As radical feminists continue to engage in acts of strategic resistance designed to engender awareness regarding the deleterious harms engendered by androcentric thought and praxis, many individuals become weary of ongoing academic discourse regarding the role that female objectification and self-objectification play in contributing to the prevalence, proliferation, and perniciousness of patriarchy. However, understanding these realities is important because it conveys not only the necrotic intent and outcome of male domination (which is to reduce thinking, feeling, sentient beings into robotic, near-dead objects who exist to be appropriated and abused), but the reality that, in order for patriarchy to become operative and effective, women and girls must be coerced into obedient compliance through a series of socialization processes which normalize their degradation and dehumanization. In this article, I provide a few theoretical frameworks through which the process of female objectification has been understood before analyzing a literary context in which the reduction of women to objects through socialization processes becomes operative. I conclude by demonstrating the contiguous relationship that exists between objectification/self-objectification and male supremacy’s core tenet: rape and sexual assault.
Many individuals–both intellectual and not–have pointed out that the world is predicated upon patriarchal principles which include the ongoing objectification of women. These assessments are important because they enable individuals to move beyond the amorphous, ambiguous realm of being only vaguely aware that something is awry with respect to how women are being conceptualized and treated; with theoretical assessments regarding the reality of female objectification, individuals can think critically and clearly about both what is happening with physical representations of women in material reality and why. In her own conceptualization of the patriarchal lens of viewing that people are told to adopt upon gazing at women, Laura Mulvey asserts that
In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split
between active male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects
its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their
traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed,
with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can
be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. Women displayed as sexual object is
the leit-motiff of erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to strip-tease, from Ziegfeld to
Busby Berkeley, she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire. Mainstream
film neatly combined spectacle and narrative…The presence of woman is an
indispensible element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence
tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in
moments of erotic contemplation. This alien presence then has to be integrated into
cohesion with the narrative. (808-809)
Here, Mulvey explores the role that the processes of objectification and self-objectification play in the perpetuation of patriarchy within the film realm, explaining that women are represented as passively posing to generate an erotic impact on male viewers in this domain of reality. Perhaps interestingly, Mulvey accurately identifies this process as creating and contributing to the othering of women when she states that the representation of woman as an erotic spectacle constitutes the incorporation of an “alien presence” into the film narrative. This “alien presence,” she argues, has to somehow be integrated into the narrative flow of the film such that the representation of female people as eroticized objects doesn’t merely exist as an unrelated, irrelevantly agrestic aspect of the story which interrupts its logical, sequential flow. In her analysis, Mulvey conveys the role that the film industry plays in contributing to the production and proliferation of images of women as the site of erotic contemplation for men, thereby conveying the presence of the process of objectification (men reducing women to objects) and self-objectification (female models consenting to being presented as objects).
Like Mulvey, John Berger provides thinking individuals with an ideological framework in which to conceptualize the way
One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at
women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only
most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to
themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female.
Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of
vision: a sight (46, 47).
Here, Berger conveys the elements of objectification and self-objectification by demonstrating that women exist as objects for men to look at (objectification) while, in becoming cognizant of this androcentric process, female people then turn themselves into visual objects to be looked at (self-objectification). As may become evident to the reader upon reviewing this section of Berger’s text, male domination works through multifarious systems, almost all of which are malevolent and malicious, working together to create an increasingly narrow, limited worldview for women and about women. Specifically, women are trained to see themselves through a very parochial lens and society as a composite whole is taught to think of womanhood in increasingly narrow ways. This reality becomes evident both in the realms of reality which guide our daily life as well as the fictional worlds of literature which reflect key aspects of these worlds. In the fictional world of Peg Tittle’s Gender Fraud, for example, central character Katherine Elizabeth Jones is arrested for the crime of Gender Fraud, meaning that she, as a female person, has violated the law by engaging in behaviors deemed inappropriate for women, some of which include wearing men’s clothing, not wearing make-up, maintaining short hair, remaining unmarried and not having children, and pursuing an advanced academic degree (11, 12). As a result of these “crimes,” Jones is placed in a psychiatric facility for the purpose of being cognitively and somatically trained to conform to the parochial, patriarchal script regarding how women should think and act. Within the limiting confines of the psychiatric facility, Jones is exposed to literature which reinforces the patriarchal program’s plan for women. While waiting to be seen by the psychiatrist, she glances “at the magazines on the low table in front of her. Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens. They were really pouring it on. Then again, she realized, those were exactly the magazines every doctor’s office would have. And every dentist’s office. Every government office…” (70). Here, the reader becomes aware of the protagonist’s consciousness that the same literature being used to promote patriarchal propaganda within the psychiatric facility in which she is confined is utilized to advance androcentric ideologies in the real world that exist beyond the training center where she is being taught to comply with limiting edicts regarding what female personhood can incorporate.
When considered carefully, it becomes clear that the concepts depicted in the magazine content reinforce the understanding of women operating within the framework feminists have identified within terms of sexual and/or reproductive labor being the primary mediums through which female people are used within the patriarchal system. Within magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Vogue, the concept of women existing for the purpose of sexual labor is reinforced by cover images of female people operating as the erotic spectacles Mulvey wrote of in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Ariana Greenblatt provides the cover photo for the Winter 2025 issue of Cosmopolitan and is featured wearing a pink bra with black lace and lacy stockings which make multiple regions of her body, including much cleavage, viewable for the observer. Similarly, Emma Stone creates the cover image for the September 2025 issue of Vogue, in which she wears a decorative black jacket-like topic which leaves her belly button and lower abdominal region exposed. The message conveyed through the patriarchal propaganda produced by the cover images of Cosmopolitan and Vogue is clear: woman equals sex.
Like Cosmopolitan and Vogue, magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens purport patriarchal propaganda by reinforcing specific messages which bolster androcentric ideology. While Cosmopolitan and Vogue promote the idea that woman equals sex, Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Garden purport the idea that woman equals breeder and she loves the cult of domesticity. In the December 2025 cover of Good Housekeeping, for example, the feature image is a cluster of boxes which female hands are arranging. The wording for the magazine cover includes “Cookies, Crafts & Cocktails for Good Holiday Cheer!” The cover also advertises the “2026 Kitchen Awards” and bakeware, toothpaste, olive oil, blenders, hair tools, and knives that were subjected to scrutiny and testing as topics that will be discussed within this issue of the magazine. These images and wording teach women, the people to whom this magazine is heavily advertised, that placing primacy on the decorative aspects of life, including home maintenance, play an integral role in facilitating happiness, normalcy, and cultural acceptability. Similarly, the December 2025 issue of Better Homes & Gardens features a display of flowers sitting atop a bureau with the nearby linguistic sequence “Your Happiest Holidays Start Here.” As noted in their own description of their magazine, the purpose of Better Homes & Gardens is to provide home inspiration, recipes for special occasions and everyday use, and garden knowledge for the purpose of enabling readers to create their dream homes. Thus the patriarchal point of both Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens becomes plain: naturalize the processes of continually redirecting female attention to home decor and maintenance so that the cult of domesticity, along with all other aspects of the patriarchy, may go on with seamless continuity.
When the feminist reader considers the magazines that are found in the waiting room of the psychiatrist’s office that Kat Jones finds herself in, several realities pertaining to objectification and self-objectification become plain. One of those realities is that both principles are made evident and prevalent through the Cosmopolitan and Vogue covers. Specifically, female people are groomed and socialized to believe that they can and should desire to operate as sexualized spectacles for male titillation, thereby conveying the aspect of objectification which involves being treated as a non-thinking thing that exists for a male being or multiple males. They subsequently adopt this non-sentient identity, internalizing it as the desirable mode of seity to embody in the process of self-objectification which becomes evident through the sexualized posing depicted on the magazine covers. Another reality pertaining to objectification and self-objectification which becomes plain through consideration of the magazines that exist within the psychiatrist’s office is that sexualized objectification and self-objectification do not operate in isolation as aspects of the androcentric dystopia; rather, they exist within a continuum of multifarious oppressions which work to reinforce the idea that women can and should be tracked into specific life patterns which are consonant with male domination. The Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens magazines make this reality plain by emphasizing that female existence and agency should be utilized for the purpose of participating in the cult of domesticity, with this aspect of energetic use operating in consonance with the patriarchy’s purpose of reducing women to wives and mothers whose primary function is to breed and maintain aesthetically appealing homes. The astute reader should thus note that these magazines are not necessarily randomly clustered together within the psychiatric office; rather, their placement is designed to connote that women must either exist as sex or as homekeepers.
In further considering the patriarchal implications of Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens, one might argue that the magazine placement, which includes clustering propaganda regarding female people operating as sex or homekeepers together, functions to show women that they may intermittently choose to exist as eroticized spectacles and keepers of houses, with this reality working to create the illusion that the patriarchal world offers women a plethora of meaningful choices which are confluent with cognitive and somatic expansion or freedom. This is how the reality of androcentric dystopia can be transformed into a utopia within the mind of the observer; to paraphrase, this is how systems akin to slavery purport themselves as systems of freedom such that individuals observing them conclude that they are desirable and ideal.
Recently, I listened to a radical feminist discourse which involved one contributor asserting that, contrary to the idea that some women are aware of patriarchal patterns while other female people remain fundamentally unconscious of its pernicious structure and systems, each woman understands what androcentrism is about. I now disagree and rather believe, in accordance with many other radical feminists, that what the majority of women tend to do is maintain an aggressive will to not know what they already know about patriarchy for the purpose of avoiding conflict, attaining social privileges, and finding “love” within the heteronormative confines of dating, marriage, and sexuality. This is probably why female consumption of patriarchal propaganda such as Cosmopolitan and Vogue remains significant; it is not because women don’t understand that consuming these mainstream/malestream forms of media contributes to the reproduction of patriarchal principles such as objectification and self-objectification. Rather, it is that inundating one’s mind in these androcentric realms enables the reader to keep forgetting and keep not remembering what is really going on within the patriarchal program: the rape of women and girls. Thus another thing that is important to remember is that the production and proliferation of male supremacist forms of media which promote objectification and self-objectification is not divorced from the reality that sexual assault is the core of the patriarchy; rather, the creation of these mediums functions as a distraction from the cultivation of awareness regarding the normalization and perpetuation of rape as an integral, acceptable aspect of female existence. In conclusion, radical feminists must remember to recognize the interconnected nature of all things under patriarchy such that we collectively resist objectification and self-objectification as demeaning practices which both 1. dehumanize women and 2. deflect attention away from other egregious aspects of male supremacy such as sexual assault.
