Ads that Objectify: As Dangerous as Smoking

On page 198 of their seminal article "Objectification Theory," authors Fredrickson and Roberts write:

"Because advertisers may have no incentive to regulate their use of objectifying ads, federal restrictions and warning on advertisements--similar to those that govern the tobacco and alcohol industries--should be explored as a means to protect public health."

This is after they have explored, in depth, the effects that the widespread objectification of women has on women's psyches, relationships, and bodies. Their conclusion is that the health of women is at stake when we are routinely treated not as persons, but as bodies that serve a function.

There is most definitely not room in a weblog to reiterate what Fredrickson and Roberts take over 30 pages to describe, but suffice it to say that this article forms the foundation of 12 years of further psychological and sociological study of the effects of objectification on women. Effects include the obvious, such as eating disorders, and the less obvious, such as the interruption of "peak motivational states" (described as those moments in which we apply ourselves, body and/or mind, so completely to a task that we lose direct consciousness of ourselves, feel like we are no longer being controlled by other people, and are actually very happy). Women have trouble experiencing peak motivational states because we are socialized to constantly attend to what our bodies look like to other people.

They go on further to describe the effects of objectification on the psyche, including mental illnesses such as depression. Their conclusion is that the totality of the effects of widespread, culturally-sanctioned objectification of women is dangerous enough to require government intervention. What if there were warnings on skin cream advertisements or regulations that restricted the way that the human body was portrayed? I don't know what such regulations would look like, or what the results would look like, but I think it's important that someone is taking seriously the lived effects of these ads on real women. Perhaps regulations around airbrushing and computer modification are in order, so that we can see that real women have--gasp--pores.

Most of all, I think it's time that we as consumers of media stopped being apathetic about what we allow them to shove down our throats. Women need to stop allowing other women to be objectified so that we can see how good the latest pair of jeans will look on a hypothetical, impersonal ass. Men need to take stock of how much they love the women in their lives and whether or not they think it is worth all the "eye candy" to know that secretly their mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, daughters, nieces, aunts, etc are suffering from often a profound sense of dissatisfaction from their own bodies, and hence from their very selves.

We need, in short, to stop using people. It isn't good for their health and it isn't good for ours.

Reference:

Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi-Ann Roberts. “Objectification theory.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21, no. 2 (June 1997): 173-206.