229 research outputs found
The impact of Western beauty ideals on the lives of women and men: A sociocultural perspective
No full textAccording to a recent survey of 3,300 girls and women across 10 countries, 90 per cent of all women aged 15 to 64 worldwide want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance, with body weight ranking the highest (Etcoff, Orbach, Scott, & D’Agostino, 2004). This finding suggests that women’s anxiety about their appearance is a global phenomenon, observed in every country studied from Saudi Arabia to the United States. Beyond body dissatisfaction, a stunning 67 per cent of all women aged 15 to 64 worldwide reported that they actually withdraw from life-engaging, life-sustaining activities due to feeling badly about their looks. These activities include giving an opinion, meeting friends, exercising, going to work, going to school, dating, and going to the doctor
Objectification theory: An introduction
No full textThis volume has showcased the vast interest in self-objectification as a topic of scientific inquiry and social action from scholars across perspectives. Objectification theory has emerged as an important systematic framework for investigating the effects of sexual and self-objectification among women. Multiple perspectives on the underlying causal forces that bring about self-objectification were described, and a common theme across these perspectives is that the sexual objectification of women’s bodies offers the most direct link to women’s self-objectification. There is clear evidence that self-objectification is associated with a wide variety of negative consequences, threatening the healthy development and well-being of girls and women across multiple domains of living. Less is known about how to counteract self-objectification, but we hope that the ideas put forth in these chapters will inspire more empirical work in this direction. We conclude this volume with several further perspectives on the topic of self-objectification with the hope of informing scholarly and applied pursuits in this critical area of women’s lived experience
The developmental effects of media-ideal internalization and self-objectification processes on adolescents’ negative body-feelings, dietary restraint, and binge eating
No full textDespite accumulated experimental evidence of the negative effects of exposure to media-idealized images, the degree to which body image, and eating related disturbances are caused by media portrayals of gendered beauty ideals remains controversial. On the basis of the most up-to-date meta-analysis of experimental studies indicating that media-idealized images have the most harmful and substantial impact on vulnerable individuals regardless of gender (i.e., “internalizers” and “self-objectifiers”), the current longitudinal study examined the direct and mediated links posited in objectification theory among media-ideal internalization, self-objectification, shame and anxiety surrounding the body and appearance, dietary restraint, and binge eating. Data collected from 685 adolescents aged between 14 and 15 at baseline (47 % males), who were interviewed and completed standardized measures annually over a 3-year period, were analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach. Results indicated that media-ideal internalization predicted later thinking and scrutinizing of one’s body from an external observer’s standpoint (or self-objectification), which then predicted later negative emotional experiences related to one’s body and appearance. In turn, these negative emotional experiences predicted subsequent dietary restraint and binge eating, and each of these core features of eating disorders influenced each other. Differences in the strength of these associations across gender were not observed, and all indirect effects were significant. The study provides valuable information about how the cultural values embodied by gendered beauty ideals negatively influence adolescents’ feelings, thoughts and behaviors regarding their own body, and on the complex processes involved in disordered eating. Practical implications are discussed
On the Calogero-Moser space associated with dihedral groups
No full textInternational audienceUsing the geometry of the associated Calogero-Moser space, R. Rouquier and the author have attached to any finite complex reflection group several notions (Calogero-Moser left, right or two-sided cells, Calogero-Moser cellular characters), completing the notion of Calogero-Moser families defined by Gordon. If moreover is a Coxeter group, they conjectured that these notions coincide with the analogous notions defined using the Hecke algebra by Kazhdan and Lusztig (or Lusztig in the unequal parameters case). In the present paper, we aim to investigate these conjectures whenever is a dihedral group
Computational aspects of Calogero-Moser spaces
No full textInternational audienceWe present a series of algorithms for computing geometric and representationtheoretic invariants of Calogero-Moser spaces and rational Cherednik algebras associated with complex reflection groups. Especially, we are concerned with Calogero-Moser families (which correspond to the -fixed points of the Calogero-Moser space) and cellular characters (a proposed generalization by Rouquier and the first author of Lusztig's constructible characters based on a Galois covering of the Calogero-Moser space). To compute the former, we devised an algorithm for determining generators of the center of the rational Cherednik algebra (this algorithm has several further applications), and to compute the latter we developed an algorithmic approach to the construction of cellular characters via Gaudin operators. We have implemented all our algorithms in the Cherednik Algebra Magma Package (CHAMP) by the second author and used this to confirm open conjectures in several new cases. As an interesting application in birational geometry we are able to determine for many exceptional complex reflection groups the chamber decomposition of the movable cone of a Q-factorial terminalization (and thus the number of non-isomorphic relative minimal models) of the associated symplectic singularity
Computational aspects of Calogero-Moser spaces
No full textWe present a series of algorithms for computing geometric and
representation-theoretic invariants of Calogero-Moser spaces and rational
Cherednik algebras associated to complex reflection groups. Especially, we are
concerned with Calogero-Moser families (which correspond to the
-fixed points of the Calogero-Moser space) and cellular
characters (a proposed generalization by Rouquier and the first author of
Lusztig's constructible characters based on a Galois covering of the
Calogero-Moser space). To compute the former, we devised an algorithm for
determining generators of the center of the rational Cherednik algebra (this
algorithm has several further applications), and to compute the latter we
developed an algorithmic approach to the construction of cellular characters
via Gaudin operators. We have implemented all our algorithms in the Cherednik
Algebra Magma Package (CHAMP) by the second author and used this to confirm
open conjectures in several new cases. As an interesting application in
birational geometry we are able to determine for many exceptional complex
reflection groups the chamber decomposition of the movable cone of a
-factorial terminalization (and thus the number of non-isomorphic
relative minimal models) of the associated symplectic singularity.Comment: 42 page
Body guilt: Preliminary evidence for a further subjective experience of self-objectification
No full textTwo studies investigated body guilt (i.e., feeling regret and remorse over how the body looks and a desire for reparative action to “fix” the body) within the framework of objectification theory among predominantly White British undergraduate women. In Study 1 (N = 225), participants completed self-report measures of interpersonal sexual objectification, self-surveillance, body shame, body guilt, and eating restraint. Path analyses indicated support for the inclusion of body guilt in the objectification model, with body shame and body guilt fully mediating the relationship between self-surveillance and eating restraint. In Study 2 (N = 85), participants reported higher body guilt, self-surveillance, body shame, and eating restraint when self-objectification was situationally activated, compared to the activation of body empowerment or a neutral condition. Path analyses in the second study replicated the objectification model from Study 1 with a state measure of self-objectification. These findings suggest that women also feel guilt (in addition to shame) about their bodies when attention is directed toward their physical appearance and wish to “correct” their body via disordered eating. Acknowledging women’s feelings of guilt in relation to not meeting restrictive beauty standards furthers our understanding of women’s experience of objectification and provides an additional target for reducing women’s mental health risks
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