Self-Objectification and That “Not So Fresh Feeling”

Abstract

In a culture obsessed with women's attractiveness and beauty, media messages abound telling us our corporeal bodies are unacceptable as they are. Women's bodies need sanitizing, deodorizing, exfoliating, and denuding. Perhaps more than any other bodily function, menstruation must be kept “under wraps” in a sexually objectifying culture. In this article, we argue that girls' and women's feelings of acceptance for their bodily functions and physical embodiment are antithetical to “self-objectification,” wherein individuals internalize an outsider's standard of physical appearance. We further argue that objectification theory can inform a feminist framework for therapists to use to help clients cope with a particular kind of self-loathing-disgust and shame about their physical selves, including their menstrual periods, in a culture that values impossibly idealized feminine embodiment.

Key Words:

• Objectification
• menstruation
• shame
• disgust
• embodiment