Self-Objectification isn’t Feminism.
The male gaze itself is made to empower men while sexualizing women. Many women fall into the male gaze at such a young age because they think they’re reclaiming it, being sexually liberated, or that it’s feminism when in reality, they are partaking in self-objectification. Self-objectification can occur when women internalize people’s objectification of their bodies. Being subjected to an objectifying gaze can lead women to self-objectify.
Sexualizing yourself at such a young age is not you reclaiming your body or loving yourself. Of course, it’s totally fine to be comfortable in your body, and you should be, but using body empowerment as an excuse to be sexy at a young age lessens the meaning of genuinely reclaiming your body. In Fredrickson and Roberts, (1997) “Objectification Theory,” they asserted that women to varying degrees internalize this outsider view and begin to self-objectify by treating themselves as an object to be looked at and evaluated based on appearance. In Cooley’s (1902) “Looking Glass Self Theory,” he explains that individuals base their self-esteem on how they believe others view them. He also talks about how self-conception isn’t built in solitude but in social settings.
Social media has and always will significantly impact how young women view themselves and what being sexually liberated, body empowerment, and feminism mean. In Moradi and Huang’s (2008) review of research, they revealed that self-objectification has been found to be related to lower internal bodily awareness and disordered eating. Shows like Euphoria and Skins influence young female viewers negatively of what reclaiming body empowerment is.
Yes, these are great shows and have had huge impacts on society, but at what cost? When Kat becomes a cam girl in Euphoria, they portray it as inherently sexy while completely ignoring her apparent body image issues that can only be solved through male validation. This is a very harmful idea given to impressionable young women watching as they think despite their age, if they have trouble with insecurities and loving themselves, receiving male validation can solve all of that. Majority of people I’ve brought this up to never even realized that’s how the episode was portrayed. I would be a hypocrite if I said I haven’t fallen into those beliefs myself. Still, as someone who has firsthand seen the adverse effects it can have on someone, it’s disappointing to see all the other young women falling into that same thought of male validation making everything better.
The problem is that most women doing this don’t even realize that they’re doing it. Most people don’t consciously think about whether or not they’re self-objectifying themselves for the sake of male validation until someone brings it up. If you are consciously self-objectifying yourself for whatever reason, you are perpetuating the ideology that this is okay.
