2024_0220_1516

In this podcast, Chloe and Naya discuss the issue of sexual objectification and its impact on women. They explain that objectification occurs when a woman is treated as a body or collection of body parts, valued only for her physical appearance. Society's pressure for women to be flawless and perfect leads to self-objectification, where women harshly judge themselves based on their looks. This pressure to conform to an unrealistic beauty ideal can cause mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. The media plays a significant role in promoting this distorted view of women's bodies, focusing on a narrow and unattainable standard of beauty. It is also mentioned that women of color are often overlooked in studies on body image, but they also face similar pressures. The podcast concludes by emphasizing the importance of self-acceptance and the harmful effects of comparing oneself to others, particularly on social media. All right, my name is Chloe, and I am here with Naya, and this is our podcast for our women and gender studies class at Butler Community College. Our podcast is going to be directly centered around sexual objectification. Naya, if you could please tell us what that means, that would be wonderful. When a woman is objectified, she is being treated as a body or a collection of body parts. Her body is valued mainly for its use by others, and she is not being considered as a person with thoughts and feelings of her own. So in our society, women basically have to be flawless, quote-unquote. You're expected to be beautiful. You're expected to look perfect, and it's just not doable, like it's not realistic. Because of the societal pressure for women to be the perfect women start being harsh or on themselves. That word is supposed to be perfect, I was writing real fast. Is this harsher? Because of the societal pressures for women to be perfect, women have started being harsher on themselves. That's my fault, I read that. That's okay, you can just reread it. Because of the societal pressure for women to be perfect, women start being harsher on themselves. This is a big problem in our society today known as self-objectification. Not only are women being objectified by other people, we have started to objectify ourselves. Some women claim that being objectified by men makes them feel important. Because women are constantly judging themselves, judging how they look, and to be affirmed by a man makes some women feel powerful. When we differentiate women because of their sex, we objectify them and deny them their humanity. That is a quote read by an author named Beth Allison Barr. And as I do recall, she has written some books for women, you know, based off of women objectification. One of the things we're going to look at is something called self-surveillance. Naya, do you know what self-surveillance is? No, I do not. So self-surveillance is that little thing in women's head where they're always checking themselves to see how they look. Does my makeup look good? Does my hair look good? Do I look good enough to impress somebody else? Women constantly are thinking about how they look. And believe it or not, that's not the norm. The norm would be to not be so stressed about it because it really doesn't matter. But because we are objectifying ourselves, we're so concerned about our physical appearances. Right. Some big examples of self-objectification can come from Halloween costumes. Paget competitions, swim competitions, floating competitions. Yes. Dressing up in skimpy clothing. Make us feel better about ourselves because of the man's eyes. The police just walked in. Like four of them. They're just like walking into a library? Yeah. Oh my God. I'm missing our podcast. I know. And they're kind of stressing me out. Yeah. What is it that women are criticizing themselves for? So there's this big talk about idealization and distortion. So a lot of people are looking into, like, what is the ideal body type for women? And if you look at the media today, the ideal body type is, like, extremely thin but with big breasts, which is not really that possible. I mean, typically you're not super skinny with big breasts. It's just not natural. No, it's not. So for women to appear like this, they have to go through some surgical alteration. And why should women feel the pressure to do that? Right. Only 3% of women have the ideal body shape represented by the media. Love your bod pod. That quote comes from the Love Your Bod podcast run by Dr. Cara Korinsafeli. She studies women and gender. So women, instead of loving their natural bodies, resort to having surgeries or things like Photoshop. But then that just makes the whole thing worse because women see the Photoshop, don't like the way they look in reality, fall in love with this fantasy version of themselves. And it just hurts their mental health further. Right. We cannot heal our own body image by judging, shaming, objectifying, or pedestalling other bodies. And then, who was that quote by? This quote was by Rianna Watson. She's a social media influencer. She makes a lot of social media posts on body image. So one thing we are going to look into is how does idealization and distortion create a distorted view of women's natural bodies? How does this make women view their natural bodies? Okay. So the term body image is based upon how somebody views their own body in terms of attractiveness. The size, the shape, and all of this is really affecting people's body image. And all of this is really affecting women's mental health. Women typically have a distorted view of their own body. They will look at their body and they see it completely different as everybody else does. And they hate it just due to that. PubMed.gov is our source for this segment. They specifically talk about the fact that in most studies based on body image, it is strictly white women who are being surveyed. So women of color are being left out in all the studies. And it's basically come to the conclusion where people are like, women of color don't go through this. But that's not true. They're just not being heard. All women have the ability to compare their bodies to somebody else's. That is kind of the biggest issue here is that there's so much comparison. I compare myself to some model's body, but it's not realistic. We as common people are comparing ourselves to the figures of models and actresses and social media influencers. But it's their job to be beautiful. They get paid to go to the gym. They have chefs who cook for them. It's not as realistic for the everyday woman to have the quote unquote ideal natural look. And back to what you said about the main point of what a woman is supposed to look like, where they're supposed to be skinny and have big boobs. I think the percentage of black women who haven't been surveyed, I think that their image is supposed to be slim, thick, a big bottom and big breasts with a slim waist, which I think is also very unrealistic. It's not realistic. Going off on a little bit of a personal note here, one of my dear friends, she has this little sister who is 17. She goes to a nutritionist. She goes to the gym every day. If she misses gym day, she has a meltdown because she feels so much societal pressure to have a beautiful body. Her biggest concern is that she doesn't have big breasts. But she's beautiful. She has a much better body than most people I know. But there's always something that we're going to nitpick about ourselves. I think social media is the biggest factor that plays a part in all of this. I have such a love-hate relationship with social media. I hate social media. I absolutely hate it. I don't have social media just because of the bullying. I have Snapchat for communication. But other than that, I have Instagram off and on. I'll delete it and then I'll redownload it because I like those funny little Instagram Reel videos. But then I get myself caught up in the Instagram models and the likes and popularity. I think one of the biggest things about coming to college is that I can see how girls from my high school are living their college experience. And then I can judge myself. And that's equally as harmful. I'm petite. I'm short and small. I understand completely. I've gone through the bullying. But I've learned to love myself. And that's the best you can do. Here's what I think we'll do. We'll do the conclusion. We'll try to stretch it out. And then... And then, depending on how much time we have, we can just keep talking about the things. And then we can always swap it and put them in places to make other places seem longer. I think we're doing pretty good. I think we're doing good. This is harder than it seems. My roommates were like, It's going to be so easy. You just talk for 20-30 minutes. But it's hard to stretch it out. Especially when you... I like your tattoos. Thank you. They're not real. Well, they're still pretty. Thank you. I got a ton of temporary tattoos for Christmas. So my roommate and I last night at 11 o'clock were like, We're going to put them all over ourselves. And now I have an appointment to get a real one. So... What's the transition? The last transition? Oh, wait. I have that. Because it's not even a real transition. So to wrap things up, we have covered self-objectification. We have looked at self-surveillance, how women are treating themselves. We have looked at body image, how women perceive themselves. And then to wrap things up, I would like to look at some of the effects that poor body image and objectification can have on women. So to name off a few, I think one of the biggest ones we can talk about is eating disorders. Numerous, so many women in our society are going through an eating disorder because they don't think their bodies are good enough and they don't perceive their bodies as beautiful. And then eating disorders themselves lead to numerous problems, a lot of health issues. Anxiety and depression can come along with an eating disorder or they themselves can also be... Just based off of the beliefs being talked about. Because of the objectification. Yes. And with the anxiety and depression comes self-harm. Yes. I think as a middle school to high school transition... Yes, it's very hard. That is the most difficult time of life, especially for young females because they are looking at, how am I supposed to look as my body is developing? What do I want my body to look like? If my body is developing, what do I want my body to look like? And then it's such a pivotal time because there's so many hormones, so many emotions. And then you have everybody telling you how you're supposed to look. Everybody has opinions in high school and middle school. Right. So at an early age now, we have children who are learning about body image and objectification, especially with the media presence and how younger kids are on media so much earlier. It's crazy. I have three little boys, brothers. And my 10-year-old is wanting to get his first Instagram. And I'm like, no. Right. Not even close. Right. From the Love Your Bod Pod, Dr. Cara Corinne Cefeli, she talks about how her family did not approve of social media at all. So she didn't have social media until she went to college. Right. And because of that, she actually had a pretty positive self-image until she got to college and started. That just goes to show that the main cause of everything is social media. The media. Mm-hmm. And she mentioned how when she first got onto social media, she could see it. Right. Like she could tell easier than, like, you or I could because she had been off of it for so long that, like, it's a trap. There are companies who post these pictures of beautiful women to make you feel bad about yourself. Right. So that you will buy their product. Right. They'll post this gorgeous model, and they're like, if you use our skincare product, you can look like her. Mm-hmm. Unrealistic. Right. It's damaging to everybody involved. Mm-hmm. Another big factor we see is that women will spend more money. Mm-hmm. They spend more money on, like, makeup, haircare, skincare, trying to remove their own flaws. Cosmetic surgery. Mm-hmm. You know, a lot of females who are in high school get the idea that surgery will fix everything, and they've made it legal at the age of 18 that you can go change your body, you can go get surgery to change your body. So now you have these kids going all through high school saying, oh, wow, I can't wait to turn 18. Mm-hmm. Just go get everything fixed. Yeah, I remember in middle school, I had a friend who was talking about getting a nose job when she turned 18. Oh, my God. Like, from that early of an age, she wanted to alter her body. That's terrible. I feel like there's something I wanted to say. I, for one, spend the most money on makeup. Mm-hmm. And that's kind of one of those ploys where they've got me hooked. Like, I want my lipstick. It'll make me pretty. I want my mascara. I want my lipstick. It'll make me pretty. I want my mascara. I feel prettier with it on. Yeah, and I think also parents play a big part in the makeup as well because they let their children think that it's okay. My mom never let me think it was okay, so I don't know how to use it. I've never tried using it, and I just don't want to. I don't know, but I think that's because my mom was more strict on that behalf. Yeah. My mom taught me to embrace my natural beauty, and I think everybody should. Yeah, that is an interesting point. I feel like parents can play a huge role. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. I grew up in a household with a mom who did not love herself. She was constantly altering her body. She had surgery to become skinnier. Oh, wow. I don't think she realized the effects that that will have on her daughters because then we see our mom, who wasn't even that overweight, go through surgery to make herself skinnier. That's going to negatively impact our viewpoint. She bleaches her hair all the time because she wants to look like she's from California or something. She has a ton of tattoos all up and down her body. She just alters her image so much. Yeah. It's hard to not want to alter your image sometimes. Right. I, myself, love tattoos. Again, I think, like what you said, the only reason I do is because I see other people doing it, other women doing it, and they get so much love from it, so I guess that's why I fell in love with tattoos. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of my biggest things is that I'll see hairstyles. I'll see a girl with a really pretty hairstyle, and I'll be like, oh, my God, she's so pretty. If I get that hairstyle, I'll be pretty. And there's just so much comparison. As women, we are always comparing ourselves. I want to make sure it runs over so that when I edit it out, I don't edit like five minutes out of time when we're not talking. Yeah. Okay. It's hard to find somewhere that I want to branch out on. Yeah. I think we did a really good job. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Are there any ways you have seen anybody around you become affected by comparing themselves? And trying to become prettier? Yeah, me. I am a twin. Yeah. Oh. I'm the younger twin. Everybody, I mean, they do it to my sister, too, but we are always getting compared to each other. And who's prettier or who do you think is prettier? Who do you think, like, we're always getting compared with each other. It's really annoying. And I think we're both beautiful. Yeah, you don't have to be competitively pretty. Yeah. You're pretty in your own way. It doesn't need to be a battle. It has been my whole life. That's ridiculous. Yeah. I have seen one of my closest friends Photoshop herself. She Photoshops herself in every single post she makes on Instagram. Social media. Yeah, for her Instagram posts. But, yeah, I think that if there was no social media, there would be no Photoshop. Like, women Photoshop themselves to post. And without it, they wouldn't be able to have that idea of, this is what my body could look like if I was different. A lot of the time, some women's bodies just won't conform to the idea of the perfect ideal body. It's just not the way women's bodies are always built. Like, one of the things men love in a woman is long legs. Right. No. Just no. Like, and it definitely, you can see it in men. Like, women like a tall man. Right. But I feel like there is a difference between how women are sexually objectified and men, you know, I don't really see men as overly sexually objectified. Right. There are definitely instances, but with women, it's spread everywhere. Right. Okay. Oh, my God. Are we going five minutes? Okay. Okay. They're watching us. Oh. Okay, but did you notice how those police officers, they went into the restroom? Mm-hmm. But they didn't come out? Like, is that a hallway? Yeah. Oh, okay. Those. I thought that was just a restroom, and they went in there, and they did not come out. No. And you go in. The bathroom right there is very pretty. Oh. It is. Huh. You should, you should. I might stop and check out the bathroom before we leave. Good. So, let's go back and talk about what are some flaws that women are not supposed to have, according to society? Like, I think one of the biggest ones, I would say, acne. Yes. Like. Stretch marks. Stretch marks. Beauty marks. Mm-hmm. Women are always wanting, like, that flawless, perfect skin. Yes. And. Discoloration, hyperpigmentation. Yeah. Stretch marks are a big one. Mm-hmm. Especially, I hate it so much when women have stretch marks, but specifically from giving birth. Mm-hmm. And then they're seen as not beautiful. Right. Like, that is the most beautiful thing on the planet. That, to me, should never change. No, it shouldn't. How a woman is perceived. She's beautiful no matter what. Mm-hmm. And I really like, I really like your quote. Um. Which one is it? When we differentiate women because of their sex, we objectify them and deny them of their humanity. Yeah. Yeah. I really like that quote because it shows that women are looked at based on, like, I'm going to restart. Women are judged and objectified based on their physical appearances. Mm-hmm. And most of the time, they're never given the opportunity to show their personality. Right. And most women have beautiful personalities, and they aren't given the opportunity for that to shine because they're so quickly judged based on their looks. Mm-hmm. And that's so sad to me because there's so many beautiful people out there. It's just all people care about is, what was it, small waist and big boobs. Yep. Or big butt. Or big butt. Yep. The hourglass figure. Mm-hmm. Do you want some plastic surgery? Okay. I might leave that in just for funsies. Okay.