“What if women started to view their bodies as tools to master their environment… as tools to get from one place to the next.” –Caroline Heldman
A
common question that I have heard asked during the final round of a beauty
pageant is: “What would say to someone who thinks the swimsuit competition turns
pageant contestants into sexual objects?”
As someone who is both
a beauty queen and a feminist, I do not feel that participating in a swimsuit
competition turns me into an “object.” However, because this debate is so
prevalent in the media, I pay attention to it.
Caroline
Heldman, the speaker in this video, points to the sexualization of female body
parts in the media as “objectification.” She states that most women in the
United States identify with the idea that women in our society are taught to be
sexual objects. Meanwhile men are treated as the “subjects.” Men are thus in
power in this dynamic. She further states that there is research showing that
this dynamic can lower a woman’s self esteem and can turn women against each
other.
Then
she states the quote in my heading. “What if women started to view their bodies
as tools to master their environment—as tools to get from one place to the
next?”
The
entire time that I was watching her speak, I was searching for a way to make
this statement. I identify with the idea of using my body as a tool to master
my environment. It seems a little taboo to say, but it’s true.
For me that sentiment is
how I feel that I have benefited from the superficial aspects of competing in
pageants. I use the way I look and present myself as a means to get ahead. In
terms of “sexual objectification,” being comfortable with my body and
comfortable with the idea of being sexy has given me power. I would identify more
with the subject end of the “subject to object” spectrum.
I am
not unfamiliar with low self esteem. I grew up only having low self esteem. I
never knew what it was like to hold myself in high regard. I don’t even
remember being called beautiful until I was fourteen-years-old. There was a specific moment at sixteen-years-old
when I started believing that I was beautiful. Nothing changed about me
externally, but I began to feel more comfortable in my own skin. During that
time, I began to grow into my curly hair and began to feel more graceful. The
improved comfort with myself led to me holding myself in a higher regard.
To my
knowledge, the media had little to do with my prolonged low-self esteem. I was
raised in a strict household of doing homework, extracurricular activities, and
playing outside. There was not much TV watching, and when there was, it was age
appropriate. I was not allowed to watch The Titanic when I was 9 years old, to
give an idea of the amount of censorship that existed in my house as a kid. Generally,
we waited until we were thirteen to watch the PG-13 movies. But I still had low
self esteem. My low self esteem came more from not feeling like I fit in and
feeling awkward in my own body than from anything outside of myself. It had little
to do with the images outside of myself.
In
growing up and confronting these insecurities, I have realized how pivotal
having high self esteem can be to having a healthy body image. I have had a
healthy body image since that time when I began to feel beautiful at sixteen. I
did not have a healthy body image prior to that time.
It
has been nearly ten years since then. More recently, I have really begun to
embrace the way I look by flaunting it through my endeavors in pageantry and
modeling. Embracing my looks has helped me to bring me fulfillment and embrace
my inner qualities as well. Embracing the way I look and embracing beauty have been strengths for me. My personal revolution occurred because our society has an emphasis on beauty, not in spite
of it.
It
would be hard for me to take a stance to fully support Heldman’s stance on a “beauty-free”
society because of the way that I have benefited from it. I have benefited from
embracing being a part of it.
A woman who is in
charge of her own sexuality and is comfortable in her own skin does not have to
be deemed a “sexual object.”
When another person
calls a woman a sexual object, realize that the woman in question may not feel
that way. A woman can be both regarded as sexy and have her ideas valued.
Society just needs to change the way that they think and talk about sex and
sexiness.
And as Heldman mentioned, maybe the double
standard between over sexualized images of women and not men should also be
equalized.