"You look great, Mom," my daughter said on Christmas Eve. How so? I wanted to ask. Is it my hair, skin or body? I wanted specifics.
"Thank you, honey," I replied and let it go.
Later I realized I objectified myself, seeing myself as the sum of body parts. Scrutinizing my appearance is an insidious result of being objectified by society, men and women.
Last year, I canceled my subscription to Health Magazine, tired of seeing gorgeous, airbrushed swimsuit models in their 20's on the cover each month. What about older women?
"Women are more likely to be picked apart by the brain and seen as parts rather than a whole, according to research published online June 29, 2019 in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Men, on the other hand, are processed as a whole rather than the sum of their parts.
"“Every day, ordinary women are being reduced to their sexual body parts,” said study author Sarah Gervais, a psychologist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. “This isn’t just something that supermodels or porn stars have to deal with.”
"Numerous studies have found that feeling objectified is bad for women. Being ogled can make women do worse on math tests, and self-sexualization, or scrutiny of one’s own shape, is linked to body shame, eating disorders and poor mood."
The Pressure on Women to Stay Young
"So. Yes. We're all dying. We're all crumbling into the void, one cell at a time. We are disintegrating like sugar cubes in champagne. But only women have to pretend it isn't happening.
"Fifty-something men wander around with their guts flopped over their waistbands and their faces looking like a busted tramp's mattress in an underpass. They sprout nasal hair and chasm-like wrinkles, and go 'Ooof!' whenever they stand up or sit down.
"Men visibly age, every day -- but women are supposed to stop the decline at around 37, 38, and live out the next 30 or 40 years in some magical bubble where their hair is still shiny and chestnut, their face unlined, their lips puffy, and their tits up on the top third of the ribcage."
-- Caitlin Moran in her hilarious book, “How to Be a Woman”
Your thoughts?