Words: Dashae Engler | Design: Jordan Wyer
Balancing self-empowerment in an unforgiving culture

Picture this: You buy a new top. As you try it on, you feel desirable. All day, you can’t help but look in the mirror and relish in the constant compliments you receive. Feeling sexy, you are that girl.

Now, a different scenario: You try on a shirt and instantly hate how it makes you look. You push past the discomfort and wear it anyway because it follows the societal standards of how women should dress. When you step outside, you are hyper-aware of your body and hope no one sees you.

Both scenarios are forms of self-objectification and can damage how you view yourself.

Internalized Surveillance

“[Objectification] is internalized surveillance — the idea that I know I’m being objectified, and therefore, I’m going to leverage that in a way that benefits me,” says Karen Christiansen, a professor of media, gender, and sexuality at Des Moines Area Community College.

Women in entertainment have to leverage their objectification to stay relevant in an industry that pushes them into an elephant graveyard at the first sign of aging. Being desirable is part of the job but it shouldn’t be the main component. They are constantly praised and criticized for their overtly sexual nature, so they tend to leverage their desirability and play into the hegemonic patriarchy.

Halen Becker, member of Mr. Softheart, a local rock band in Des Moines says, “[entertainment is] what I went to school for — being in theater. There’s a whole audition process.”

She was expected to dress, sing, introduce herself, and even maintain a certain type of eye contact to impress casting directors.

“It’s a very manicured version of yourself,” Becker says.

Changing the Conversation

This isn’t just a problem for women in the entertainment industry. Women everywhere self-objectify. If you catch yourself constantly befriending the mirror — you’ve been self-objectified. So has Becker. So have I.

“Being a feminine person in the world, there are a lot of pressures that society puts on a person to look, dress, or behave a certain way,” Becker says. “I would like to think that I’m past caring. I wonder sometimes if I’m not. It’s so deeply ingrained in me that I don’t notice it anymore.”

Can we limit that need to self-analyze? Can we just wear the shirt that feels good and toss the one that doesn’t? Can it ever be that simple for a woman?

“I can think of people [who] do dress for themselves even if it’s not aligned with a typical feminine thing to wear. [Most of us] lose some surveillance elements later in life,” Christiansen says.

Who’s Hot, and Who’s Not?

Our media has a hot problem. In America, women typically get praised due to their proximity to ideal feminine whiteness. Thin but curvy in the right places, young, European features, skinny nose, and fair skin.

These Eurocentric aesthetics shouldn’t be praised over others — it diminishes the complexity of beauty in a diverse world. When this happens, it causes certain bodies to be fetishized or never have the ability to be considered attractive due to ableism, racism, and fatphobia.

Maybe you have all the right curves in all the right places but you miss the ball on the tailored nose. That doesn’t make you any less beautiful just because it doesn’t fit the societal standards for the perfect, desirable woman.

“The culture benefits a small portion of people. It hurts everyone to place a certain worth on one body over another,” Becker says. “Even somebody who is seen as the ideal [beauty-type].”

Being Hot is Exhausting

What’s a girl to do? To be hot is to play into the culture oppressing us.

There is no logical way to get out of objectifying yourself because patriarchy itself is messy. The best we can do is be kind and patient with ourselves and others.

Move, dress, and act in a way that is pleasurable to you. When you are constantly body-checking and feeling like the only thing you have to offer is your looks, know you are so much more than your body.