Caroline Heldman, PhD.
What is sexual objectification? If objectification is the process of representing or treating a person like an object (a non-thinking thing that can be used however one likes), then sexual objectification is the process of representing or treating a person like a sex object, one that serves another’s sexual pleasure.
How do we know sexual objectification when we see it? Building on the work of Nussbaum and Langton, I’ve devised the Sex Object Test (SOT) to measure the presence of sexual objectification in images. I propose that sexual objectification is present if the answer to any of the following seven questions is “yes.”
1) Does the image show only part(s) of a sexualized person’s body?
Headless women, for example, make it easy to see her as only a body by erasing the individuality communicated through faces, eyes, and eye contact.
2) Does the image present a sexualized person as a stand-in for an object?
3) Does the image show a sexualized person as interchangeable?
Interchangeability is a common advertising theme that reinforces the idea that women, like objects, are fungible. And like objects, “more is better,” a market sentiment that erases the worth of individual women.
4) Does the image affirm the idea of violating the bodily integrity of a sexualized person that can’t consent?
5) Does the image suggest that sexual availability is the defining characteristic of the person?
6) Does the image show a sexualized person as a commodity (something that can be bought and sold)?
By definition, objects can be bought and sold, but some images portray women as everyday commodities. Conflating women with food is a common sub-category.
7) Does the image treat a sexualized person’s body as a canvas?
The damage caused by widespread female objectification in popular culture is not just theoretical. We now have over ten years of research showing that living in an objectifying society is highly toxic for girls and women.
More info and images available on this link to the original.
Objectification – what is it?
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