It is difficult at times to make the connections between the portrayals of women by the media, such as in Playboy, and women’s inequality. The objectification of women has become such a regular occurrence that it is normalized, and thus the connections to issues, such rape and sexual assault against women, are made nearly invisible.
In order to fully understand the detrimental effects that the media have on men’s perception and treatment of women, read the following statements adapted from models created by scholars Peggy McIntosh and Barry Deutsch.
While some of the statements may seem unrelated to this discussion, the underlying connection is that they are all statements that men in our society can say with confidence while their female counterparts most certainly cannot: “the bodies or body parts of people of my gender are rarely used for marketing purposes. I can pick up a magazine and not see beauty products, clothing or sex tips to make myself more appealing to people of the opposite gender. I turn on the radio and do not hear songs with lyrics that degrade or objectify people of my gender. I have never been propositioned to represent my University with my body, rather than my academic accomplishments. If I became the victim of a sexual assault or rape, I would never be asked what I was wearing or why I drank so much. There are no stickers in bathrooms for people of my gender with steps about what to do when I am raped or assaulted because chances are I will never need that information. I have never thought about the possibility of being raped or sexually assaulted.”
The above statements are all common injustices that women face in our society, yet the correlation between them is consistently disregarded. Playboy, and all forms of media which dehumanize, objectify and degrade women, foster an environment in which a lack of respect for women is acceptable.
The media constantly reinforce the idea that women are mere things, a class of chattel, whose only worth lies in making their bodies desirable and available to the needs of men. This steady diet of misogynistic media is intrinsically linked to the creation of a rape culture, in which a general disregard for the welfare of women is commonplace and the occurrence of sexual assault and rape against women by men is epidemic.
National statistics estimate 480 women at this University will experience a rape or attempted rape every academic year. A plague of this proportion can’t be explained by individual pathology, nor can we even begin to combat it if we continually deny the method in which it is perpetuated.
