Sexualization & Stigmatization of Women in Media

The Sexualization and Stigmatization of Women in Media

Nicole Ashley Roman
Western Carolina University

Sexualization & Stigmatization of Women in Media

In 1995, a television channel started broadcasting in Fiji. It showed imported U.S.

shows, such as Friends. By 1998, a mere three years later, 11.9 percent of Fijian adolescent girls
were over the toilet bowl with bulimia, where previously none existed (Orbach, 2011, p. 388).
Women all around the world are suffering because they have now identified with the
Westernized body shape. Before the popular culture of the United States entered into the
culture of other countries around the globe, the overpowering control of the media did not exist.
Rather, they lived in reality with their culture and identified with their own ethnicity. The site of
modernity for them became the reconstruction of their bodies (Orbach, 2011, p. 389). To put
these affects on women throughout the world into perspective, in Shanghai, for instance, there is
an operation intended to break the thigh and in order to extend the leg by 10 centimeters; In
Singapore, the new craze is to reconstruct their noses to make them more Western; In Eastern
Europe, there is a belief that in order for one to successfully enter the global culture, they must
be thin; In South Korea, about 50 percent of young girls have a double eyelid slit operation to
Westernize their eyes (Orbach, 2011). Women around the world have identified with the
modernity of the westernized ideal body, a body that is anatomically impossible to achieve,
regardless of their own culture or ethnicity they once classified with. Womens bodies are not
okay anymore. Unfortunately, in our capitalist society where corporations and media produced
see profitable opportunities in the appearance, sexualization, and stigmatization of women, many
females find themselves doing everything possible to regulate their appearance. It becomes an
obsession. Obsessions are thoughts people have that cause anxiety. For women, this thought is
the constant criticism of their body. Everything about their body needs to be transformed to be an
ideal perfect beauty; one that is impossible to achieve. Where there are obsessions, there are
compulsions. Compulsions are the actions done to reduce the anxiety caused by their obsession.

Sexualization & Stigmatization of Women in Media

Due to the fact that the obsessions for young women today is one that criticizes every aspect of
their self and their body, many women starve themselves, make themselves purge after meals,
and get dangerous operations done to reduce their anxiety that they are not perfect like those
women on TV. Unfortunately, when women are exposed to these derogatory messages
everywhere they go, and every time they turn on their television, it is hard to escape the message
and it becomes normalized. Industries in the media have created the normal body. What is
normal? This question is not easily answered by any individual. Instead, the message given by
industries in the media is the acquisition of a body normalized by visual dictate (Orbach,
2011). By cultural force, a body is not simply stylized but homogenized (Orbach, 2011). Women
are passive recipients of a controlling media. The consequences of this is overwhelming. Women
are struggling with a rather subtle depiction of gender stereotypes, derogatory messages, and
industries telling people that they will never achieve the perfect ideal body but have available to
people a chance to change every aspect of who they are and where they came from.
A feature of the mainstream Westernized media content worldwide is the abundance of
sexualized images. Studies have made it abundantly clear that women are under-represented in
media. Studies also show that when women are present in the media, they are scantily dressed,
in sexually available positions and relegated to stereotypical roles (Collins, 2011, p. 290).
Culture has shown women that they are always available for men sexually (Collins, 2011). They
have transformed from a woman with talent, intelligence and everything that makes a person
human, to a sex object. The media content has now been recognized as a serious gender issue
that has lasting impacts on the mental health and well-being of many women and girls (as cited
in Hine, 2011). Theorists Roberts, Waters and Fredrickson developed an objectification theory in
1997, that has since transformed into a self-objectification theory in 2004 which stemmed from

Sexualization & Stigmatization of Women in Media

sexual objectification (as cited in Hine, 2011). Fredrickson and Roberts concluded in their
studies that when one perceives that ones attractiveness will not measure up to the societal
idealized image it can be positively correlated with the overwhelming development of eating
disorders, sexual dysfunction and depression (as cited in Hine, 2011). Immersion in a
Westernized culture has societal stereotypes linked to both men and women. Men who are
immersed in this culture tend to develop a sense of entitlement, power and the idea that they
must be in control. This can be explained by the cultural belief that females and their bodies are
displayed for male gratification (Hine, 2011). When there is a relationship where women are
supposed to be passive, sexual, always available and men are supposed to be powerful and in
control, it comes as no surprise that there are such high rates of sexual and domestic violence in
the world. Women find themselves confirming their place in society. Both women and men learn
in this society to always assume that females will continuously be observed and evaluated. This
assumption stems from what has recently become normative. Unfortunately, these cultural
beliefs encourage women to associate their worth with their physical appearance (Hine, 2011).
Studies show that women who are exposed continuously to sexualized images through media are
more likely to believe in stereotypical gender dichotomies assume that because women are
shown in sexual positions with provocative clothing, men, all men, are in turn sex driven.
Concerns run high for women struggling to identify what is truly reality. Women identify more
closely with women on television than the woman living next door to her. This can be explained
by the social cognitive theory that suggests identifying with a television character is an important
part of immersing oneself into the messages media sends (Davis, Coombe, 2013). Therefore,
gender is said to be an important predictor of identification. Social cognitive theorists would say

Sexualization & Stigmatization of Women in Media

that the absence of female characters in the media would impact women negatively (Davis,
Coombe, 2013).
Media in a general sense increases gender inequality. It might even be the primary source
of increasing gender inequality, today, because we are exposed to it everywhere. However, a
more specific source comes not from media in general but advertisements and marketing. Of
course, because society suffers from homogeneity regarding the appearance of the Westernized
woman, it comes as no surprise that the industries selling these messages to a widespread
audience of young girls and women are more often than not the style industries; The beauty,
cosmetic, and fashion industries. The imperfections of bodies can easily be fixed with the
overwhelming number of cosmetic surgeons, gym instructors and diet industries. Industries such
as these are cultural forces, designed to normalize society. All bodies are marked or shaped by
culture, gender, class, nationality, ethnicity and custom (Orbach, 2011). In society today, there
does not exist a body that is natural or unmediated. Many psychologists and sociologists would
agree with Susie Orbach, a woman who passionately studies gender stereotypes, when she says,
Every body requires a context. There is no such thing as a body. There is only a body as an
outcome of relationship. And that relationship is always culturally situated (Orbach, 2011, p.
391). The problems discussed and researched are almost impossible to eliminate due to West
government bodies and funds. Western government bodies now regulate and measure children
and adults based on Body Mass Index (Orbach, 2011). Health economics are now interested in a
measure of weight and height. They label what is an acceptable body type and provide contracts
to diet companies in order to regulate the unacceptable (Orbach, 2011). Through government
funds and with the societal panic about obesity, the diet industry has sky rocketed in
consumerism and profit (Orbach, 2011, p. 389-390). What is even more disturbing than

Sexualization & Stigmatization of Women in Media

governments funding industries that reshape bodies and confirm stereotypical gender
implications, is the fact that mothers and their bodies are under assault in society. All persons
come from a mother. There would be no population without women having the ability to give
birth. The body for a woman is unstable. When women become pregnant, they gain weight. If
women are on birth control, menstruating, or are having hormonal changes their bodies will
naturally change. What visual culture has done for this society is reshape the natural processes
that make a female what they are naturally supposed to be.
Not only are mothers being attacked for their bodies, but the children suffer as well. A
little girl may grow up watching her mother sigh in the mirror at the sight of her body and this
message of reshaping your body to perfection is engraved at a very young age. Many mothers
today, who are technologically savvy, may even transform her baby with software like
Photoshop, to make them into the perfect Gerber baby. The mother then gives off the message
that her body and the body of the child is not good enough as they are (Orbach, 2011). As Susie
Orbach states, The anxiety the baby absorbs prepares her or him for a sense that a body does not
exist as a place to live from but as something one needs to be ever watchful of and tending to
(Orbach, 2011, p. 392). Just as we are delegated to male and female roles starting at a young age,
so is the message that the most important aspect about a girl is her appearance and that boys
should be strong, athletic and powerful.
Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, women in the United States are not the only ones
suffering from the rapacious control of the media. One of the greatest hidden West exports to the
developing world is body reshaping and rejection of the local body (Orbach, 2011). As women
enter the world of modernity, they shed their local body into the ideal white female. A specific
example of this is the transformation of the plump tradition for beauty queens in Nigeria. Now,

Sexualization & Stigmatization of Women in Media

that tradition has been superseded by the Westernized thin shape (Orbach, 2011). Globalization is
a new form of imperialism that reshapes buildings, industry, and agriculture. Today, it can also be
seen as reshaping the private aspects of the human life (Orbach, 2011).
Corporeal colonialism can be described as the intentional body modification and
remolding of indigenous bodies around the world. It is the act of homogenizing the body
(Haebich, 2007). Unfortunately, power is in the hands of large industries and corporations that
market their message and products that continue to increase gender inequality. The sexualization
of women has lasting impacts on many young girls and women such as eating disorders and
depression. There is a great concern for the young children in upcoming generations who will
find it even harder than it is today to escape the media and the dichotomies of gender. There is
great political and societal push to continue relegating women to their traditional female role
while degrading every aspect of their selves that make them human and authentic. Like any
social problem, this is a hard one to overcome. Its subtlety of how the messages are presented
and engraved in our subconscious is one that many may not be aware of. It is just society; people
may be used to it. It is important, however, to recognize these messages and the health impact it
causes for a large population of men and women.
The female body, reshaped as thin and preferably long, has become the insignia of belonging. It
is not the clothes that brand the body but the honed body as brand itself; the sign that one has
shed one's indigenous culture and taken up the world body Susie Orbach (Orbach, 2011, 393).

Sexualization & Stigmatization of Women in Media

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