Articles + Ideation

"While sexualization and objectification in the media has impacts on both men and women, society’s beauty standards have greater psychological repercussions on women and girls due to the constant and negative attention their bodies receive."
“There is always a tabloid or headline about someone gaining some weight and wearing a bikini to the beach or so and so’s ‘new beach bod,’” Boudov said. “It frequently seems like women come under scrutiny for anything they do, whether society deems it as positive or not. I think that it leads to the self-perception of young girls to often be very tied to the praise of others and external validation.”
"While [Davis'] data shows a trend of audiences viewing the male body as desirable, female bodies are often objectified. In her published study, Davis argues specifically that media sources often portray the male chest as a desirable trait and women’s breasts as shameful."

A photo editorial in Paris Vogue that portrays pre-adolescent girls as heavily made-up, sophisticated femme fatales
Clothing–including thong underwear–marketed for preschoolers and elementary school kids that feature printed slogans like “Eye Candy” or “Wink Wink”
Fashion dolls marketed at 6-year-old girls that feature sexualized clothing, like fishnet stockings
Beauty pageants for little girls, complete with heavy mascara, high heels, and bathing suits
Pornography and sexually-explicit music videos that feature young women dressed to resemble little girls
The most common worries are that girls will learn to view themselves as sex objects, or that girls will develop anxieties when they fail to meet popular standards of beauty.
For example, investigators in the U.K. interviewed 300 young girls between the ages of 6 and 9. Some kids had encountered sexualized media, and these little girls were more likely to express a preference for wearing sexualized clothing. They were also more likely to feel dissatisfied about their bodies and appearance (Slater and Tiggemann 2016).
There is also evidence that being self-conscious about one’s sexual attractiveness interferes with intellectual performance. People do more poorly on math tests when they are forced to think about their looks.

As a psychotherapist, I meet hundreds of women who struggle with their body image or sexuality. These struggles show up as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, reproductive concerns, parenting issues or relationship crises
And I know firsthand the discomfort of embodying what many people see as unattractive. As a Middle Eastern American, I don’t fit the Eurocentric model of beauty. When I was a young girl, I drew pictures only of blonde, blue-eyed princesses, perhaps in response to my blonde stepsister telling me that my “skin was the color of poop.” No matter how much I tried to dress myself up, I was still not white.