Therefore, this search for the perfect body and external acceptance ends up directly influencing your self-esteem and mental health. This perspective on self objectification can lead to habitual body monitoring, which, can increase women’s opportunities for shame and anxiety, reduce opportunities for peak motivational states, and diminish awareness of internal bodily states. Constants experiences about self-critic and internalization of the observer’s perspective may account for an array of mental health consequences that disproportionately affect women all over the world. Unipolar depression, anxiety, self-awareness, sexual dysfunction, and eating disorders are considered the directly relation on deprecation of body and self- objectification. (Wollast, Puvia, Bernard, Klein, 2018)
4- Consequences of internalization of beauty standard
With the current social media trend, it is important to be aware and understand how the internalization of beauty standards imposed by the beauty industry and media can lead serious consequences to people, especially to women’s mental health. Based on the objectification and self- objectification theories, the accumulation of experiences with sexual objectification can contribute to different consequences and psychological disorder such as: shame, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, eating disorder, reduce peaks of motivational state and diminished of awareness internal bodily state. Fredrickson & Roberts (1997), describe shame as a “result from a fusion of negative self evaluation with the potential for social exposure” as a moral obligation to follow the standards of beauty. They also emphasize that “this shame can be consider a moral emotion for the simple fact of being female in a culture that objectifies women’s body, where the “loss of self” or the access their own inner physical experiences, might contribute to develop depressive conditions”. (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997. Page 185). Not only the competition among women but also the mainstream media and publicly labeled hashtag, especially on Instagram, are the main factor that contributes increasingly to fueling the objectification of women but also contribute to dehumanization of their lives. Unfortunately, the perpetuation of objectification of women’s bodies and their dehumanization are basically to reach the eyes of consumers and profit from women’s bodies. Thus, those women that fit on the beauty patterns imposed by the mainstream they are more likely to reach out their fame, status and money. Therefore, more positive feedback obtained in her posts, the greater the incentive for this woman to continue posting the same type of photos with sexual poses, hiding their faces, wearing revealing clothes, exposing more parts of the flesh/body, or adopting seductive, sensual and suggestive poses. (Bell, Cassarly and Dunbar 2018. page 84). Thus, these habits remained contributed to self-objectification and comparison between women, and leaving aside the aspect of personality, their internal talents and the mental health wellbeing.
5- Toxic masculinity and Decolonization
With the advance of digital technology, especially social media, we can identify how the toxic masculinity, has fundamental role in the perpetuation of those beauty standards and the objectification of women’s body. However, to end with misogyny an sexist thought and behaviors, it is important to recognize that patriarchal standards hurts men too and they are also victims in many different ways, especially assertion of masculinity or conforming socially to a masculine identity. For almost the entire life of the human being, the society patterns had been led by the Patriarchal System where male is the favored gender and hold the power, domination and privileges, not only at the family environment but also in society. In the patriarchal culture standards, woman is seen as inferior, weak, generally less capable, less intelligent and less worthy. Cleaning, caring for the family and serving the husband were always related to women’s main duties. Women’s oppression is very ancient and took place before capitalism exist however both systems are responsible for the oppression and objectification of women’s life for many years until now. Women’s beauty standards have been changed over many decades, where each period of time and culture promote and impose a particular type of beauty, from the exotic figure to the hourglass, where they must present proportional size of breasts, buttocks, symmetrical face and white skin, which is often dictated by the patterns of privilege white man. It is important to recognize that the Patriarchy System has also built a toxic masculinity that we need to change.
6- Conclusion
To talk about Decolonization of Patriarchal System means at least know the format and the oppressive standards, in order to act directly in the structures which patriarchal power performs and dictates its norms and laws, whether in the family, at school, in society or in the state. This requires a new way of seeking, learning and teaching, not excluding male gender of these new narratives as a way of doing justice. We must think and build from the man and the woman, together and equal, so that the biological differences do not serve for an ideological construction of differences, but for the construction of new perspectives and affirmations imbued with equality of roles, by the simple fact that they are all human beings. In my point of view, one of the most problematic situation that we are going through nowadays is about the beauty standards on social media is that people are become so depend of using filters that they cannot post imagens of their own face without using this tools, disassociating what is real life and not, leading a world of unrealistic comparation. In this way, it is the extremely importance that those companies “re-evaluating” their policies and remove all effects from the gallery associated with plastic surgery, in order to minimize the negative impacts from social media and other digital platforms. To build a better and equal society it is important to end the idealization of this version of perfect beauty and stop constantly posting “fake perfect images”. Thus, in order to change this social issue, we all need to recognize our role in the alienation of beauty standards and the problematic effects of the objectification of bodies’ especially in women’s mental health. In this way we have more chance to make positive changes within society that may have a global affect. We must all together diminish the sociocultural aspects and barrier that demobilizes women’s potential and well-being. In order to end sexism, sexist, exploitation, objectification and oppression of bodies, this fight must be collective, so in this way we will be able to create a real society with more peace, empathy, equality, empowerment and less inequality and dehumanization of bodies. In brief,
“Learn daily to have a love affair with a beautiful person you are, develop a romance with your own story. No one compares because each of us is a unique character in the theater of life.” (CURY, 2005, p.1)
References
Fredrickson, B & Roberts, T (1997). Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly Volume 21, pages 173–206. Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00108.x
Ching, B & Teng Xu, J (2019). Understanding cosmetic surgery consideration in Chinese adolescent girls: Contributions of materialism and sexual objectification. Body Image Volume 28, pages 6–15. Retrieved from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144518300470
Saedi, G. (2013). Media Objectification and Devaluation of Women. Posted 2013, 5 September Retrieved: from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRoKmxglYN4
Bell, B & Cassarly, J & Dunbar, L (2018). Selfie-Objectification: Self-Objectification and Positive Feedback (“Likes”) are Associated with Frequency of Posting Sexually Objectifying Self-Images on Social Media. Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118978238.ieml0217
Wollast, R & Puvia, E & Bernard, P & Klein, O & Tevichapong, P (2018). How Sexual Objectification Generates Dehumanization in Western and Eastern Cultures. A Comparison between Belgium and Thailand. Swiss Journal of Psychology volume 77. Pages 69–82. Retrieved from: https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1024/1421-0185/a000209
CURY, Augusto Jorge. A ditadura da beleza e a revolução das mulheres. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante, 2005. 120p.
Newsbroke. 2 de mar. de 2018. Don’t drink the toxic masculinityRetrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnHXmyuAUm9eBR27NMDsSzQ
The Female Lead 7 de out. de 2019. Disrupting The Feed — Social Media & Mental Health Research by The Female Lead and Terri Apter. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR65OTBteYU
DitchtheLabel. 20 de fev. de 2017. Are You Living an Insta Lie? Social Media Vs. Reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EFHbruKEmw&t=92s
Manavis, S. How Instagram’s plastic surgery filters are warping the way we see our faces. (29 October, 2019). Retrieved 10 dez, 2019. https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2019/10/how-instagram-plastic-surgery-filter-ban-are-destroying-how-we-see-our-faces
