The Sydney Feminists

What Is Self-Objectification? We live in a society where girls and women’s bodies are under constant scrutiny and evaluation by others; a society wherein from a very early age, girls consistently receive societal  messages that their appearance and their body plays a fundamental role in determining their worth and value as a person. A direct consequence of this objectification culture is that girls and women internalize these messages, and consequently start to experience their own bodies as objects and view their physical appearance from a third-person perspective. This process is called self-objectification, and it manifests most commonly in body surveillance, which is habitual body checking and monitoring from the perspective of an observer. Self-objectification has been studied extensively with a focus on its maladaptive effects upon female mental health. According to  PhD researcher Caroline Heldman, the average woman engages in body monitoring ever...

When Fifty Shades of Grey began flying off bookshelves across the world, it was popularly championed as a leap forward in popular culture for erotic content marketed to women. Thousands of articles critiqued its merits and its problems. Now the franchise has come back in the form of a film marketed as a guilty pleasure for women to indulge in and has made millions and millions at the box office. With that being said, let us look at some of the frightening implications that such a narrative has on our society. On the surface, Christian Grey is portrayed to be in possession of the largest amount of social capital possible. He is self made, rich, successful, handsome, charismatic, independent and strong. Which is why it is such a shock that he would choose a woman as plain as Ana. In the shadow of this wealth however, it is of course  made fairly clear that Christian Grey is emotionally detached and has a desire to punish women who look like his mother due to unresolved issues...

There is a fair amount of emphasis placed on achieving individual perfection in this life we have together. The pressure comes in lots of fun and exciting forms- from the Cat-calling tradie on the street to the crushing and paralysing effects of silent and ubiquitous judgement of an intangible patriarchal reign over our society. "What format of built up scrutiny will be bestowed upon me today??" I yell excitedly into the mirror of a morning before skipping triumphantly out the door.  Usually it just looks like this Such a joy. You can’t be everything that another person has decided is good and right in the world, because it is their vision of their ultimate self multiplying and dividing like a virus. Albeit sometimes a rather beautiful, sparkly and warm virus, it is still the idealised vision of another. That is why with Feminism, there is no one correct way of being a feminist. In any subculture or community, there are going to be a set of ideals ...