Proof That Watching TV Shows Where Women Are Degraded Makes You Sexist
It's no secret the mainstream media is centered around the male gaze, or the idea that all media is catered to the eyes of straight men, specifically by showing women as objects of male desire.
For example: Have you ever noticed how there will be a random girl in a bikini selling something that has nothing to do with bikinis?
That's the male gaze in action, babes.
And now, there is PROOF that watching TV shows where women are degraded actually make you more sexist.
According to an Italian study led by Francesca Guizzo, researchers found that people who regularly watch TV where women are objectified were less likely to react it to it, take a stand against it or even understand that it's not right to objectify a woman's body!
"In many Western countries we are accustomed to being exposed to media images of undressed and sexy bodies often used as decorative objects or instruments to attract new consumers," said Guizzo.
She explains the danger in this is how normalized we become to seeing women degraded. "The overall pattern of results suggests that the chronic exposure to objectifying media might lead to the dangerous assumption that such female portrayal is the norm, thus further reducing people's likelihood to react."
Here is where it gets really interesting, kittens.
In the study, some participants viewed a TV clip where women were hyper-sexualized, some watched the same clip with an explanation as to why the footage is degrading and a control group watched a nature documentary.
After watching the clip with the explanation, women became angry at the content and even angrier at the way in which the Italian culture objectifies women. They were more likely to want to support making a social change, too.
Guizzo thinks that since people clearly responded positively to messages that critiqued the objectification of women, the media should start implementing them as a tool for change.
She further explained,
Media literacy messages in the form of critique videos may be valuable tools to promote more active and critical media consumption and media specialists, concerned citizens, and social media activists may use such messages to motivate women to collectively take action against sexual objectification.
So men, women and everyone in between, blindly watching all of the sexist shit on TV is desensitizing us to what's really going on!
It's time to wake up to the fact that women's bodies are not objects, and it's time to loudly proclaim that this hyper-sexualization is NOT OK!
Citations: Women as decorative accessories: Keep silent or take a stance? (ScienceDaily)
