Society for Empowerment of Womanhood

FEMALES ARE NOT AN OBJECT

Unfortunately, there is no single answer to that question. However, when women and girls are repeatedly objectified and their bodies hypers*xualized, the media contributes to harmful gender stereotypes that often trivialize violence against girls.

A report by the American Psychological Association (APA) on the s*xualization of girls in the media found that girls are depicted in a s*xual manner more often than boys; dressed in revealing clothing, and with bodily postures or facial expressions that imply s*xual readiness. In a study of print media, researchers at Wesleyan University found that on average, across 58 different magazines, 51.8 percent of advertisements that featured women portrayed them as s*x objects. However, when women appeared in advertisements in men’s magazines, they were objectified 76 percent of the time.

Social media has "amplified age-old pressures for teenage girls to conform to certain s*xualized narratives," according to a study published by The American Journal of Psychiatry. The study examined the s*xting habits of teens and found that between 10 percent and 25 percent of adolescents surveyed had sent s*xts — photos or texts of a s*xual nature — and 15 percent to 35 percent had received s*xts.