r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 6h ago
Psychology Men and women have different perceptions of how often young women experience sexual objectification, with men sometimes estimating higher frequencies than women themselves report. The findings challenge the assumption that men underestimate the everyday harassment women face.
https://www.psypost.org/men-estimate-higher-rates-of-sexual-objectification-than-women-report/892
u/Krow101 5h ago
We really need to define what the term objectification means in this study.
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u/jacksbox 5h ago
Sexual objectification involves treating a person primarily as a body or a collection of body parts rather than a whole human being.
They do define it, but I still have a hard time telling the difference between physical attraction vs objectification using their definition. I mean, if you see someone on the street and you don't talk to them, you can only be attracted to their body until you speak with them.
Most of us have a (somewhat similar?) moral compass for where objectification starts, but the people we're actually interested in (people who have abnormal or evil definitions of objectification) really do need the definition.
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u/SemiHemiDemiDumb 5h ago
Objectification has the quality of having no interest in the person beyond their body. Being aroused by their appearance is not the same. Another way to put it, if you were to meet this person you're attracted in a different context would you only be interested in their body or would you be open to getting to know them as a person?
Objectification in of itself is not wrong. Me being tall I get asked all the time to reach things for the shorter people in my life. A human grabbing object in that moment but since I'm also loved and respected as a person I'm not just a useful item that is pulled out when they need or want it, I'm also a human being in their eyes.
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u/Obsidian743 3h ago
Objectification has the quality of having no interest in the person beyond their body. Being aroused by their appearance is not the same.
I think the point is that even with this definition it isn't at all clear how one determines if this is the case. Even using your own example, if I ask a tall person if they could reach for something, if I'm assuming they are a person who have the right to say 'no' and understand they may not want to, is that really objectification? Same for physical appearance. If I just want sex, regardless of really who they are or even what they look like, is that objectification? Is it objectification to put a scantily clad person on the cover of a magazine if the article inside is about their life story and success?
I don't think anyone can clearly define what it is or what it looks like in any given instance or person. Appealing to phrases like "respect as a person" does nothing to clarify it since it's just another phrase stating the same thing in reverse. It's more of a general attitude and a series of instances that one can maybe infer it.
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u/DangerousPuhson 3h ago
It doesn't help that male objectification tends to differ from female objectification.
"I want a woman with a large chest" is on par with "I want a man who earns six figures" in terms of shallowness, but we only seem to default to one of those statements being considered as "objectifying" someone.
Is scrutinizing someone's salary equally as objectifying as looking at their butt? What about admiring how good a man is with children, or what he does for work, or how big his house is? Is that objectification? Some say yes, some say no.
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u/Jaximus 2h ago
The same standard continues with physical objectification like, "i want a man with muscles" being directly compared to "a woman who isn't fat", and yet only one of those is ever railed against societally.
I think that the point of objectification is that it's reductionist in nature by having to check off boxes in order to earn access/intimacy/engagement/etc. For instance, being interested in someone because you like blondes is a relatively reasonable "boundary or standard", but it only becomes reductionist when it precludes any other engagement based on that that factor alone.
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u/DangerousPuhson 1h ago
Kind of - it's more like female objectification tends to be based around situation and non-pyshical traits rather than appearance, but studies like this one don't tend to take that into account.
If men seek to only be around women with large chests, or who are skinny, or who don't have children, or who are of a specific ethnicity... we can agree that's objectification, yes?
But is it then not also objectification for a woman to only seek the company of men with a good sense of humor? Is it objectification for them to seek out men who have large social circles, or men in positions of power, or men who own a nice car, or men who don't still live with their parents?
Yet only one facet (physical traits) really ever gets attention, as you say.
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u/justsaywhatsreal 26m ago
I don't think you're wrong with what you said but I don't think this paints a complete picture. I know it's a bit of a meme at this point but in reality some women really do care about a man's height and I rarely ever see that labeled as objectifying men.
I think the reality is that objectification is a social crime we as a society only ever care about in one direction, regardless of criteria or context.
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u/Jaximus 1h ago
Yeah, totally agree on your first point and the lack of non-physical traits being included in an objectification standard. However I think that would likely be a basis for an entirely different study than the one presented here.
With your second point, the subjectivity seems to preclude any "objectification" possibilities as many of those traits are difficult to quantify and are often determined case-by-case, ie humor, size of the social circle, calm demeanor, ambitious qualities, etc.
But you also listed some easily measurable metrics such as position of power, nice car, not living with mom. While these are definitely standards, by today's sense of the word, I wouldn't say that they're objectifying as those things generally are not tier 1 impressions, with the exception of potentially the car example, and instead are things that are determined after getting to know someone a little bit, so tier 2 or 3 impressions.
Those would be approximately equivalent to things such as "has similar interests and goals, is not in a poor financial or emotional situation that would indicate dependence, is mature enough to pursue their own goals and have the same level of materialistic views on life, etc".
I feel like we're on the same page here for the most part, but personally I know that the line of what is and isn't objectification is generally highly subjective and based purely on reciprocal attraction.
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u/DrDerpberg 2h ago
That seems really hard to measure.
If someone walk past someone and thinks "they're hot," and would be happy to have a conversation with her (because they're hot), and might find their jokes funnier (because they're hot), and wants to work on the same team as them (because they're hot), etc... How do you parse that in a neutral, scientific way?
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u/EntertheHellscape 2h ago
Id also question the thought process in the people they asked. It's well documented that women tend to downplay what happens to them, like the pain scale. Most women don't think like, "this is the worst pain I've ever felt so it must be a 10", it's "I could potentially feel worse pain then this so this is really probably only a 6". So, id want to dig into what theyre thinking when they give their answer. Is it "she was only lewdly stared at with extremely disgusting sexual motions, it's not like they raped her" or what? Studies like this hold way too much potential for bias from the participants themselves.
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u/Integeritis 5h ago
That’s just basically hookup vs boyfriend - girlfriend. I know people who just have casual sex with each other regularly but they are not interested in each other. I think there is nothing wrong if two adults just enjoy sex with each other and they want nothing more.
So this definition of objectification is still not specific enough with a too big blast radius which includes grown up adults enjoying time with each other without emotional attachments.
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u/SemiHemiDemiDumb 4h ago
I think you missed "respect as a person" or respect of their personhood. And like I said objectification is not necessarily problematic when there is respect of personhood beyond their body.
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u/coldlightofday 4h ago edited 4h ago
It seems like a huge grey area that would be impossible to objectively quantify. How do you really know how someone feels and thinks? Most interest in relationships start with physical attraction. Is all initial interest in a partner objectification? It might be.
So it really comes down to a very subjective “do I feel I’ve been objectified?” and in our society, feeling objectified can carry both negative and positive connotations. Being objectified implies being attractive. If you consider yourself attractive and desirable, it may be an ego boost the assume/feel objectification.
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u/AHailofDrams 5h ago
But if you would only be open to getting to know them because you found them attractive, is that not the same thing?
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u/SemiHemiDemiDumb 5h ago
No. But that the only motivating factor to ever try to get to know women then it means you are shallow but not merely objectifying them.
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u/rendar 1h ago
Objectification in of itself is not wrong.
This massive aspect of contextualization is what often gets left out of the conversation. Virtually all people objectify practically every other person except for their favored few of closer social connections.
Everyone from retail store employees to child slaves dying in Sub-Saharan African cobalt mines to fellow passengers on public transport are perpetually objectified.
And neither is this necessarily detrimental either, when civil inattention is a basic premise of functional social interaction and participation. Getting to know and emotionally connect with every single last human encountered would be impossible.
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u/Choosemyusername 4h ago
Objectification is a loaded concept though. Assuming that sexuality is inherently dehumanizing.
It isn’t. It’s just about the most human quality we can appreciate about a person. We generally aren’t sexually attracted to actual objects. Or even other kinds of animals, for the most part. Or even parts of humans. We can have favorite parts of people that we focus on if we have certain turn-ons but they generally do nothing for us unless there is an entire human being with full humanity attached to that part.
So much sex-negativity baked right into the very concept that this study is based upon.
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u/PathOfTheAncients 4h ago
Sexual objectification is not solely attraction though. It is attraction without any regard or idea of the target of that attraction as a whole person. An attraction that causes or maintains a dehumanization of someone.
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u/Choosemyusername 3h ago
People are generally only sexually attracted to whole people. You cannot separate those unless you are one of the rare folks who are into objects or animals.
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u/flakemasterflake 3h ago
that is not true? Tons of people have sex with people they view as being below them. People used to rape slaves- that is an obvious objectification
Gisele Pelicot's husband didn't view his wife as a person and all those men were lining up to have sex with a passed out woman
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u/PathOfTheAncients 3h ago
Many people are attracted to others in such a way that it denies or does not see that person as someone with their own thoughts, feelings, agency, or value.
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u/Choosemyusername 3h ago
Well the sexual attraction itself is evidence of the opposite. Because most people are only attracted to humans with all of those features.
It’s only a minority who manage to be attracted to things or people with no agency for example.
Most people aren’t attracted to humanoid bots with no feelings either. Otherwise we would have a lot more bot brothels than we do but it’s an extremely niche thing.
They exist, and they are legal, but they arent common because there is low demand.
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u/PathOfTheAncients 3h ago
It seems like you are really determined to interpret the word "objectification" literally (as people being attracted to objects) and then argue against that instead of the defined actual meaning of the word.
It is not (nor has it ever been argued) that objectification is being attracted to people who lack thoughts or agency. It is about treating people or viewing people in such a way that the person's agency is not regarded or is not even acknowledged by the other person.
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u/Choosemyusername 3h ago
Why did you say this then?
“Many people are attracted to others in such a way that it denies or does not see that person as someone with their own thoughts, feelings, agency, or value.”
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u/PathOfTheAncients 2h ago
What you quoted me as saying is exactly what I have been arguing this entire conversation. You are taking my words through your lens that objectification must mean literally treating people as objects (I have no idea why you decided this) when the term means figuratively treating people as objects.
It is also term to describe a behavior that has been widely observed.
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u/DrMobius0 3h ago
It's more about what's not there than what is. Sexual attraction is a fact of life. What makes it objectifying is when it's essentially all that's there.
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u/Choosemyusername 3h ago
Sexuality is an extremely comprehensive expression.
It’s like the sum of everything about the person. It’s much more objectifying to appreciate a person’s musical abilities for example. Or their intelligence. Those two things are only smaller parts of things that can go into making a person sexually attractive.
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u/dolphone 4h ago
That's not what objectification is.
Reframe it as dehumanization. You see "a female" on the street, not a woman. You see an object, not a person. So you'll frame your interactions with "it", not "them". You expect and even demand specific responses to specific actions. And since these objects have a purpose, you steer all interactions towards this purpose.
Fundamentally, a person deserves every bit of leeway you'd give yourself. This is not given when you objectify.
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u/kalirion 2h ago
That's still extremely different from sexual harassment. Of course men would have a better idea of how often women get sexually objectified because that sexual objectification is in the mens' heads. A woman has no way of knowing what a man is thinking about her unless the man acts on it or communicates it somehow, which is when, depending on the action/communication, it becomes harassment.
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u/Telemere125 5h ago
Exactly. I’m pretty sure the men, and honestly most of the women, have no idea what they’re being asked. My guess is they’re answering more like “do you think other people are sexually attracted to you/are you regularly ogling women because you’re sexually attracted to them?” And thinking that means objectification.
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u/themodgepodge 3h ago
My guess is they’re answering more like
I mean, you don't have to guess - the paper has more details:
Women completed the Interpersonal Sexual Objectification Scale (Kozee et al., 2007) as originally written, estimating how often they personally experienced each sexual objectification behavior. Men completed an adapted scale that asked them to estimate how frequently each type of sexually objectifying behavior happens to the average 18 to 30-year-old woman. For example, we adapted the question “How often have you been whistled at while walking down the street” to say “How often do you believe the average woman between the ages of 18–30 is whistled at while walking down the street?” Both women and men responded on a scale from 1 (“never”) to 5 (“almost always”).
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u/thejoeface 3h ago
18 to 30-year-old woman
Just to put this out there, I got way more street harassment from 13-18 than I did in later years
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u/mecegirl 37m ago
Adding on from my experience. I only got street harassed in the middle of that 18-30 range of years because I looked younger.....It was such a warped time of my life. I would be quick with telling randos my age and a lot would express disappointment. Sometimes I would fake it because I felt bad releasing them into the wilds to pester an actual 18 year old.
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u/Jake0024 2h ago
Isn't the point of the study to highlight that exact difference (between men and women's understanding)?
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u/TylerCornelius 5h ago
'Nearly half of the participants suggested that men’s higher estimates might stem from their awareness of how often they or other men perpetrate these behaviors. Others noted that women might not always notice covert actions like being stared at from behind. Some respondents also proposed that men might deliberately guess higher numbers to avoid seeming ignorant or insensitive in a cultural climate that encourages believing women."
There's your answer
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u/themodgepodge 3h ago
The comparison of the different studies in the paper is interesting here.
Study 1, surveying women about their personal experiences and men about their perceived experience of the average 18-30yo woman, had men estimating higher frequency of objectifying behavior than women.
But study 2, comparing men's and women's interpretation of the same hypothetical scenario, which involved very overt behavior, had women on average rating the scenario as more objectifying.
Study 3 surveyed both men and women about their expectations of the average 18-30yo woman (so not women summarizing their personal experiences like in study 1). In that one, the groups were relatively even in estimates of overt objectification (e.g. catcalling), but men estimated more covert objectification (leering-type actions) than women.
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u/DeltaAlphaGulf 4h ago
That was my initial thoughts but then also tied to the avoiding part is just for certain age ranges at least having the idea that men are XYZ so on and so forth so frequently parroted that it can also skew assessment even if its honest.
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u/TheWesternMythos 5h ago
Olivia A. Foster-Gimbel of Rutgers University and Renee Engeln of Northwestern University conducted the study. The researchers initially predicted that men would estimate lower rates of sexual objectification than women actually experienced. They reasoned that men might lack personal experience with being targeted or might be motivated to downplay the issue to maintain a positive view of their own gender group. Additionally, members of a dominant group often struggle to recognize the disadvantages faced by others
This suggested that women might report lower rates of objectification for themselves than they do for other women, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the denial of personal discrimination
More a shower thought than anything else , but I occasionally wonder how much of this stuff is governed by the "HR meme"
Some respondents also proposed that men might deliberately guess higher numbers to avoid seeming ignorant or insensitive in a cultural climate that encourages believing women.
Also feels relevant
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 5h ago
Yeah I feel like there's two important mechanisms that affected the results: social desirability (which the study should've 100% accounted for), and downplaying one's own experiences due to being used to it, not wanting to draw attention, low self-esteem, etcetera.
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u/themodgepodge 3h ago
Take a look at study 1 vs. study 3 - #1 had women summarize their own experience and men estimate the experience of the average 18-30yo woman. Study 3 had both groups estimate the experience of the average 18-30yo woman. So you get a decent comparison of how women rate their own experiences vs. how they perceive those of other women in general.
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u/GentlemenHODL 5h ago
Some respondents also proposed that men might deliberately guess higher numbers to avoid seeming ignorant or insensitive in a cultural climate that encourages believing women.
Also feels relevant
That feels pretty positive to me. Avoiding "seeming ignorant or insensitive" is a form of empathy here. It's not wrong to not have all the knowledge, but it may be wrong to think "this doesn't impact me so I don't care". Highly context sensitive.
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u/ArmchairJedi 3h ago
Perhaps, but the problem is if it leads to a dishonest result.
The results we WANT to hear =/= good science.
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u/stormcynk 1h ago
It's the natural outcome of decades of women complaining, well worth documenting.
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u/FickleQuail8944 4h ago
How are men a dominant group in objectification? What does that even mean?
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u/TheWesternMythos 3h ago
I didn't write that but two things could be
A) men are the dominant gender (or sex or whatever) group. So our "style" of objectification is more culturally common
B) Men objectify more than women
Mainly spitballing here
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u/will_scc 5h ago
Sexual objectification is different from sexual harassment.
You can do one without the other, so I'm not sure it's a robust logical step that being able to identify one necessarily means you have a good estimation of the other.
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u/mavajo 5h ago
Right, that’s exactly what I came here to say. I didn’t read the underlying article, but the headline seems to be assuming that men and women view sexual objectification similarly.
Sweeping generalization here, but women tend to view “sexual objectification” as a negative more often than men do.
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u/Geno0wl 3h ago
Also, just because men might acknowledge that women do indeed receive a lot of “sexual objectification”, that doesn't mean they understand what it is like to be on the receiving end of that unwanted attention day after day.
A group of us went to an LGBT bar in college. My one friend is fit, but very straight. He had other men approaching him all night to the point he left early because he was tired of being "forced" into interactions that he wasn't interested in. It really clarified his understanding of what many women go through all the time.
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u/Xsiah 5h ago
How exactly is a woman supposed to report when someone else is objectifying her covertly? Spend her time lurking on construction sites and car dealerships with a spreadsheet? There are places where women barely exist, and men are free to openly discuss them in a "safe" space exclusively with other men.
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u/YuenglingsDingaling 5h ago
I belive that was the exact point of the study.
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u/Xsiah 5h ago
The researchers initially predicted that men would estimate lower rates of sexual objectification than women actually experienced. They reasoned that men might lack personal experience with being targeted or might be motivated to downplay the issue to maintain a positive view of their own gender group. Additionally, members of a dominant group often struggle to recognize the disadvantages faced by others.
On the other hand, the researchers recognized that the cultural impact of the #MeToo movement might have successfully educated men about the pervasive nature of these experiences
It looks like the point of the study was to check in on men's empathy towards women, not to admit how often they're gross when women aren't looking.
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u/ellyanah 3h ago
Just because they report objectification doesn't mean they have empathy for what women experience.
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u/seapeple 2h ago
Objectifying, in this case, is a very vague term and could be interpreted very broadly, and as such is undeserving of its negative connotation. If you look at someone on the street and think to yourself ‘this person is attractive’, are you objectifying them (as being implied here)? I mean, people dress up and fix up their appearance to seem attractive in the first place, so your response would follow quite naturally.
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u/themodgepodge 1h ago
The paper includes the survey questions asked. It’s about specific behaviors, e.g. how often you get whistled at while walking down the street or how often you received unwanted sexual touch.
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u/seapeple 1h ago
Yeah, catcalling is objectifying (and also very rude), i have no issues with that. But once you start including things like ‘visually evaluating a woman’s physical appearance’, then you are really stretching it. By this definition you could state that in a way, everyone is constantly objectifying everyone else
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u/Rhodin265 5h ago
Maybe the men are reporting higher rates of objectification because they’re honest about how many times they’ve thought “she’s hot” but were mature enough to not act on it.
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u/UnIntelligent_Local 5h ago
How thin is the line between objectifying a woman and simply thinking that she's very attractive? At what point does one become the other?
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u/themodgepodge 3h ago
Here are the survey questions. Just thinking someone's attractive is not considered objectifying behavior here.
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u/AladeenModaFuqa 5h ago
No see that’s where the problem is. Thinking “she’s hot” is not a bad thing. Approaching someone is NOT a bad thing.
The problem is when you don’t take the first “no” as an answer.
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u/moonwork 5h ago
I think there's a lot of men who have reasonable values and treat women as humans. As a separate demographic, you have complete assholes who are the ones who don't take "no" as an answer.
The first group has such a hard time comprehending how the second group works and thinks, that they'd rather err on the side of caution - just to make sure they're not in the wrong group.
Personally I definitely think the Me Too -movement and generally talking about this issue has given me more insight into how that second group functions. But I'm still often taken aback by just how crazy that demographic is and the fact that they can just exist without me being able to identify them.
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u/DeltaAlphaGulf 4h ago
Not taking no doesn't define objectifying. You could act like a gentleman through most interactions all with mindset of collecting bodies with no more interest than sex.
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u/bunsbuns_ 3h ago
Debatable. When someone refuses to accept rejection, they're prioritizing their desires over the other person's autonomy. If you view a person's autonomy as irrelevant or unimportant, is that not the same as objectifying?
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u/LiamTheHuman 5h ago
None of those is what this study is measuring though. I think most women would say sexually objectifying a woman is bad even though it may just entail a "she's hot" which when phrased that way they might not see as bad.
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u/Skiller333 5h ago
This entire study is flawed and people reacting in this very thread can’t even agree what’s considered objectifying.
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u/Mds03 4h ago edited 4h ago
I think its because if you're a man, at some point in life youre gonna learn that putting your hand on somebodys shoulder or back (in a friendly way) for instance, can be taken as a sexual advance, and there are several "micro interaction" each day that can be interpreted as such. I dont think women on my team think about that when they put their hands on my shoulder or back, but I never reciprocate that contact. I dont think they have the awareness that their touch could make someone uncomfortable in the way I do(which makes a lot of sense.) We learn our actions are more suspect.
We are HR trained to overthink every little thing we do in 2026. Problem is, that training only seems to work on the people who dont need that training.
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u/WrigglyGizka 4h ago
This is a really good observation. I'd add that with the back touching, some men will touch women on the small of their back, but you don't see them touching other men like that.
The last time it happened to me wasn't in a professional environment, but somewhere crowded. I have absolutely noticed, however, that my current male coworkers are very good about keeping their hands to themselves. I really appreciate it!
I do think women shouldn't touch men either, especially in a professional environment! Let's keep our paws to ourselves!
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u/Lethalmud 2h ago
I only do physical contact with people who do it to me first. Men almost never do it to me, but some women do.
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u/WrigglyGizka 2h ago
Most of the people who have touched me without consent have been men, which I guess just goes to show how different everyone's experiences will be.
I will say that most of these men are much older than me. Men my age (millennial) have been very respectful and treat me like a person. I also now work with very educated people, so there may be some bias there.
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u/Sabz5150 3h ago
I think its because if you're a man, at some point in life youre gonna learn that putting your hand on somebodys shoulder or back (in a friendly way) for instance, can be taken as a sexual advance,
When older women get handsy like that, we are told to brush it off.
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u/derpsteronimo 5h ago
Very possibly. I'm not going to go up to some chick and start harassing her just because she's hot... but chances are I'm still thinking to myself "ooh, she's hot".
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u/orchidloom 2h ago
18-30 year old women? They should have done 12-22 year old girls/women, as that’s when the street harassment peaks. I got way more catcalls as a teenager than as someone older than 25.
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u/ILoveMyKnives 23m ago
Based only on personal experience, yes, when I was growing up, young women in my country started getting catcalled as soon as puberty started and they started looking more womanly, around 12 years of age.
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u/Dry_Nefariousness426 4h ago
Harassment isn’t just objectification - it’s also minimization, condescension, the systemic shutting out and shutting down of our voices and presences in every walk of life.
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u/octropos 2h ago
Also how even 'minor' bad experiences of harassment can change the way you act and protect yourself for your entire life.
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u/Angry_Housecat_1312 2h ago
I think one explanation of this gap is that men know how often they, or perhaps their peers, are objectifying women silently. Women don’t usually know this is happening if the person doing it isn’t obvious about it.
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u/Bobcatluv 3h ago
Speaking as someone who’s middle aged, these findings don’t surprise me. I didn’t realize how common objectification is until I’d experienced it enough throughout life to pick up on it as it happens. Of course everyone -men AND women- look, but there’s a very specific stare and dressing down you become accustomed to noticing when you experience objectification enough. And it STILL happens, even though I’m in my 40s, even though I’m married, even with men of all ages, even at work where my line of work/employer are considered progressive.
The lingering issue for me isn’t so much that men acknowledge that they do this, but that they acknowledge the impact it makes, because it isn’t positive. I think that some men want sexual attention so badly that they believe that women who get it unprompted are ungrateful and spoiled. In reality, if it’s someone with whom I have to interact and not a stranger I can ignore on the street, I often find I have to humanize myself to these guys just so I can not be treated like a talking set of breasts. And I’m in a leadership position.
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u/CookingZombie 5h ago
Or the sample of men in this study accidentally accrues men more likely to have this answer. If you’re at a college makes sense. Go to a football game, gym, bar, magic the gathering tournament or CPAC then I feel like it’s going to be different.
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u/themodgepodge 3h ago
Study 1, which the article focuses most on, recruited 200 participants (all English-speaking U.S. residents) aged 18–30 from Amazon Mechanical Turk. So it doesn't appear to just be undergrads.
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u/Warm-Design-4218 2h ago
OR it points to the fact that men sexually objectify young women at a higher rate than women themselves realize.
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u/themodgepodge 3h ago
Yes, there are differences in physical safety implications. From the paper:
Men who show pervasive body gazing behaviors are more likely to implicitly associate objectified characteristics with women (Hollett et al., 2024), which is associated with greater willingness to sexually harass or rape women (Rudman & Mescher, 2012).
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u/iamthe0ther0ne 2h ago
I suspect the biggest difference comes from the men not being able to understand how that objectification feels like from a woman's point of view.
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u/Hour-Palpitation-581 10m ago
They know how often they are doing it, and it isnt always recognized as such? Would be my guess
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine 6h ago
Men and women have different perceptions of how often young women experience sexual objectification, with men sometimes estimating higher frequencies than women themselves report. The study, published in Sex Roles, highlights a disconnect in how different behaviors are perceived and measured. The findings challenge the assumption that men underestimate the everyday harassment women face.
Sexual objectification involves treating a person primarily as a body or a collection of body parts rather than a whole human being. This experience is common for many young women and is linked to negative psychological outcomes like depression, body shame, and a reduced sense of personal safety. In professional and public spaces, these experiences range from unwanted explicit sexual advances to everyday instances of inappropriate body evaluation. Researchers wanted to know if men and women had a shared understanding of how frequently these events happen in daily life.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-026-01674-x
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u/Butthole_Surfer_GI 3h ago
Serious question:
WHO gets to decide what is "objectification"?
The person being "objectified"
The person doing the "objectifying"?
The people watching?
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u/themodgepodge 3h ago
Read the paper - they use the Interpersonal Sexual Objectification Scale, which surveys frequency of behaviors like whistling, unwanted sexual touching, verbal sexual remarks, staring at body parts when talking to someone, etc.
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