Agent of Change

Posted by Moriah Lahr in English 1 · Giknis · D Band on Friday, May 18, 2018 at 11:17 am

Moriah Lahr

05/18/18

Sexual Objectification and Its Effect on Women’s Mental Health

Sexual objectification is when women are seen by men as objects made for their own pleasure and not as intelligent, complex beings. Examples of sexual objectification include catcalling, sexual assault, rape, or simply getting checked out. Studies show that sexual objectification impacts women's mental health for the worse as I stated in BLOG POST 1. Every woman that I have talked to about being sexually objectified says they deal with mental health issues very often, including daily battles with anxiety or depression. I even did surveys on a few high school female students at Science Leadership Academy in BLOG POST 2.

Women are starting to come out more about their experience with being sexually objectified in the workplace, at school, or even just walking down the street. One example is a 20 year old named Noa Jansma who took selfies with every man that cat called her to show everyone awareness and show people how much this happens to women every single day. I think this is a very good way of showing people that this is a very damaging thing that a lot of men do.

For my agent of change, I decided I wanted to film a video touching on these issues of sexual objectification then later get in touch with an 8th grade sex ed teacher to show her students. Unfortunately, my plans and communication with the teacher fell through and I was unable to get ahold of her so I just posted the video on youtube and hope to reach the goal of 30 views. I felt as though talking about sexual objectification in depth would be a great way to spread awareness and understanding of the topic. The experience of working toward an agent of change was stressful at times but I tried my best to stay focused and get it done. I am curious to see what people’s response and reactions will be to the video.

I loved doing this topic as my project as a whole. I learned a lot of new things and feel like I can relate to a lot of things that women are experiencing in their daily lives. I learned about myself and others that being sexually objectified is what really pulls down our self confidence levels and can leave negative effects on women even if we don’t realize that’s the reason some of us feel bad about ourselves. In this project I feel as though I could’ve managed my time a lot better so that there wouldn’t be any inconveniences. There is still a lot left for people to do to help end sexual objectification but I think our best bet for now is to just raise awareness and show people this is how we feel. Women are feeling degraded and oppressed and we need to show people that this isn’t okay. We need to show people that we aren’t just pieces of meat to be lusted after and that we are actually complex and intelligent human beings with feelings and a personality.