Social Justice Camp DC

—

A blog I’ve been following for a while (run by a communications prof out in Washington State) recently linked to this executive summary of an APA report on the sexualization of girls while discussing media consumption among adolescents:

…evidence…points to the social, psychological, and ecological harm caused by massive exposure to a steady stream of expertly-crafted messages designed to influence behavior by manipulating emotions. Consider, for example, the American Psychological Association’s report on the sexualization of girls, or the American Academy of Pediatrics statement on media impacts and the need for media literacy education.

In a section called “Cognitive and Emotional Consequences,” the  APA report summary discusses a study with very disturbing implications in terms of the sexualization of women (Frederickson et al, 1998):

While alone in a dressing room, college students were asked to try on and evaluate either a swimsuit or a sweater. While they waited for 10 minutes wearing the garment, they completed a math test. The results revealed that young women in swimsuits performed significantly worse on the math problems than did those wearing sweaters. No differences were found for young men. In other words, thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualized cultural ideals disrupted mental capacity.

That sexualization disrupts mental capacity was not surprising…but I was a little surprised that the effects appear to be so strong when one is perfectly alone.

As objectification theory posits, “girls and women are typically acculturated to internalize an observer’s perspective as a primary view of their physical selves” (Frederickson & Roberts, 1997).

Interestingly, the dressing room study concludes that the costs of the sexualization of women are in no way limited to women:

The consequences of the cultural practices of sexually objectifying women’s bodies are not limited to problems for girls and women. Men are also negatively affected, in ways they may not even realize. For instance, across a series of experiments, Kenrick and colleagues have shown that men exposed to pictures of highly attractive women view the women with whom they are romantically involved as less attractive (Kenrick, Gutierres, & Goldberg, 1989) and their romantic relationships as less satisfying and less committed (Kenrick, Neuberg, Zierk, & Krones, 1994).

These findings prove very interesting in light of ongoing conversations about how men are becoming less willing to take on responsibility, whether in terms of their professional or romantic lives.

I wonder if the ubiquitous sexualization of females might be a contributing factor.

—-

References:

Fredrickson, B. , Noll, S. , Roberts, T. , Quinn, D. , & Twenge, J. (1998). That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 75(1), 269-283.

Fredrickson, B. , & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification theory. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(2), 173-206.

Links:

Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls

New Discoveries Suggest That Sexual Objectification Is More Damaging to Women Than You Might Think

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” -Einstein

I have been thinking some about problem solving…

Specifically what seems to be an ontological paradox at the heart of all problem solving: the tendency to become entangled in the existence of the problem we are trying to solve.

When trying to make a problem disappear, a certain mindset takes hold: “without me, this problem will not get solved,” “I must exist for this problem to no longer exist.”

As much as we get existentially wrapped up in the problems we are trying to solve, when they go away, so do we.

In a subtle but important way, our existence begins to depend on the existence of problems.

I find this Carl Jung quote on problems very useful…his framing seems to offer a solution to the paradox:

“All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble… They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This “outgrowing” proves on further investigation to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the horizon and through this broadening of outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge.”

Looking at problem ’solving’ from Jung’s perspective, one has to ask not how to logically solve a problem (I think we all do this every day), but how to grow one’s consciousness, possibly even how to grow one’s ontological freedom so that a problem does not begin to condition one’s being.

I think this very subtle dimension of problem solving often gets overlooked: how to avoid subconsciously wedding our own existence to the existence of the problems we imagine ourselves solving.

-@ninjaclectic

Final word goes to the Tao Te Ching:

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.