All I want for Christmas is… an end to self-objectification
Hair dye, lash extensions, filters, wearing all black because it’s slimming, not going to parties, being stuck in a job you don’t love, comparing your body to others, avoiding mirrors, chronic dieting, over-exercising, Spanx, detox teas, taking a long time to get ready, not noticing how your body is feeling. These are all signs of self-objectification and it’s harming women. From taking time, money, and self-esteem to affecting women’s cognitive function (meaning, how our brains work!), women are at a disadvantage because of self-objectification and I would like to see that change. I hope by the end of this article, you will too.
What is self-objectification?
Before we discuss self-objectification, we need to understand objectification. We live in a world that objectifies women. This means that women’s bodies (or just parts of their bodies) are presented in the media in an idealised and sexualised way that panders to male heterosexual desire. Think about when a camera pans slowly from a women’s (usually bare) legs, past her slim waist and (large) breasts, and finally makes its way to her face before we even get to know more about the female character and why she is in the movie or tv show. Or bring to mind ads for women’s underwear where the body is shown but the woman’s head is cut out of the picture. Let’s not even mention porn.
This has naturally led women to believe that their bodies are the most interesting things about themselves and that what others think about their bodies is important. This leads to self-objectification where we learn to monitor and understand our bodies from the same outside perspective. As we believe we are being looked at and evaluated on our appearance by others (and we probably are) we do that to ourselves by constantly looking at and evaluating our own appearance.
It’s not only the media that encourages self-objectification. Women and girls are subjected to comments about their appearance from a very young age and this can teach them that looking attractive is a way to get attention or power. Women and girls are also subjected to other women’s self-objectification efforts through socialising and can be made to feel abnormal or othered if they don’t make the same efforts with their appearance as their female friends and family.
Of course, not all women self-objectify, and men and non-binary folks are not immune to its effects. However, it predominantly influences women and girls, especially from the ages of 20 to 50.
How does self-objectification affect women and girls?
There are myriad ways that women are affected by self-objectification.
Money & time spent on beauty routines, clothes, and diets to try and appease the male gaze or fashion. When you consider that women earn less than men and do the majority of unpaid housework even when they also work outside the home, you can see how these activities and expenses erode women’s autonomy, power and why they are always so exhausted!
Self-esteem is reduced. 85% of women say they’ll opt out of important life activities when they don’t feel good about how they look. That means they are missing out on life experiences that might make them happier, wealthier, healthier or more powerful.
Women who self-objectify see themselves from the outside and lose their connection to how they feel on the inside - their emotions, their own thoughts, their hunger/fullness, and even how cold they feel!
And probably most concerningly, self-objectification affects our cognitive function!! Since women are focused on their looks and how people perceive them, there is less brain space for the tasks at hand - listening and responding, thinking and evaluating, decision-making, etc.
What is the price of self-objectification?
Let’s talk about money to start with. I get my eyebrows & top lip waxed every month for a cost of $34, and I get my hair cut and coloured about 6 times per year at a cost of $150 each time. That’s $1308 a year. If I’ve been doing that for the last 20 years, that’s $26,160. For some people that might not seem like much money but for others, it’s an astronomical amount. In addition, it’s not a stretch to assume that because I am taking care of my appearance I am more likely to get a job that I apply for compared to someone who can’t afford to pay for grooming.
So the cost when it comes to finances is both the money spent and the widening of the gap between people who are more well-off and those who aren’t. You can see how it also widens the gap in wealth between men and women.
Now let’s talk about time. Just before I sat down to write this section I got ready for a lunch that I am attending today. I spent about 30 minutes doing my hair and putting on makeup. Let’s say I do that 5 days a week, that’s 7,800 minutes a year or 130 hours. Women often tell me how they feel tired and overwhelmed and can’t get to the things they really want to do like hobbies, exercise, studying or applying for new jobs. Imagine what they could do with an additional 130 hours per year!
Arguably the bigger problems are how self-objectification affects women’s self-esteem, interoceptive awareness (the ability to perceive physical sensations that arise in your body) and cognitive functioning.
If women are choosing to miss out on life-engaging activities because of their perception of how they look then not only is the individual missing out on an experience they might enjoy, we as a society are missing out on their talents, company or any other uniqueness they could bring to the world.
If women learn to ignore their bodily signals like feeling the cold or feeling hungry or full, it also means they learn to distrust their bodies in other ways. They might not get health care when needed because they ignore the signs or they might work themselves to burnout because they don’t notice how their body feels. It’s a form of gaslighting, but towards your own body.
And if women’s cognitive function is impaired because of self-objectification, we are missing out on everything that person could bring including thoughts, ideas, and talents.
How can you stop self-objectification?
According to the book “More than a body” by Lindsay & Lexie Kite, the first step is to get educated about self-objectification and its effects. So many of us live our lives without any clue that this is happening and how it impacts us. Hopefully, this article is the first step for you to learn about self-objectification.
Another important milestone is to mourn the loss of the ideal that you’ve been chasing all your life. So many of us have believed that if we just get to a certain weight, or if our clothes are always on point, or we get our hair perfect, then we can book that holiday or go on that date or speak up at that meeting. It’s also important to mourn the time, money, self-esteem, cognitive function, and awareness of our internal selves that we have lost to self-objectification.
Next up, start to be aware of self-objectification and objectification. Notice when you are doing it through checking & adjusting how you look constantly throughout the day, to judging yourself or others for not looking “perfect”. This can be uncomfortable because once you see it you might be shocked at how often it’s going on.
At this point, you can also choose if you want to continue to participate in self-objectification (or as much of it). For instance, I still wear makeup most days, remove (some) body hair, and colour my hair because I like how it makes me feel and I don’t find the burden too taxing financially, mentally, or time-wise. However, I’ve made the decision to not use filters on my social media posts or participate in dieting or punishing exercise routines anymore as these affected my self-esteem and mental health and are not good for my physical health in the long run. I also post on social media without makeup and have the “courage” to stand up in front of a group of people to teach yoga even though my body is far from perfect. I do this to signal to the people around me that I don’t need to look a certain way to participate in the things I love.
I also highly recommend taking a look at how you might be objectifying the young people around you. When we constantly comment on children’s clothes or looks rather than their talents or achievements, we are telling them that they get praise for how they look, not who they are. If we’d like to see any type of objectification go away then we need to help the next generation live without it.
Conclusion
Self-objectification harms not only women but society as a whole because we are missing out on important contributions from women who are caught up with maintaining their outside appearance. It’s important for me to say explicitly that this article is not here to shame anyone who might be participating in self-objectification. I still do too! We all live in a world where objectifying women is normalised and where women believe that being beautiful is a source of power. It can feel impossible to step away from that completely and I don’t expect everyone to stop taking care of their appearance. But what if we all stopped doing one thing that we are doing for the sake of beauty that we don’t even enjoy doing in order to free up some time, money, and brain space to do something we loved instead? What would be the collective power of that?
The health and fitness industry is one of the most objectifying industries in the world. We are taught that the point of healthy behaviours is to look good so you feel good and that health is equal to beauty. If you would like support to unpack your own self-objectification and learn to take care of your body without it, please click here to book a free 15-minute clarity call to find out if working with me is right for you.
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