Women are no strangers to sexualization. With over 50% of advertisements on television aimed at women, and with most of those containing a view of women in a sexualized way ("beauty products", for instance, seem to enjoy highlighting either classy-looking women, or women with low-cut shirts), it's no wonder that so many women have self-esteem issues in this day and age. How could somebody hold up a positive opinion of themselves, when they're being constantly bombarded from so many angles with messages like, "Buy this, and you'll be beautiful!", or "He won't like you until you wear THIS!", or "Men only like women who wear low-cut shirts, so you'd better go get some!"
To follow this example to an extreme, with the rise of the Internet, another facet where women will see an overtly sexualized view of their gender is in pornography. With roughly 13% of ALL search engine searches between the June 2010 and June 2011 being related to erotic content, and earning more than $4 billion per year, porn is certainly on the minds of many people. And it's easy to see where this creates problems with the sexualization of women; seeing a women in a purely sexual manner serves to simply object her into that roll. If one is watching porn, it certainly isn't in support of women's rights. I actually know of a few girls that have stated they'd rather not bother with post-secondary education, and simply become pornographic stars, because "why bother spending money, when I can go into an industry that has no real qualifications, aside from my looks?" If this sort of message exists in today's society, we must seriously re-examine how we are enabling these types of mindsets.
But, in stark contrast to this, there is also an emergent sector of girls/women who are desexualizing themselves, especially in facets to appearance. More and more, there is a rise of girls dressing in a more masculine way; cutting their hair short, perhaps even shaving their heads, wearing clothing that is more traditionally perceived as male, or in more extreme cases, taping their breasts down under their shirts, to eliminate the viewpoint of them as solely feminine creatures.
Why? Because of the history women have had. Most have been viewed as caretakers of houses, "baby-makers", eye-candy, and. . . well, for the majority of women, not much else (at least in the past). While a lot of that has been alleviated, there is certainly still some stigmas around that apply to women, and I wouldn't blame a women wanting to eliminate the idea that she is where she is because of her gender, or that her gender defines her as a whole person.
As we head forward, we need to cautiously examine what sort of messages are being sent to young girls, especially in regards to how they are portrayed sexually. Advertising, in particular, needs to re-define how to reach both sexes without falling into stereotypes for either of them. We're in a post-everything society, and we need to start redefining old ideas quickly, before we fall back into the same pitfalls from before.
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