We all know how objectification works, some men see women as an object for their sexual pleasure.

But, what happens when girls and women begin to see themselves as an object for men's sexual pleasure?

The Association for the American Psychological Association
(APA) calls this self-objectification and/or self-sexualization in the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls.

There's a host of evidence that when girls are exposed to too much media that they begin to view themselves less as three dimensional human beings and more as sexual objects. When this occurs, psychologists note the increase of:

* eating disorders

* low self-esteem

* depression or depressed mood

One interesting study noted that teenage girls from Figi had great body image and self esteem - until they were exposed to Western television. Once exposed, they became preoccupied with weight and body shape, purging behavior (throwing up) and body disparagement. Prior to television the Figian culture emphasized a robust body shape and based notions of identity not on body, but on family, community and relationships. The transition between healthy self-image to the increase of eating disorders was only 3 years.

Self-objectification is also directly linked to "diminished sexual health" among adolescent girls. One study found that when girls viewed their own bodies as objects for male pleasure condom use and sexual assertiveness, (saying "no") decreased.

Another study found that "undergraduate women who frequently watched music videos or read women's magazines, who attribute greater realism to media content, or who identify strongly with popular TV characters were also more accepting of sexually objectifying notions of women."

Accepting these sexually stereotypical and objectifying views manifested in negative attitudes toward breastfeeding and negative attitudes about normal body functions like menstruation and sweating.

When I read the APA's definition of self-objectification and self-sexualization it was like a mini-awakening for me.

That explains why, as a teen and young adult, I allowed boyfriends to treat me as their sexual object or plaything. It explains why I crossed many of my own sexual boundaries and didn't want to object "for fear of being rude" on several occasions. It explains why I allowed boys and men to make inappropriate comments about my body and its development from even the earliest age - heck, I didn't even know was "allowed to object."

Do you think you've ever self-sexualized or self-objectified?

Do you worry about this with your daughter?

Read 10 Antidotes to Self-Objectification and Sexualization of Girls for ways to prevent your daughter from objectifying her own body.

Empowering Girls: Marketing Boundaries

APA Reports Sexualization of Girls Devastating
Taekwondo For Girl Power

It Chick Clothes, an online plus-size clothing store for tween girls, is launching a photo essay contest for young girls, asking them to submit photos that illustrate what it means to be a Tween Girl in America right now.
It Chick Clothes, as a company, believe that girls cannot be labeled or pigeonholed.
They're not just athletes, just pretty, just smart, or just students.
They are a tapestry, and we believe that these girls are the best people to tell us who they are.
They're're giving away a Wii Fit game to the winner.
In addition, they will post the top five entries and the accompanying text on their site at www.itchickclothes.com. The contest is open from August 1st to September 30th.
As part of this contest, they're giving away 10% of back-to-school sales (sales in the months of August and September) to Girls Inc., a national nonprofit dedicated to inspiring all girls to be stong, smart and bold. So enter the contest and shop !
See contest rules here.

Photo Source: It Chick Clothes

by Tracee Sioux

The beautiful America Ferrera won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series last night for her role as Betty Suarez in Ugly Betty.

Hurray!

While my husband believes the themes in Ugly Betty are too adult for our five-year-old daughter, and they are, I love Ugly Betty's message about beauty.

I think it's a provocative look at beauty and the value we place on women. The social climate at Mode Magazine begs the question are women valued for their brains and abilities or are they valued for how much they participate in the ideal of beauty?

With lots of glamour, fashion, paparazzi and soap opera gender themes it seems the only thing everyone on the show wants to be is the ideal of a beautiful woman.

Take Wilhelmina Slater, played by Vanessa Williams, she's beautiful but what she really wants is to be taken seriously by the publisher. She wants to run a magazine. She wants to be valued for her abilities, she's obviously the most capable of running a fashion magazine. But, as the "beautiful woman" she keeps getting the "assistant's" job.

The cattiness and image obsession of the receptionist Amanda is like a caricature of what mean girls grow up to be. Beauty is so important she'll do anything to get it.

Even the men are caught up in the obsession with fashion and beauty. The less-than-masculine boy, Justin, and the homosexual assistant place place an equally distorted importance on beauty and fashion. They become completely absorbed in the whole glamorous world, in which they can never be the ideal, as they are male. They accept worshipping it from the sidelines.

The two heirs, both male, chase the ideal of the beautiful woman with equal vigor - one, Alexis Meade, surgically becomes one, while the other, Daniel Meade focuses on sexually obtaining many. Much like their father, Bradford Meade, who has built a dynasty around photographing the beauty ideal and writing about the importance and significance of beauty to encourage that other women, his audience, to seek it.

It even brings in the cultural influences of beauty with Betty's sister, Hilda, obviously beautiful by the standards of her Queens neighborhood going to beauty school.

Betty, completely oblivious to the vicious competition for becoming "the prettiest", always seems the most truly beautiful person in the room. She broadens the scope and definition of beauty, being refreshingly a-typical of young Hollywood.

DVR Ugly Betty, Thursdays on ABC this fall. It will make you think of beauty, the ideal of the beautiful woman, and the importance of beauty in lots of new ways.