Deceptive Advertisement: Objectifying Women into Thin-Ideal Media

Objectification is the process of representing a person like an object and sexual objectification is the process of representing a person like a sex object, one that serves another’s sexual pleasure. Research shows that living in an objectifying society is highly toxic for young girls and women. Women who grow up in a culture with widespread sexual objectification tend to view themselves as objects of desire for others. This internalized sexual objectification has been linked to problems with mental health (e.g., low self-esteem, eating disorders and body shame). This study investigates the impacts of thin ideal internalization on women, that is, women believing that having a slim body with little body fat and a small waist is good for them. To conduct this research, primary data was collected by distributing surveys in Cyprus. Secondary data was also used and gathered through literature review. Results present a mixed pattern of effects occurring from the media publicity of sexual objectification. It is argued that women who self-objectify, by definition, highly aware of their own appearance, and therefore should also be highly aware of the appearance of others. Further, it is argued that pressure to look good, from both media and the society in general, can be very persistent that women absorb such negative attitudes (start self-objectification). Self-objectification has negative effects including giving women a feeling of low self-esteem. The results bear this out: the more women self-objectify, the more likely they are to objectify others. There is a negative relationship between self-objectification and self-esteem. Keywords: Thin ideal internalization, Self-Objectification, Objectification of others, Self-esteem, objectification theory, media images and social comparison.