Psychology of Women. Quarterly, 21 (1997), 173--206. Printed in the United States of America.

OBJECTIFICATION THEORY
Toward Understanding Women's Lived
Experiences and Mental Health Risks

Barbara L. Fredrickson
University of Michigan

Tomi-Ann Roberts
Colorado College

This article offers objectification theory as a framework for understanding

the experiential consequences of being female in a culture that sexually
objectifies the female body. Objectification theory posits that girls and
women are typically acculturated to internalize an observer's perspective
as a primary view of their physical selves. This perspective on self can
lead to habitual body monitoring, which, in turn, can increase women's
opportunities for shame and anxiety, reduce opportunities for peak moti-
vational states, and diminish awareness of internal bodily states. Accu-
mulations of such experiences may help account for an array of mental
health risks that disproportionately affect women: unipolar depression,
sexual dysfunction, and eating disorders. Objectification theory also
illuminates why changes in these mental health risks appear to occur
in step with life-course changes in the female body.

Work on this manuscript was supported by a grant from the Harvey M. and Lyn P. Meyerhoff
Foundation awarded to the Women's Studies Program at Duke University, where Fredrickson
was on the faculty from 1992-1995 in the Department of Psychology: Social and Health Sciences.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the advice, ideas, and support ofJean O'Barr, Abigail Stewart,
Philip Costanzo, Karla Fischer, and Lee Hendler, as well as all who participated in the Gender/
Body/Self discussions held at Duke University during the summer of 1993. We extend particular
thanks to Jean Hamilton and Rachel Wolfe for their contributions to our thinking during the early
stages of this work.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Barbara 1. Fredrickson, Department ofPsycho1-
ogy, University of Michigan, 525 East University Avenue, Room 3217 East Hall, Ann Arbor, MI
48109-1109; e-mail: [email protected].

Published by Cambridge University Press 0361-6843197 $7.50 + ,10 173

In F~D~~~~D~~~

The body is the basis for the distinction between the sexes. Yet in the traditional
debate between biological and environmental determinants of psychological
gender differences, the body has most often been explored in terms of its
anatomical, genetic, or hormonal influences on personality, experience, and
behavior. Feminists and others have been understandably suspicious of such
perspectives because of their deterministic flavor, and perhaps for this reason
the body has been largely ignored in nonbiological explanatory schemes for
gender distinctions, which tend to focus more on sociocultural influences.
Feminist and other sociocultural perspectives, for instance, have done a great
deal to illuminate the ways in which many gender differences have little to do
with the biolOgical body, and much more to do with the differential socialization
of boys and girls, and, perhaps even more profoundly, with the different social
status and power held by women and men in society.
Yet, in doing so, much of the sociocultural tradition within the psychology
of gender has underemphasized the fact that the body is constructed from
more than just biology. Bodies exist within social and cultural contexts, and
hence are also constructed through sociocultural practices and discourses. Theo-
rists in a variety of diSciplines have begun to explore the multiple ways that
the body conveys social meaning and how these meanings shape gendered
experience [e.g., Bordo (1993) and Foucault (1980) in philosophy, E. Martin
(1987) in cultural anthropology, K. Martin (1996) and Shilling (1993) in sociol-
ogy, Kaschak (1992) and Ussher (1989) in psychology]. We believe that the
psychology of gender is now well positioned to push the analysis of bodies as
social constructions even further.
In this article, we propose objectification theory. This theoretical framework
places female bodies in a sociocultural context with the aim of illuminating the
lived experiences and mental health risks of girls and women who encounter
sexual objectification. l Although sexual objectification is but one form of gender
oppression, it is one that factors intcr--and perhaps enables-a host of other
oppressions women face, ranging from employment discrimination and sexual
violence to the trivialization of women's work and accomplishments. Like gen-
der oppression more generally, sexual objectification occurs with both "endless
variety and monotonous similarity" (Rubin, 1975, cited in Fraser & Nicholson,
1990, p. 28). The common thread running through all forms ofsexual objectifica-
tion is the experience of being treated as a body (or collection of body parts)
valued predominantly for its use to (or consumption by) others. Although
feminists have long identified objectifYing treatment as harmful to women, the
micro-level components of this harm have rarely been specified. Our task
in this article is to present a framework for understanding the cascade of
intraindividual psycholOgical consequences that we suggest spring from objecti-
fYing treatment.
Certainly not all women experience and respond to sexual objectification in
the same way. Unique combinations of ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, and other
phYSical and personal attributes undoubtedly create unique sets of experiences
across women, as well as experiences shared by particular subgroups. Yet amid
Objectification Theory 175
the heterogeneity evident among women, we propose that having a reproduc-
tively mature female body may create a shared social experience, a vulnerability
to sexual objectification, which in tum may create a shared set of psychological
experiences. Objectification theory (a) provides a framework for understanding
this array of psychological experiences that appear to be uniquely female, (b)
formulates a life-course analysis of some of women's mental health risks, (c)
organizes existing empirical data regarding women's lives, and (d) offers specific
predictions to guide future empirical work. Although our goal is to theorize
about sexual objectification as it applies to all women, we recognize that much
of the empirical literature that we use to buttress our theorizing has overlooked
diversity among women, focusing almost exclusively on White, middle-class
girls and women. Not wishing to recreate this myopia, we have included research
findings on women of color and other subgroups where they exist and are
relevant. Even so, some caution is warranted when extracting from this uneven
empirical base to understand how sexual objectification factors into the lives
of diverse subgroups of women.

PART I: OBJECTIFICATION THEORY

Women's Bodies Are Looked at, Evaluated, and Always

Potentially Objectified

Our culture is saturated with heterosexuality. One marker of this, as Karen

Homey indicated 6 decades ago, is "the SOcially sanctioned right of all males
to sexualize all females, regardless of age or status" (Westkott, 1986, p. 95; see
also Schur, 1983). This sexualization occurs in many forms, ranging from sexual
violence to sexualized evaluation (Fischer, Vidmar, & Ellis, 1993; Hughes &
Sandler, 1988; Kaschak, 1992; Quina & Carlson, 1989; Reilly, Lott, Caldwell, &
DeLuca, 1992; Stoltenberg, 1989). The most subtle and deniable way sexualized
evaluation is enacted-and arguably the most ubiquitous-is through gaze,
or visual inspection of the body (Kaschak, 1992). Though the psycholOgical
repercussions of sexual violence have begun to capture substantial research
attention (e.g., Herman, 1992; Russo, 1985; Trickett & Putnam, 1993), those
arising from the more subtle and everyday practice of sexualized gazing have
gone understudied; this is an imbalance we seek to redress.
Always present in contexts of sexualized gazing is the potential for sexual
objectification. Sexual objectification occurs whenever a woman's body, body
parts, or sexual functions are separated out from her person, reduced to the
status of mere instruments, or regarded as if they were capable of representing
her (Bartky, 1990). In other words, when objectified, women are treated as
bodies-and in particular, as bodies that exist for the use and pleasure of others.
Certainly not all men sexually objectify women; indeed, many elect not to and
are likely to have richer relationships with women as a consequence (Stolten-
berg, 1989). But importantly, because a sexually objectifying gaze is not under
176 fREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

women's control, few women can completely avoid potentially objectifYing

contexts (Kaschak, 1992).
ObjectifYing gaze is played out in three related arenas. First, it occurs within
actual interpersonal and social encounters. Studies have shown that (a) women
are gazed at more than men (for a review, see Hall, 1984); (b) women are
more likely to feel "looked at" in interpersonal encounters (Argyle & Williams,
1969); (c) men direct more nonreciprocated gaze toward women than vice
versa, particularly in public places (Cary, 1978; Fromme & Beam, 1974; Henley,
1977); and (d) men's gazing is often accompanied by sexually evaluative com-
mentary (Cardner, 1980), which tends to be most derogatory when aimed at
women of color (Allen, 1984). Moreover, Henley (1977) has pOinted out that
our language provides specific verbs to connote men's staring at women's
bodies, such as "ogle" and "leer," underscoring not only that this sexualized
gazing occurs, but also that it is disquieting for women.
Second, sexually objectifYing gaze also occurs in visual media that depict
interpersonal and social encounters. Analyses ofadvertisements show that males
are pictured looking directly at their female partner far more often than the
reverse (Coffman, 1979; Umiker-Sebeok, 1981). Coffman (1979), for instance,
has described the "anchored drift," a common theme in advertising in which
a male is depicted staring at or monitoring a female who is looking off into
the distance, daydreaming, or otherwise mentally drifting from the scene.
The third, and perhaps most insidious manner in which objectifYing gaze
infuses American culture is in people's encounters with visual media that
spotlight bodies and body parts and seamlessly align viewers with an implicit
sexualizing gaze (Mulvey, 1975). This sexually objectifYing treatment of women
in the visual media is certainly not limited to pornography. Analyses of main-
stream films (Kuhn, 1985; Mulvey, 1975; van Zoonen, 1994), visual arts (Berger,
1972), advertisements (Coffman, 1979; Solely & Kurzbard, 1986), television
programming (Copeland, 1989), music videos (Sommers-Flanagan, Sommers-
Flanagan, & Davis, 1993), women's magazines (Ferguson, 1978), and sports
photography (Duncan, 1990) each provide evidence that women's bodies are
targeted for sexual objectification more often than men's. For women of color,
objectifYing images are often infused with racial stereotypes: African American
women, for instance, are commonly portrayed not only as objects, but also as
animals (Cowan, 1995; Leidholdt, 1981), whereas Asian American women are
portrayed as possessing a more exotic and subservient sexuality (Root, 1995).
One way that the visual media's focus on women's bodies has been quantified
is in terms of relative facial prominence (Archer, Iritani, Kimes, & Barrios,
1983). Whereas men tend to be portrayed in print media and artwork with an
emphaSiS on the head and face, and with greater facial detail, women tend to
be portrayed with an emphasis on the body. Indeed it is not uncommon for
magazine photographs to portray dismembered women, eliminating their heads
altogether, focusing exclusively on their bodies or body parts. Archer and
colleagues (1983) refer to this as a "face-ism" bias, and more recent studies
have found that it is also present in portrayals of Whites versus Blacks, with
Objectification Theory 177
Black women represented in print media with the least facial prominence of
all groups (Zuckerman & Kieffer, 1994). Unger and Crawford (1996) have
pointed out the androcentric bias of this term, and have argued that the "face-
ism" of men actually reflects the "body-ism" of women. This body-ism is clearly
objectifying in the sense that Bartky (1990) has defined it. That is, the visual
media portray women as though their bodies were capable of representing
them.
Making matters worse, the mass media's proliferation of sexualized images
of the female body is fast and thorough. Confrontations with these images,
then, are virtually unavoidable in American culture. In sum, the sexual objectifi-
cation of the female body has clearly permeated our cultural milieu; it is likely
to affect most girls and women to some degree, no matter who their actual
social contacts may be.
A handful of theorists have ventured to explain why visual evaluations of
the female body, which can lead to sexual objectification, are integral to male
heterosexuality. Evolutionary theorists contend that women's physical attrac-
tiveness indirectly signals reproductive value, and so evaluating women's physi-
cal attributes has become an important criterion in men's mate selection (Buss,
1989; Singh, 1993). Others argue that the cultural practice of objectifying
female bodies originated to create, maintain, and express patriarchy (Connell,
1987; Kuhn, 1985; Stoltenberg, 1989). Distinct from attempts to uncover why
objectification occurs, objectification theory takes as a given that women exist
in a culture in which their bodies are-for whatever reasons-looked at, evalu-
ated, and always potentially objectified. The theory limits its aim to illuminating
the psychological and experiential consequences that sexual objectification might
have in many women's lives.

Internalizing an Observer's Perspective on Physical Self

At a psycholOgical level, perhaps the most profound effect of objectifying

treatment is that it coaxes girls and women to adopt a peculiar view of self.
Objectification theory posits that the cultural milieu of objectification functions
to socialize girls and women to, at some level, treat themselves as objects to
be looked at and evaluated. 2 In other words, as numerous feminist theorists
have argued, women often adopt an observer's perspective on their physical
selves (Bartky, 1990; de Beauvoir, 1952; Berger, 1972; Young, 1990). Psychologi-
cal theory on socialization and the self can provide a possible explanation of
how this internalization might come about. Effective socialization, Costanzo
(1992) has argued, begins with compliance to minimally sufficient external
pressures, proceeds through interpersonal identification, and ends with individ-
uals claiming ownership of socialized values and attitudes, often by incorporat-
ing them into their sense of self.
The external pressures that encourage women's preoccupation with their
own physical appearance abound. Take, for example, the array of life benefits
178 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

that physically attractive, or "eye-catching" women receive in American culture.

Empirical research demonstrates that how a woman's body appears to others
can determine her life experiences. Studies have demonstrated, for instance,
that obesity negatively affects women's, but not men's, social mobility, with
obese women showing lower educational and economic attainments than their
parents. Compared to average-weight or thin girls, overweight girls are also less
likely to be accepted to college (Wooley & Wooley, 1980; Wooley, Wooley, &
Dyrenforth, 1979). In addition, job discrimination and hostile work environ-
ments are more frequently reported by overweight women than by overweight
men (Snow & Harris, 1985). More generally, women deemed unattractive by
their coworkers are described more negatively than comparably unattractive
men (Bar-Tal & Saxe, 1976; Cash, Gillen, & Bums, 1977; WalIston & O'Leary,
1981). Additionally, a recent supreme court case (Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins,
1985) illustrates that women who aspire to high-status work positions may
suffer job discrimination based on an unfeminine appearance (Fiske, Bersoff,
Borgida, Deaux, & Heilman, 1991). Physical attractiveness has also been shown
to correlate more highly with popularity, dating experience, and marriage oppor-
tunities for women than for men (Berscheid, Dion, Walster, & Walster, 1971;
Margolin & White, 1987; Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, & Rottman, 1966).
Indeed studies of implicit cultural models of gender relations suggest that
both women and men discuss heterosexual relations as though women can
"exchange" their relative attractiveness for good treatment in relationships (e.g.,
Holland & Skinner, 1987).
For these and other reasons, Unger (1979) argues that physical beauty can
translate to power for women: Attractiveness functions as a prime currency for
women's social and economic success. The value of this currency, however,
may differ across subgroups of women. Arguably, for example, to be traded
for social and economic power, a woman's beauty must appeal to the tastes of
the dominant (White male) culture. Given this standard, preoccupation with
appearance may be most evident among White women and others seeking
upward social mobility. Consistent with this view, Hurtado (1989) has argued
that the dominant (White male) culture typically oppresses White women
through "seduction," which we suggest is often enacted through sexual objectifi-
cation masquerading as positively valenced admiration; by contrast, Hurtado
states, this same dominant (White male) culture oppresses women of color
through "rejection" or negatively valenced social evaluations. The point here
is that women of color, poor women, and lesbians face the additional negatively
valenced oppressions of racism, classism, and homophobia. As such, the sexual
objectification of these subgroups of women may combine with other oppres-
sions to produce somewhat different effects.
Given the evidence that women's social and economic prospects can be
determined by their physical appearance, it behooves women to anticipate the
repercussions of their appearance, or as Berger (1972) put it, to be their
own first surveyors. Therefore, women's attentiveness to their own physical
appearance, which has often been interpreted as narcissism and vanity
Objectification Theory 179
(Deutsch, 1944, 1945; Freud, 1933), might more appropriately be viewed as
women's strategy for helping to determine how others will treat them (Sil-
berstein, Striegel-Moore, & Rodin, 1987). This strategy need not be conscious,
or deliberately chosen. Instead, theories of socialization would predict that
with repeated exposure to the array of subtle external pressures to enhance
physical beauty, girls and women come to experience their efforts to improve
their appearance as freely chosen, or even natural (Costanzo, 1992).
In a related vein, a core social psychological view of self holds that an
individual's sense of self is a social construction, reflecting the ways that other
people view and treat that individual (Cooley, 190211990; Harter, 1987). Cooley
(190211990) captured this idea with the phrase the "looking-glass self' (p. 63),
a term we appreciate because mirrors reflect the physical attributes that we
argue can monopolize women's sense of self. Yet we believe that Cooley (and
other self theorists who followed his lead) missed the opportunity to illuminate
women's views of self by pronouncing that self "refers chiefly to opinions,
purposes, desires, claims, and the like, concerning matters that involve no
thought of the body" (190211990, p. 63). Recent empirical evidence indicates
that such "disembodied" views ofselfare untenable. For instance, data gathered
by Harter and colleagues demonstrate that physical appearance is the most
important domain contributing to children and young adolescents' sense of
self-worth (female and male alike), outpacing social acceptance, scholastic and
athletic competence, and behavioral conduct (Harter, 1987). Similarly, data
collected in multiple laboratories show that women's body-image satisfaction
is positively related to their sense of self (for a review, see Polivy, Herman, &
Pliner, 1990). Other data demonstrate that the body contributes to sense of
self differently for women than for men: For women, positive self-concept
hinges on perceived physical attractiveness, whereas for men, it hinges on
perceived physical effectiveness (R. M. Lerner, Orlos, & Knapp, 1976). These
data suggest that the notion of the "looking-glass self' perhaps ought to be
taken more literally when applied to women.
Even so, new data raise the possibility that the "looking-glass self' may not
apply in comparable ways across ethnic subgroups. Crocker and colleagues,
for instance, suggest that unlike White and Asian students, Black students seem
to separate how they privately feel about themselves from how they believe
others (presumably non-Blacks) evaluate them (Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, &
Broadnax, 1994). Crocker and colleagues interpret this result as an adaptive
coping response by Blacks to chronic and recurring experiences of racial oppres-
sion and prejudice. It may be, then, that psycholOgical coping strategies that
some women of color develop to deal with racism may also buffer against the
negative psycholOgical repercussions of sexual objectification to some degree,
perhaps regardless of whether this objectification is enacted within or across
ethnic boundaries.
To summarize, then, a critical repercussion of being viewed by others in
sexually objectifying ways is that, over time, individuals may be coaxed to
internalize an observer's perspective on self, an effect we term self-objectifica-
180 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS
tion. Girls and women, according to our analysis, may to some degree come
to view themselves as objects or "sights" to be appreciated by others. This is
a peculiar perspective on self, one that can lead to a form of self-consciousness
characterized by habitual monitoring of the body's outward appearance. Cer-
tainly, an observer's perspective on the body might become internalized to
varying degrees. We would expect to find individual differences in the degree to
which girls and women self-objectif}r. Again, though, the habitual self-conscious
body monitoring that results from self-objectification might best be viewed as
a strategy many women develop to help determine how other people will treat
them, which has clear implications for their quality of life.
This habit of self-conscious body monitoring is far from trivial. We propose
that it can profoundly disrupt a woman's flow of consciousness. As de Beauvoir
wrote, when a girl becomes a woman she is "doubled; instead of coinciding
exactly with herself, she ... [also] exist[s] outside" (1952, p. 316). That is,
significant portions of women's conscious attention can often be usurped by
concerns related to real or imagined, present or anticipated, surveyors of their
physical appearance. We posit that in a culture that objectifies the female body,
whatever girls and women do, the potential always exists for their thoughts
and actions to be interrupted by images of how their bodies appear. This
habitual body monitoring, we believe, can create a predictable set of subjective
experiences that may be essential to understanding the psychology of women.

Consequences for Subjective Experience

The psychological and experiential consequences that follow from internalizing

an observer's perspective on physical self have not been fully explored; in this
section, we begin to do so. Even though we conceive of self-objectification as
an individual difference variable, the consequences we discuss in this section
ought not to be considered inevitable and chronic aspects of women's experi-
ence. Instead, we conceptualize the emergence of gendered experience in
objectifYing cultures in a manner similar to Deaux and Major's (1987) conceptu-
alization of the emergence of gendered behavior. That is, we emphasize the
extent to which women's experience is variable, proximally caused, and context
dependent (Deaux & Major, 1987). Throughout the course of a day, women
enter into and exit from multiple contexts, some that protect them from the
negative repercussions of objectification, and some that do not. To the extent
that particular social contexts accentuate women's awareness of actual or poten-
tial observers' perspectives on their bodies, certain types of experiences are
likely to ensue. Our framework, then, acknowledges both relatively stable
individual differences across women, as well as powerful situation-specific
effects in the experiences of objectification and its consequences. That is,
some women may have internalized and consequently be dogged by observers'
perspectives on their bodies in rrwst of the contexts in which they find them-
selves, whereas others may only be made aware of these perspectives when,
for example, they receive a "cat cal!" while walking down a busy street.
Objectification Theory 181
We propose psychological and experiential consequences of sexual objectifi-
cation for (a) the emotion of shame, (b) the emotion of anxiety, (c) peak
motivational states, and (d) the awareness of internal bodily states, offering
objectification theory as a parsimonious explanation for known gender differ-
ences in these varied psychological experiences.

Shame
The negative emotion ofshame occurs when people evaluate themselves relative
to some internalized or cultural ideal and come up short (Darwin, 187211965;
M. Lewis, 1992). Individuals experiencing shame tend to attribute their short-
comings globally to the self in its totality (e.g., "I am a bad person") rather
than narrowly to their specific actions (e.g., "I did something bad") (H. Lewis,
1971; see also Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996). Darwin also captured
how the internalization of another's gaze is central to the experience of shame:
"It is not the simple act of refleCting on our own appearance, but the thinking
what others think of us, which excites a blush" (Darwin, 187211965, p. 325).
Shame, then, results from a fusion of negative self evaluation with the potential
for social exposure.
Some empirical studies have reported that women experience more shame
than men (H. Lewis, 1971; Silberstein et al., 1987; Stapley & Haviland, 1989).
Understanding the messages women receive within our objeCtifying culture
helps to explain this difference. First, in American culture, we are continually
exposed to images of idealized female bodies (Wolf, 1991). These idealized
images are almost invariably of youth, slimness, and Whiteness. Indeed it is
difficult to find media depictions of female beauty that are different from this
Western European ideal. The mass media's broad disperSion of these idealized
images of women's bodies has all but universalized them.
Second, as we have seen, women's eagerness to approximate the cultural
ideals is understandable given the rewards they reap for attractiveness in hetero-
sexual relationships as well as work settings. Pointing out, however, that only
1 in 40,000 women actually meet the requirements of a model's size and shape,
Wolf (1991) argues that the ideal female body is a myth, unrealistic and virtually
impossible to attain. As such, the continual comparison that a woman may
make between her actual body and the mythiC ideal is a recipe for shame. For
instance, although only a minority of girls and women in our society are actually
overweight, empirical studies report that the majority report feeling fat, and
ashamed of this "failure" (Fallon & Rozin, 1985; Silberstein et al., 1987).
Shame generates an intense desire to hide, to escape the painful gaze of
others, or to disappear, alongside feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness
(Darwin, 187211965; M. Lewis, 1992; Tangney et al., 1996). Intense shame can
also compound an already fragmented state of consciousness. "Shame disrupts
ongoing activity as the self focuses completely on itself, and the result is a state
of confusion: inability to think clearly, inability to talk, and inability to act" (M.
Lewis, 1992, p. 34). Interestingly, M. Lewis (1992) identifies this disruption
as "adaptive," arguing that its function is to inhibit or change that which fails
to live up to the person's internally or externally derived standards. Shame is
182 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS
3
thus considered a moral emotion, one that is used to socialize societal standards
(H. Lewis, 1989; M. Lewis, 1992). To the extent that "that which fails" is indeed
changeable, as actions often are, shame may indeed be adaptive.
Yet bodies are harder to change than actions. Viewed in this light, women's
ongoing efforts to change body and appearance through diet, exercise, fashion,
beauty products, and, perhaps most dangerously, surgery and eating disorders,
reveal what may be a perpetual and hardly adaptive body-based shame. The
extent to which body "correction" is motivated by shame elevates the task of
meeting societal standards of beauty to a moral obligation. Thus, women who
fail to live up to this obligation have been deemed uncivilized and immoral.
For instance, in discussing his own contempt for fat women, psychiatrist Irvin
Yalom calls their bodies profane, asking "How dare they impose that body on
the rest of us?" (Yalom, 1989, cited in Kaschak, 1992, p. 71; see also Crocker,
Cornwell, & Major, 1993, on the stigma of being overweight).
In sum, the habitual body monitoring encouraged by a culture that sexually
objectifies the female body can lead women to experience shame that is recur-
rent, difficult to alleviate, and constructed as a matter of morality.

AnXiety
People experience the negative emotion of anxiety when they anticipate danger
or threats to self; distinct from fear, however, these threats often remain
ambiguous (Lazarus, 1991; Ohman, 1993). Motor tension, vigilance, and scan-
ning are key manifestations of anxiety (DSM-IV, American PsychiatriC Associa-
tion [APA], 1994). Being female in a culture that objectifies the female body
creates multiple opportunities to experience anxiety along with its accompany-
ing vigilance. We highlight two: appearance anxiety and safety anxiety.
Not knowing exactly when and how one's body will be looked at and evaluated
can create anxiety about potential exposure. Indeed, empirical studies document
that women experience more anxiety about their appearance than do men
(Dion, Dion, & Keelan, 1990). Data further show that women's appearance
anxiety may have roots in negative early life social experiences, including histo-
ries of receiving negative appearance-related comments. Appearance anxiety
is often manifested by concerns for checking and adjusting one's appearance
(Keelan, Dion, & Dion, 1992). Women's fashions arguably compound the
opportunities for anxiety: Certain necklines and hemlines require regular body
monitoring. In wearing these fashions a woman is forced to be chronically
vigilant about whether undergarments or "too much skin" are (shamefully)
exposed, all while maintaining the illusion that she is at ease dressed as she is.
Yet appearance anxiety is not just about so-called vanity. It is also fused with
concerns about safety. Earlier we noted that women's beauty has been likened
to power. Consistent with this view, Beneke (1982) has reported that some
men who rape construe phYSically attractive women as personally threatening,
and therefore deserving of retaliation. For instance, those who suggest that a
female victim of sexual assault "asked for it" often refer to her physical appear-
ance. Women whose appearance is considered "striking" or "provocative" are
thought to provoke their own rape, much as a punch in the nose provokes a
Objectification Theory 183
fist fight (Beneke, 1982). Empirical studies also demonstrate that more attrac-
tive rape victims are assigned greater blame for their own rape than less
attractive victims (e.g., Jacobson & Popovich, 1983).
This underscores the notion that sexual objectification is a key component
of sexual violence. Because to some degree all women in our culture face the
possibihty of sexual victimization, they need to be attentive to the potential for
sexually motivated bodily harm (Beneke, 1982; Brownmiller, 1975; Griffin,
1979; Pollitt, 1985). Empirical research shows thatthis attentiveness is a chronic
and daily source of anxiety for many women, affecting both their personal and
work lives (Gordon & Riger, 1989; Rozee, 1988). Feminists have argued that
vigilance to safety may be the most fundamental difference between women's
and men's subjective experiences (Griffin, 1979; Pollitt, 1985). For instance,
when we have asked mixed-gender groups of students what they do on a given
day to ensure their personal safety, we find that women dutifully identifY
multiple strategies (e.g., double-checking locks, carrying keys between fingers,
checking the backseat of their car, jogging with a dog, staying in after dark,
feigning deafness, etc.). Men, however, having few strategies to hst, find it
eye-opening to realize how women's daily experiences in the world differ so
dramatically from their own.
In short, a culture that objectifies the female body presents women with a
continuous stream ofanxiety-provoking experiences, requiring them to maintain
an almost chronic vigilance both to their physical appearance and to their
physical safety.

Peak Motivational States

Being fully absorbed in challenging mental or physical activity can be immensely
rewarding and enjoyable. This state is what Csikszentmihalyi (1982, 1990) calls
"flow," occurring "when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a
voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile" (1990, p.
3; see also Deci & Ryan, 1985, for related work on intrinsic rrwtivation).
Csikszentmihalyi identifies flow as a prime source of optimal experience, those
rare moments during which we feel we are truly living, uncontrolled by others,
creative and jOyful. Maximizing such experience, he argues, improves the quahty
of life.
We see at least two ways that being female in a culture that objectifies the
female body can prevent or derail peak motivational states. First, and most
obviously, a woman's activities are interrupted when actual others call attention
to the appearance or functions of her body. As early as elementary school, in
classrooms and on playgrounds, observational research shows that girls' activities
and thoughts are more frequently disrupted by boys than vice versa (Thorne,
1993). Early on, these disruptions are often focused on "cooties" or "girl germs,"
fictitious pollutants associated with girls' bodies. Increasingly, these interrup-
tions become infused with more direct overtones of heterosexuahty, often
drawing attention to a girl's appearance, weight, or breast development (Brown-
miller, 1984; K. Martin, 1996; Thorne, 1993).
In addition, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) argues persuasively that a person must
184 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

necessarily lose self-consciousness in order to achieve flow. Likewise, laboratory

experiments have shown that intrinsic motivation is reduced when individuals
are made self-aware, either by the presence of a mirror or a video camera
(Plant & Ryan, 1985). Women's internalization of an observer's perspective on
their bodies, by definition, creates a form of self-consciousness. This is the
second way that women's peak motivational states are thwarted or limited. To
be "doubled," as de Beauvoir put it, is simply incompatible with the single-
mindedness of flow states.
In her essay entitled "Throwing Like a Girl," Young (1990) describes how
habitual self-conscious body monitoring limits the flow of women's physical
activities. We know from empirical work on nonverbal behavior that girls and
women, relative to boys and men, restrict their bodily comportment and use
of personal space (Hall, 1984; Henley, 1977). Young (1990) suggests two ways
that this physical constriction can be linked to the practices of objectification.
First, because movement itself draws attention to the body, it can increase a
woman's potential for objectification. Second, and more critically, maintaining
an observer's perspective on physical self forces women to simultaneously
experience their bodies as "objects" as well as capacities: "[Women's] attention
is often divided between the aim to be realized in motion and the body that must
accomplish it" (Young, 1990, p.I46). Women's movement, by consequence, can
grow timid, uncertain, and hesitant. These fits and starts apparent in women's
movements may also affect women's mental concentration. This may pose a
critical hindrance to women's attempts to become fully absorbed in any reward-
ing "flow" activity, whether physical or mental.
In sum, by limiting women's chances to initiate and maintain peak motiva-
tional states, the habitual body monitoring encouraged by a culture that objectif-
ies the female body may reduce women's quality of life.

Awareness of Internal Bodily States

Feminist poets and essayists have described women as alienated and distant
from their own bodies and bodily sensations (e.g., H. G. Lerner, 1993; Orbach,
1982; Rich, 1979; Young, 1990). These ideas fit well within an objectification
framework, which highlights the observer's perspective that women often adopt
toward their own bodies.
Recent reviews of a wide range of empirical literature argue that these poets
and essayists may in fact be right (Pennebaker & Roberts, 1992; Roberts &
Pennebaker, 1995). Multiple studies suggest that in the absence of relevant
contextual cues, women are less accurate than men at detecting internal physio-
logical sensations, such as heartbeat, stomach contractions, and blood-glucose
levels (e.g., Blascovich et al., 1992; Harver, Katkin, & Bloch, 1993; Katkin,
1985; Katkin, Blascovich, &. Goldband, 1981). Perhaps by consequence, women
appear to make less use of these bodily cues than men in determining how
they feel. For example, Laan and colleagues (e.g., Laan & Everaerd, in press;
Laan, Everaerd, van der Velde, & Geer, 1995) have demonstrated that, unlike
for men, the physiological changes associated with sexual arousal are only
minimally predictive of women's subjective reports of sexual arousal. Rather,
Objectification Theory 185
contextual stimuli appear to be more reliably related to women's feelings of
sexual excitement (Laan, Everaerd, van Bellen, & Hanewald, 1994). Other
findings from such diverse areas as sports psychology (e.g., Koltyn, O'Connor, &
Morgan, 1991) and emotion research (e.g., Levenson, Carstensen, & Gottman,
1994) also demonstrate that physiological cues are relatively less important
determinants of subjective experience for women than for men (see Roberts &
Pennebaker, 1995 for a review of this literature).4
How might women's relative inattention to phYSiolOgical cues come about?
One pOSSibility is suggested by research on dieting and restrained eating.
Beginning in adolescence, dieting becomes a critical part of most women's
lives in their efforts to achieve or maintain a slim body ideal (Dornbusch,
Gross, Duncan, & Ritter, 1987; Silberstein et al., 1987; Thornberry, Wilson, &
Golden, 1986). Importantly, dieting and restrained eating require active sup-
pression of hunger cues. Some have argued that it may not be pOSSible to
selectively tune out hunger, and that the habits of restrained eaters may lead
to a generalized insensitivity to internal bodily cues (Heatherton, Polivy, &
Herman, 1989; Polivy et al., 1990).
A second pOSSibility focuses on the self-conscious body monitoring that we
have argued occupies women in a culture that objectifies the female body.
Because women are vigilantly aware of their outer bodily appearance, they
may be left with fewer perceptual resources available for attending to inner
body experience. This limited-resources perspective would predict that those
particular social contexts that highlight women's awareness of observers' evalua-
tions of their bodies would be associated with a correspondent muting of inner
sensations. Arguably, repeated experiences in such contexts could lead to a
more generalized loss of the privileged access people typically have to their
own inner states.
In sum, by internalizing an observer's perspective as a primary view of
physical self, women may lose access to their own inner physical experiences.

PART II: WHAT MIGHT OBJECTIFICATION THEORY OFFER TO

THE UNDERSTANDING OF WOMEN'S MENTAL HEALTH RISKS?

So far, we have described multiple ways that being female in a culture that
objectifies the female body may impact women's subjective experiences in
negative ways. Recognizing that these negative experiences can accumulate
and compound points to a pOSSible contribution to a subset of women's mental
health risks. In this section we explore three particular psycholOgical disorders
that, in American culture, are experienced predominantly by females: unipolar
depression, sexual dysfunction, and eating disorders.
Key to our framework is the idea that there are two main routes through
which sexual objectification might contribute to poor mental health outcomes
for women, one more indirect and insidious and one more direct and extreme.
The first follows from the experiences described in Part I: The potential for
objectification fosters habitual body monitoring, leaving women with surpluses
186 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

ofshame and anxiety, a shortage ofpeak motivational states, and scant awareness
of internal bodily states. We argue that the accumulation of such experiences
could, for some women, contribute to psychological disorders. The second
route is more direct and extreme, although it is just beginning to capture
substantial research interest: actual sexual victimization, whether through rape,
incest, battering, or even sexual harassment. With these forms of victimization,
a woman's body is literally treated as a mere instrument or thing by her
perpetrator. Although our primary interest is in the first route-the mental
health risks that may accumulate simply from being female in a culture that
objectifies the female body-we also incorporate emerging evidence regarding
the links between women's actual sexual victimization and poor mental health
outcomes.

Objectification May Contribute to Women's Depression

Depressive episodes are characterized by prolonged depressed moods, loss of

pleasure in most activities, or both (APA, 1994). Experiences of depression-
ranging from mild to severely debilitating-are common in both women and
men (Eaton & Kessler, 1981; Robins et al., 1984). Even so, women are about
twice as likely as men to become depressed (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990). Although
the lifetime prevalence of depression is lower among Blacks than among Whites
and Hispanics, the 2: 1 gender ratio appears to hold across all three ethnic
groups (Blazer, Kessler, McGonagle, & Swartz, 1994; but see D. R. Brown,
Ahmed, Gary, & Milburn, 1995). The lack of consensus across explanations
for this gender difference leads us to explore what objectification theory might
contribute to our understanding of depression in women.
Multiple theories have been advanced to explain the consistent gender differ-
ence in risk for depression (see Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990, for a review). These
theories can be distilled into three classes of explanations. A first class of
explanations focuses on female biology, attributing gender differences in de-
pression to women's hormonal fluctuations and periodically low levels of estro-
gen. Puberty, premenstrual phases, the postpartum period, and menopause
are thus identified as times when women should be highly susceptible to
depression. Empirical studies of these life phases, however, offer only mixed
evidence, suggesting that the direct relationship between hormonal changes
and depression is weak, at best temporary, and far from universal (Nolen-
Hoeksema, 1990).
A second class of explanations for women's greater depression focuses on
women's inferior social status and relative lack of power. The overt and covert
discrimination women experience in relationships and in the workplace can
make them feel powerless to achieve their goals and control important life
outcomes. Learned helplessness theory (Seligman, 1975) eJq>lains how such
powerlessness can lead to reduced motivation, sadness, and depreSSion (Nolen-
Hoeksema, 1990). As well, it may help to explain why women who are low-
Objectification Theory 187
income, single parents are particularly likely to become depressed (Russo,
1985). Power-status explanations, however, like biological explanations, at best
offer partial explanations for women's depressions. Although nearly all women
experience some forms of discrimination (and hormonal changes), most do not
become depressed. Furthermore, given the multiple sources of oppression
faced by women of color, a power-status explanation would predict that ethnic
minority women ought to experience depression at higher rates than White
women, and this appears not to be the case.
A third class of explanations better accounts for individual differences among
women by describing how certain personality characteristics, more typical of
women than men, can increase risk for depression. Many women are character-
ized as nurturant, emotional, nonassertive, self-saCrifiCing, and relationship-
oriented. A range of theories has been offered to explain how women develop
these traits and how these traits can compromise mental health (again, see
Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990, for a review). As one example, Gilligan and others
who emphasize women's relational style (L. M. Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Gilli-
gan, Lyons, & Hanmer, 1990; Jack, 1991) suggest that women's strivings for
interpersonal intimacy, coupled with cultural prescriptions for being a "good
woman," combine to create an experience women describe as "loss of self'
(Gilligan, 1989; Jack, 1991). According to these theorists, loss of self (sometimes
called silencing of self) results when, in efforts to smooth and protect valued
relationships, women develop habits of censoring their own expression and
restricting their own initiatives (L. M. Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Gilligan, 1989;
Jack, 1991). In a depressed woman's words, "[I am] trying to be the way that
other person wants me to be instead of the way I am" (Jack, 1991, p. 32). Over
time, habitual self-censorship can lead to a duplicity of experience in which
outer compliance is paired with inner confusion and frustration, often with
ensuing depression (Jack, 1991). Although relational theorists sketch a compel-
ling portrait ofthe depressed woman, they leave underspecified the mechanisms
by which "loss of self" might lead to depression. s
Objectification theory draws together strands of each of these classes of
explanations for women's depression, yet reorients the focus toward the experi-
ence of being female in a culture that objectifies the female body. It builds
on a view advanced by researchers in the biopsychosocial tradition, which
suggests that the influence that hormones have on women's experiences is
mediated by publicly observable bodily changes: Hormones create conspicuous
changes in the female body, which in tum alter the ways girls and women
interact with, and experience the social world (Brooks-Gunn & Petersen, 1983;
Parlee, 1984). We articulated in Part I how living in a culture that objectifies
the female body can disrupt women's flow of consciousness by doubling their
perspectives of themselves, coaxing them to adopt an observer's perspective
of self. At an extreme, an observer's perspective on self might fully supplant
a woman's own first-person perspective on self, a state that may to some degree
resemble the "loss of self' described by relational theorists. Whereas relational
theorists tend to stop by stating that loss ofself can cause depression, objectifica-
188 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

tion theory goes further, detailing the various experiential consequences of

adopting a third-person perspective on self. Specifically (as detailed in Part I),
objectification theory predicts that internalizing an observer's perspective on
self creates habitual body monitoring, which in tum can generate recurrent
shame and anxiety, and also curb the pleasure associated with peak motivational
states. The ways that repeated negative experiences such as these can spiral
down into depression has garnered considerable attention within the depression
literature. (The resulting theories, however, were not necessarily conceived to
explain gender differences in depression.) Below we combine these existing
theories with the explanatory framework offered by objectification theory to
describe the possible mechanisms by which the duplicity inherent in self-
objectification can increase risk for depression.
First, learned helplessness theory and other cognitive models of depression
(Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Beck, 1976; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991,
1995) can explain how recurrent and uncontrollable experiences of shame and
anxiety could lead to depression. The learned-helplessness perspective suggests
that depression ensues when people attribute their perceived failings to internal,
stable, and global causes. We have argued that, because bodies are only partially
alterable, women's body-based shame and anxiety cannot be readily overcome.
Many women, then, may learn to feel helpless not only to correct their physical
"failings" but also to control other people's reactions to their physical appear-
ance. In general, "problems" that are not readily solvable can generate self-
focused attention (Carver & Scheier, 1990). This self-focus often takes the
form of worry or rumination, a style of thinking that empirical studies have
shown can prolong depressive episodes (Morrow & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990;
Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). Nolen-Hoeksema and colleagues have further shown
that girls and women not only ruminate more than boys and men, but also that
this difference can account for gender differences in depressive symptoms
(Nolen-Hoeksema, 1995; Nolen-Hoeksema, Morrow, & Fredrickson, 1993).
In tackling the question of what makes girls and women ruminate in the first
place, Nolen-Hoeksema (1995) has found that girls and boys worry about
different issues, and that the issues that most occupy girls-namely, personal
appearance, personal safety, and interpersonal relationships-are domains in
which exerting control and problem solving are difficult, and thus worries and
rumination persist. Having a female body, then, gives girls and women plenty
to worry about and little to control. We argue that to the extent that a woman's
body generates feelings of helplessness, it can also induce depression.
Second, as mentioned earlier, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) claims that because
peak motivational states are intensely enjoyable, having few of them necessarily
reduces the quality of life. Working from a behavioral perspective, Lewinsohn
(1974) offers a compatible model of depression: He suggests that having few
self-initiated positive experiences serves to extinguish active behavior, creating
the motivational deficit characteristic of depression. Objectification theory adds
that because women's prospects in relationships and in work often depend on
others' evaluations of their appearance, women have less direct control over
Objectification Theory 189
many of their own positive experiences. As such, women may have lean sched-
ules of response-contingent positive reinforcement. According to Lewinsohn's
model, this would put women at increased risk for depression.
And third, we underscore that sexual objectification is part and parcel of the
sexual victimization and harassment that women experience at much higher
rates than men. Several theorists have recently argued that women's experiences
of victimization may account for up to one third of the gender difference in
depression (Cutler & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991; Hamilton & Jensvold, 1992;
Nolen-Hoeksema & Girgus, 1994).
In sum, by illuminating how women's emotional experiences can be shaped
by the dictates of a culture that objectifies the female body, objectification
theory can draw together disparate strands across current theories for gender
difference in depression. Sexual objectification fosters a duplicity ofself, accom-
panied by recurrent and perhaps uncontrollable shame and anxiety. These
experiences, coupled with reduced opportunities for pleasure, may constitute
one root cause of some women's depression. We wish to underscore, however,
that like other theories for depression, objectification can only offer a partial
explanation for the prevalence of depression evident among women today.

Objectification May Contribute to Women's

Sexual Dysfunctions

Women report more sexual dissatisfaction and dysfunction in heterosexual

relations than do men (e.g., Frank, Anderson, & Rubenstein, 1978; Heiman &
Verhulst, 1982; Morokoff, 1990). Moreover, Hyde (1991) has argued that the
incidence of women who have problems having orgasm (particularly in hetero-
sexual intercourse) is so high that this problem is almost normative. Labeling
this a dysfunction, she argues, may not be reflective of its deviance, so much
as the fact that it causes unhappiness. Because research has shown that women
and men are equally "sexual" in terms of their capacity for arousal and orgasm,
purely physiological explanations for this difference are unsatisfactory (Hei-
man & Verhulst, 1982). Instead, several socialization theories have been offered,
the most common and compelling of which focus on cultural double standards
and the enactment of gender-role stereotypes in the sexual script that can limit
the sexual experiences and expressions of both women and men (e.g., Tevlin &
Leiblum, 1983). For example, heterosexual relations tend to focus on men's
experience, and be far more permissive of men's active, even aggressive sexual-
ity. Women are more often expected to be passive, even asexual, saying either
"yes" or "no" to men's sexual requests, rather than actively initiating sexual
encounters. This passivity is perhaps most characteristic of adolescent girls and
young women just beginning to be sexually active (K. Martin, 1996). One
consequence of these cultural attitudes, some have argued, is that women's
role in the sexual script is to give rather than take. This leads many women to
fear appearing "selfish," (that is, unfeminine) and hence to focus not on their
own desires and physical sensations, but rather on their male partner's.
190 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

Objectification theory offers alternative explanations for women's sexual diffi-

culties, focusing not simply on women's enactment of feminine roles, but rather
on their self-conscious body monitoring, body-based shame and anxiety, and
relative inattention to internal bodily states. First, as hypothesized in the section
on peak motivational states, chronic attentiveness to one's own visual image
may consume mental energy that might otherwise be spent on more satisfying
and rewarding activity. Indeed, sex researchers Masters and Johnson (1970)
refer to the self-conscious body monitoring that occupies many women during
sex as "spectatoring," and argue that this division of attention greatly hinders
women's sexual satisfaction.
Second, as we have argued, the shame and anxieties many women have
about their bodies quite likely carry over into their experiences with sex. Indeed,
a recent meta-analysis of gender differences in sexuality confirms that women
experience more shame/guilt and anxiety/fear about sex than do men (Oliver &
Hyde, 1993). With these negative emotions coloring many women's experiences
of sex, possibilities for enjoyment may be greatly reduced.
Third, sex researchers contend that orgasm (which we do not view as synony-
mous with subjective sexual pleasure) often requires attention and responsive-
ness to internal bodily signals of arousal (Adams, Haynes, & Brayer, 1985;
Hoon & Hoon, 1978; Wincze, Hoon, & Hoon, 1976). We have argued that
women's habitual attentiveness to external bodily appearance, combined with
habits of restrained eating and dieting, may lead to a generalized insensitivity
to internal bodily cues. So, interoceptive insensitivity may be yet another obsta-
cle to women's sexual pleasure.
Clearly the direct experience of sexual abuse, assault, or harassment also
impacts women's enjoyment of sex. Research shows that for victims ofsuch cruel
and dehumanizing forms of objectification, sexual dysfunction and reductions in
sexual enjoyment are common (e.g., Gordon & Riger, 1989; C. A. Martin,
Warfield, & Braen, 1983). One study showed that women's satisfaction with
sex can remain lower than it previously had been for up to 7 years follOwing
sexual assault (Feldman-Summers, Gordon, & Maegher, 1979).

Objectification May Contribute to Women's Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are perhaps the most obvious risk posed to the well-being of
girls and women in a culture that objectifies the female body, for such problems
are literally and sometimes visibly enacted on the body. Women overpopulate
such disorders, comprising about 90% of those who suffer from bulimia and
anorexia nervosa (Garfinkel & Gamer, 1982; Johnson, Lewis, & Hagman, 1984).
Women are also more likely to be obese than men (Foreyt & Goodrick, 1982;
Zegman, 1983). Contrary to a commonly held view that eating disorders are a
'White, middle-class" phenomenon, substantial research now shows that they
are becoming increasingly prevalent among women of color (e.g., Hsu, 1987;
Root, 1990; Rosen et al., 1988; Silber, 1986). Feminist research and theorizing
Objectification Theory 191
on eating disorders has done much to illuminate the broad cultural influences
on eating in an effort to answer the question of why eating disorders are almost
uniquely a female problem in American culture.
Two distinct strands of feminist thought have been brought to bear on
the causes of eating disorders. One of these perspectives points to the near
universality of troubled attitudes toward eating among girls and women. This
view argues that women's concerns with dieting and weight control are so
pervasive that they reflect a "normative discontent" that women feel toward
their bodies (Rodin, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore, 1984). Chronic dieting and
restrained eating have been said to be a way of life for girls and women, one
that is supported and encouraged by peers (Crandall, 1988), as well as parents
(Costanzo & Woody, 1985).
From this perspective, eating disorders are seen merely as the extreme end
of a continuum of this normative discontent. That is, women with anorexia and
bulimia, it is argued, are simply resorting to more drastic means of manipulating
the body (i.e., starvation and bingeing and purging vs. dieting and restrained
eating) in order to attain the slim beauty ideal (e.g., Rodin et al., 1984).
Ironically, starvation and purging, although clearly pathological, can create
feelings of thinness and control over eating, and thus alleviate, to some degree,
body dissatisfaction along with its associated shame and depression (McCarthy,
1990; Silberstein et al., 1987).
Another feminist perspective focuses on women's powerlessness by viewing
eating disorders as political statements of protest against patriarchy. This view
explains the gender difference in eating disorders by pointing out that women,
having less power than men to influence through action, often use the one
thing they can manipulate-their bodies-as a means ofinfluence. For example,
Orbach (1978) has argued that obesity in women can be viewed as a response
to their social position: "Fat is a way of saying 'no' to powerlessness and self-
denial, to a limiting sexual expression which demands that females look and
act a certain way, and to an image of womanhood that defines a specific social
role" (p. 21).
Similarly, psychoanalytic theorists have pointed out that self-starvation repre-
sents a strategic regression considering that it prevents the girl's body from
developing from childlike angularity to curvy young womanhood, and can even
prevent menses (e.g., Bruch, 1973,1978). More recently, Steiner-Adair (1990)
has argued that anorexia can be viewed as a way of using the body as a political
statement of rebellion, particularly in adolescence. She likens the prolonged
fasting of the many anorexic teenage girls in our country to a "hunger strike
undertaken by a group who have a vision of impending calamity and danger"
(p. 175). Steiner-Adair (1990) argues that girls may choose to avoid entering
the world of adulthood because they see that the world does not value feminine
principles of caring and interrelatedness. This is symbolized, she argues, by
the cultural idealization of thinness in women, and denial of the rounded,
maternal female body.
Clearly, then, these two feminist perspectives on eating disorders can both
192 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

be seen as fitting within an objectification framework. We have argued that

comparing one's own body to cultural ideals, and knowing that one's body will be
subject to such comparisons by others, is fundamental to women's experience.
Whether an individual woman attempts to (a) meet such ideals, or (b) opt out
of the system of objectification, she must do so with her body. Eating disorders
may thus reflect either of these two strategies. On the one hand, they may be
aimed at lessening the discontent, shame, and anxiety that nearly all women
feel about their bodies. On the other hand, eating disorders may function as
resistance. Though Steiner-Adair's hunger-strike analogy is provocative, her
suggestion that girls link the shape of the adult female body to feminine
principles of caring and interrelatedness seems doubtful to us. We find it more
parsimonious to link the shape ofthe adult female body to our culture's practices
of sexually objectifying that body. The negative consequences that objectifica-
tion has for women's life experiences gives girls reason enough to protest.
In either case, however, eating disorders are passive, pathological strategies,
reflecting girls' and women's lack ofpower to more directly control the objectifi-
cation of their bodies. Moreover, studies show that victims of actual sexual
assault and abuse often show severe body-image disturbances and suffer from
eating disorders at higher rates than others (Demitrack, Putnam, Brewerton,
Brandt, & Gold, 1990). This lends further sobering support to the idea that
girls' and women's troubled attitudes toward eating can be intimately linked
to the objectification of their bodies.

PART III: IMPLICATIONS FOR CHANGES IN WOMEN'S

MENTAL HEALTH RISKS OVER THE LIFE COURSE

The shape of the female body changes dramatically over the life course. In
infancy, early childhood, and again in old age, males and females have similar
distributions of body fat. Yet from early adolescence to late middle age, owing
to reproductive hormones, females accumulate fat on their hips and thighs
creating what in scientific terms is called a "gynoid fat distribution," or in lay
terms "a figure." A low waist-to-hip ratio, then, signals reproductive viability
among women (Singh, 1993). Taking an evolutionary perspective on mate
selection, Singh (1993) argues that men's first-pass assessments offemale physi-
cal attractiveness entail visual assessments of female body shape, with low waist-
to-hip ratios evaluated most favorably. With these ideas in mind, objectification
theory predicts that women are most targeted for objectification during their
years of reproductive potential. As such, the experiential consequences and
mental health risks that we have thus far described are predicted to change
over the life course, intensifying in early adolescence and lessening in late
middle age, in step with socially observable life-course changes in the shape
of the female body.
Objectification Theory 193
Girls at Puberty

Adolescence marks a particularly troubling passage for girls. Indeed, gender

differences in most of the mental health risks we have described first emerge
during adolescence. To be sure, most adolescents, whether male or female,
experience drops in self-esteem. Yet quantitative studies show that the decline
among girls is particularly sharp and long lasting (Block & Robins, 1993; Rosen-
berg & Simmons, 1975; Simmons, Blyth, Cleave, & Bush, 1979; Simmons &
Rosenberg, 1975). Moreover, the "silencing" or "loss of self' that relational
theorists have observed in qualitative studies is shown to first occur in adoles-
cence (L. M. Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Gilligan, 1989; see also Hancock, 1989).
In addition, by about age 13, girls reliably show more depressive symptoms
than boys (Nolen-Hoeksema & Girgus, 1994), and more problems with eating
(Attie & Brooks-Gunn, 1989).
The timing of this onslaught of negative outcomes for girls has been investi-
gated through a number of explanatory frameworks, variously implicating hor-
mones, personality styles, and the new social challenges that adolescents face.
Empirical research is making clear that no single etiological variable can fully
explain the emergence of this array of mental health risks. Consequently,
we favor a more broad-based and integrated explanatory framework, like the
diathesis-stress model Nolen-Hoeksema and Girgus (1994) propose to explain
the emergence of gender differences in depression. According to this model,
girls are more likely than boys to carry certain risk factors for negative outcomes
even before early adolescence, but these risk factors only lead to mental health
problems in the face of challenges that increase in prevalence during adoles-
cence. Personality characteristics that distinguish girls from boys in childhood
(e.g., greater social orientation, less instrumentality, less aggressiveness, more
ruminative thinking) are seen as the risk factors, whereas the pubertal and
social changes that begin in adolescence are seen as the new challenges; these
combine to trigger the onset of negative mental health outcomes.
When girls' pubertal changes have been considered from nonbiological angles
in analyses of age-related declines in mental health, discussions typically center
on the terms "body image" and "body dissatisfaction": How gaining fat in a
culture that values thinness erodes girls' self-esteem, putting them at risk for
both depression and eating disorders (McCarthy, 1990). Distinct from these
analyses, objectification theory offers a new way to conceptualize why and how
pubertal girls' physical changes trigger mental health risks. Far beyond the
idea that adolescent girls simply do not like the size and shape of their maturing
body, girls learn that this new body belongs less to them and more to others.
Empirical studies document that with the changes of puberty, a girl's new body
in a sense becomes "public domain": It is increasingly looked at, commented
on, and otherwise evaluated by others (BrownmilIer, 1984; Dion et aI., 1990; K.
Martin, 1996). It increasingly becomes the target ofsexual advances, harassment
(American Association of University Women, 1993), and sexual abuse (Koss &
194 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

Harvey, 1987), and is increasingly guarded and restricted by parents (Eccles,

Jacobs, & Harold, 1990), as well as teachers (Fine, 1988). One vivid example
comes from K. Martin's (1996) in-depth interviews with adolescents about their
own experiences of puberty and their emerging sexuality. Many girls in Martin's
study conveyed not only that men and boys "notice" and comment on girls'
breasts as they develop, but also that girls feel that men and boys assess a girl's
sexuality by breast size: "bigger breasts mean a girl is more sexually available
or adventurous" (K. Martin, 1996, p. 31). For perhaps the first time, then, an
adolescent girl recognizes that she will be seen and evaluated by others as a
body, not as herself. With pubertal changes, then, a girl becomes more fully
initiated into the culture of sexual objectification.
We predict that these early experiences of sexual objectification, whether
actual or anticipated, in turn trigger (a) the self-conscious body monitoring
that results from internalizing an observer's perspective on self; (b) a range of
deleterious subjective experiences, including excesses of shame and anxiety,
fewer peak motivational states and numbness to internal bodily states; which
may culminate to explain (c) increased risks for several poor mental health
outcomes.

Women in Midlife

Another point in the life course at which women's mental health risks appear
to be in transition is midlife. There is less consensus, however, regarding
the direction of change. Traditional and sociobiological theories suggest that
women's well-being declines once their biological usefulness has passed, after
about age 40 (for a review, see Gergen, 1990). Feminist researchers, however,
have not only challenged the view that menopause translates to psychological
trauma (Neugarten, Wood, Kraines, & Loomis, 1963; Parlee, 1984; Ussher,
1989), but have also argued that middle age may in fact be women's prime of
life (Fodor & Franks, 1990; Mitchell & Helson, 1990). Objectification theory
illuminates the validity of each of these perspectives. A reliable observation
about psychological adjustment in the second half of the life span is that
variability among individuals tends to increase; as such, we should expect and
account for differences among aging women. Objectification theory predicts
that precisely how aging influences a woman's mental health risks depends on
the extent to which she continues to (a) internalize the feminine ideals pre-
scribed by a culture that objectifies the female body, and (b) encounter contexts
that objectify her own body.
For many women, growing old is synonymous with becoming unattractive,
unlovable (Rodeheaver & Stohs, 1991), invisible (Kaschak, 1992), and even
unemployable (Wolf, 1991). Representative images of older women hardly exist
in the media (Friedan, 1993; Itzin, 1986); those few who are portrayed often
look much younger than their actual age (Itzin, 1986). So, even though the
aging process cannot literally be stopped or reversed, women are continually
Objectification Theory 195
sold the idea that aging is controllable, and that "staying" and looking young
is an important life mission. Because "letting yourself go" is tantamount to a
moral collapse, failing to stay young looking can be cause for recurrent shame,
a condition that the thriving cosmetic surgery industry vies to alleviate. In sum,
aging women are instructed that in order to maintain social regard, they must
remain in the objectification limelight.
Objectification theory predicts that to the extent that older women heed
this cultural instruction, they inadvertently perpetuate the negative subjective
experiences and mental health risks previously described. Beyond this, however,
objectification theory also predicts that older women's various efforts to create
the illusion of youth can lead them to experience even further detachment
from their bodies. For instance, studies find that older women misperceive
their age more than older men, and are more likely to reject their actual
physical images in favor of more youthful subjective physical images (Rode-
heaver & Stohs, 1991). Rodeheaver and Stohs (1991) suggest that such body
dissociation can be considered an adaptive strategy that allows older women
to maintain positive self-conceptions within a culture that objectifies the female
body.
Yet objectification theory predicts an alternative response to aging as well.
To the extent that a middle-aged woman can both relinquish the internalized
observer's perspective as her primary view of physical self, and avoid contexts
that objectifY, she may in fact escape from the culture of objectification along
with its negative psycholOgical repercussions. As the older woman's body be-
comes relatively invisible (Kaschak, 1992), her other achievements may paradox-
ically gain visibility, perhaps for the first time since childhood. For instance,
Heilbrun argues that women's creativity is stifled by a culture that objectifies
the female body, and is therefore age linked: "it is perhaps only in old age,
certainly past fifty, that women can stop being female impersonators, and grasp
the opportunity to reverse their most cherished principles of 'femininity'" (1988,
p. 126). Longitudinal data on women in the Oakland Growth Studies are
consistent with this view: Among women who do not internalize traditional
feminine ideals but nonetheless live in accord with them, psycholOgical health
is low during childbearing years, but improves markedly at age 50 when cultural
constraints are lifted (Livson, 1976). Likewise, retrospective, cross-sectional,
and longitudinal data each provide evidence that women in their 50's, relative
to women of other ages, report the highest quality of life, which is related to
increased experiences of autonomy and self-determination (Mitchell & Helson,
1990; Stewart, 1995).
Objectification theory, then, helps make sense of the differences among
women in how aging affects their mental health risks. To the extent that middle-
aged women are willing and able to step out of the objectification limelight,
they should experience (a) less self-conscious body monitoring because of
diminished needs for anticipating observers' evaluations of their bodies; (b)
improved subjective experiences, including less shame and anxiety, more peak
motivational states, and a potential to reconnect to internal bodily states; which
196 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

in turn may help explain (c) diminishing risks for adverse mental health out-
comes.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Objectification theory represents our attempt to push further a sociocultural

analysis of the female body within the psychology of women and gender. It
provides a partial framework for organizing and understanding an array of
experiences that appear to be uniquely female. Perhaps the most profound
and pervasive of these experiences is the disruption in the flow of consciousness
that results as many girls and women internalize the culture's practices of
objectification and habitually monitor their bodies' appearance. The repercus-
sions of this self-objectification, in turn, permeate a host of emotional, motiva-
tional, and attentional states. Collectively, these patterns of experience may be
important contributors to women's mental health risks, and may help explain
why these risks appear to change in step with life-course changes in the female
body. Beyond parsimoniously organizing a wide variety of preexisting empirical
evidence regarding women's lives, objectification theory also presents specific
predictions to guide empirical work yet to be done.
In summarizing the theory, however, it is critical to underscore that objectifi-
cation does not affect all women equally. First, because an observer's perspec-
tive on the body can become internalized to varying degrees, we have conceptu-
alized self-objectification as an individual-difference variable. Efforts to
empirically assess individual differences in self-objectification have already
begun. For instance, Noll (1996, Study 1) has developed and validated a Self-
Objectification Questionnaire, and shown that women who score high on this
measure report the most disordered eating, and that this relationship is medi-
ated by experiences of body shame. McKinley and Hyde (1996) have also
reported a similar pattern of results with their Objectified Body Consciousness
Scale. Together these studies suggest that the degree to which women self-
objectify may function as a risk factor for disordered eating. Future studies are
needed to test the relations between and among self-objectification and its
other experiential consequences (e.g., anxiety, reduced peak motivational states,
diminished awareness of internal bodily states) and mental health risks (e.g.,
depression and sexual dissatisfaction). Empirical tests will also be needed to
distinguish self-objectification from related constructs such as simple self-con-
sciousness (e.g., Fenigstein, 1987), body dissatisfaction (Williamson, Davis,
Bennett, Goreczny, & Gleaves, 1985), and body esteem (Franzoi & Shields,
1984).
A second reason that objectification does not affect all women equally is
that particular combinations of class, ethnicity, age, and sexuality, as well as
personal histories and physical attributes are likely to produce some heterogene-
ity of experience both in degree and kind. Some of these sources of difference
from the dominant culture may mitigate or protect certain subgroups ofwomen
Objectification Theory 197
against the negative psychological repercussions that we link to sexual objectifi-
cation. For instance, the findings of Crocker and colleagues mentioned earlier
suggest that a history of racial oppression may lead African Americans to
construct a sense of self that deflects rather than reflects others' appraisals
(Crocker et al., 1994). As Root (1990) has argued, however, minority women
are not immune to the pressure to look "perfect," particularly in the context
of upward social mobility in which acceptance is sought from the dominant
(White male) culture that so clearly values thinness and beauty in women. The
notion of "protective factors" among subgroups of women, therefore, should
not be mistaken for categorical invulnerability to the consequences of objectifi-
cation. A critical avenue for future research will be to examine the variations
in experiences and effects of objectification across diverse subgroups ofwomen,
with an eye toward illuminating the ways objectification may factor into other
forms of oppression that particular subgroups face.
Moreover, sexual objectification is unlikely to affect any woman all of the
time. The extent to which particular social contexts accentuate a woman's
awareness of actual or potential observers' perspectives on her body will, in
part, predict the degree and kind of negative repercussions that she may
experience. Sociological research has shown that it is in certain spaces-namely
public, mixed-gender, unstructured ones-that women's bodies are most sub-
ject to evaluative commentary by others (e.g., Gardner, 1980). These then are
among the contexts in which the experiential consequences of objectification
are predicted to be most evident. Interestingly, many women take precautions
either to avoid appearing alone in these sorts of contexts, or to fortify themselves
for such appearances. The prediction that specific situations can trigger self-
objectification and its consequences has already received limited empirical
support: Noll (1996, Study 2) found that the situation oftrying on and evaluating
a swimsuit produced significant levels of body shame, which in tum predicted
restrained eating. Further studies are needed both to replicate and extend
these findings, and to link other specific situations to the remaining experiential
consequences and mental health risks that objectification theory posits.
Finally, there are multiple ways that women of all walks of life are able to
resist and subvert the culture's practices of objectification in their own lives.
Changes in bodily presentation, for instance, appear to alter the extent to
which women are open for evaluative attention. Many women adopt conscious
strategies for stepping out of the "objectification limelight," ranging from wear-
ing comfortable shoes and loose-fitting clothing, to not removing "unwanted"
body hair nor wearing cosmetics. These seemingly trivial practices of self-
presentation ought to be taken seriously by researchers. They may in fact
function as efforts to resist sexual objectification, and thereby enhance women's
psycholOgical well-being within a culture that so vehemently objectifies the
female body.
The evidence we have reviewed details how our culture's practices of objecti-
fication can harm girls and women. If future direct tests of objectification theory
produce further evidence to support it, then the most important contribution of
198 FREDRICKSON AND ROBERTS

the theory may be to prompt individual and collective action to change-

minimally to diversifY-the meanings our culture assigns to the female body.
One strategy is to take aim at our cultural practices, the visual media in particu-
lar. Because advertisers may have no incentive to regulate their use of objectifY-
ing ads, federal restrictions and warnings on advertisements-similar to those
that govern the tobacco and alcohol industries-should be explored as a means
to protect public health. Another strategy is to transform our educational efforts,
both formally within schools and informally at home and in communities. A
first step would be to make girls and women more fully aware of the range of
adverse psychological effects that objectifYing images and treatment can have
on them. Such awareness, in tum, could fortifY girls and women to resist these
negative effects, and create space for them to experience their bodies in more
direct and positive ways. One example would be to infuse grade-school curricula
with sociocultural perspectives on eating disorders, encouraging girls and boys
alike to critically evaluate their daily exposure to objectifYing images. A second
example would be to encourage sports participation and related forms of physi-
cal risk taking, starting when girls are in early childhood and continuing through
their adolescent years. Certainly, feminist activists have already initiated efforts
like these at both grassroots and national levels. Objectification theory simply
underscores the urgency of this work, and the need to intervene on behalf of
girls and women more otten and more thoroughly.
Seemingly innocuous, the sexual objectification of women and its psychologi-
cal consequences have gone understudied by researchers for too long. Objectifi-
cation theory is our effort to name one set of sociocultural barriers that diminish
women's well-being and limit their potential.

Initial submission: August 16. 1996

Final acceptance: November 18, 1996

NOTES

1. We focus on the psychological consequences for girls and women of the cultural practice of
sexually objectifYing female bodies. In doing so, we do not wish to convey that men are not
also at times subjected to sexually objectifYing treatment, nor that they do not also experience
negative repercussions from such treatment. In fact, an analysis of the unique ways that men
experience sexual objectification will certainly become necessary if our culture's mass-media
practices follow current trends toward equal treatment: Instead of eliminating objectifYing
portrayals of women, we've witnessed an upsurge of objectifying portrayals of men (Wernick,
1991; van Zoonen, 1994).
2. We also add that the cultural milieu of objectification encourages girls and women to treat other
girls and women as objects to be looked at and evaluated. Although the ways that such treatment
may alter the relationships between and among girls deserves attention and study, they are
beyond the scope of this article.
3. This implicit association between shame and moral shortcomings may explain why shame is
often more clifficult than other negative emotions to assess via direct self-report. For instance,
Tangney (1993) reports that young adults found personal shame experiences not only more
painful but also more difficult to describe compared to personal guilt experiences.
4. We do not suggest that bodily cues are more "legitimate" determinants of subjective experience,
Objectification Theory 199
but rather that they form one strand of experience that women tend to draw from less frequently
than men. One explanation for this difference appeals to women's greater alienation from their
bodies. Even so, reductions in alienation would not be expected to reduce subjective experience
to reports based solely on bodily sensations, but rather to allow this strand of experience to be
accessed alongside others.
5. QuantifYing "loss of self' and verifYing its connection to gender norms has also met with some
obstacles. Two recent studies report that men actually score higher on Jack's (1991) Silencing
The Self Scale (Gratch, Bassett, & Attra, 1995; Thompson, 1995), raising questions about
construct validity.

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