We often hear that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but the way we look has always been a pivotal factor in social interaction, regardless of any romantic connection.
Sexual perceptions change how we view an individual, and often not for the better. When we focus on someone's physical appearance over there mental state, we can engage in sexual objectification. Doing so can result in negative social consequences where certain human attributes are stripped from the objectified individuals as they judged as less human, less competent and less moral. Making these judgments often results in changes of behavior towards the objectified person.
Sexualized representations that emphasize sexual body parts is a common way to induce emotions and increase a hedonic value -- the value of something being desired for being able to stimulate pleasure, fun and enjoyment. Modern society is filled with images of sexually objectified women.
A recent study looked at what observing the emotions of sexualized women did for producing brain responses and empathic feelings for positive (not negative) emotions. It shows that observers have less empathy -- the capacity to feel and recognize the emotions of others -- for sexually objectified women.
Male and female participants were connected to an fMRI while they witnessed situations of inclusion and exclusion of women in a ball-tossing game. Participants were measured in their explicit reporting of empathic reactions, as well as their objective reactions in brain activation through the fMRI. Two different types of women were witnessed during the ball-tossing game: sexually objectified and non-objectified.
Empathic feelings towards women change when modifications of clothes are made to emphasize or render more visible their body parts or skin. Women portrayed in a sexually objectified manner produce significantly less empathic feelings as well as reduced activity in empathy-related brain areas in an observer, compared to women shown in a personalized way.
The objectification of women is theorized to be linked to gender-based violence in society. A tendency to act violently towards women might stem from a lack of a perpetrators empathic feelings towards the victim, and reduction of the ability to share the suffering of a violent act against another. Sexually objectifying women could be a factor related to violence against women in society.
Both men and women similarly objectify sexualized female targets. Researchers suggest further studies should be done to include the sexual objectification of men, as previous studies have been mixed in their evidence for the similarity of effects of sexual objectification.
Another important factor to consider is that this study was done on the Italian population which has different cultural factors that impact the extent an individual displays empathic responses toward sexualized women. It's theorized that Nordic European countries have higher levels of gender equality and would have less difference in their empathic feelings towards objectified and personalized women.
But what about the past, when there were not as many sexualized images of women to objectify them to this degree? Or when they dressed more "conservatively" with less skin showing? Was there less violence towards women? That's something to look into, as I'm not sure what the answer is. I assumed there was more violence towards women in the distant past, and things were better, but maybe it is the reverse?
What do you think? Have your say.
- Do you think society has a problem sexualizing women?
- Do you think the sexual objectification of women plays a part in reducing empathic feelings towards them, and increasing the chances of a violent event?
- What do you think we should do about this?
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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