One of my beautiful lovely friends, Chelsea Evanyke, wrote me on Facebook and inspired this next post! To all of you who wrote in, either by Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/G4G/268873239847616) or e-mail, THANK YOU SO MUCH! G4G HAS been inspired by you, and we are are most CERTAINLY going to be using your input in the upcoming weeks! Thank you SO MUCH for writing in!!!! Keep it coming!!!
Dismemberment.
What is the first image that pops into your head when you hear that word? If you're like me, you might have pictured a scene from Criminal Minds or CSI; and in the world of media, the word dismemberment means almost the same thing as it does in crime scene shows...well sort of.
According to Kacey D. Greening's Research Journal, The Objectification and Dismemberment of Women in the Media, dismemberment is defined as
"ads [that] focus on one part of the body."
In other words, dismemberment is an advertisement that shows women not as whole people, but as individual body parts. For example...
or
In BOTH of these ads, you don't even see their heads; they're just cleavage. These women are not shown as complete people, they are shown as just a body part. They are just a chest. What kind of message is that sending?
It's sad, but these are the types of messages we are surrounded by. We are immersed in messages that scream, "YOU'RE NOT A PERSON, YOU'RE AN OBJECT...well at least a small piece of an object!" There was a lot of research done by Media€t Valuesin from Erving Goffman's Gender Advertisements on the topic of dismemberment in advertising. One quote that really stuck out to me was when they stated,
"The hidden message is, if a woman has great legs, who cares who she is?"
That's exactly the problem; The message that these ads are sending is damaging. These ads say, "Who cares about who you are as a person? You're nothing more than a full chest."
But do you know that the WORST part of dismemberment is? I can honestly say that I want to cry right now thinking about this, but in today's society, being known or noticed because of a body part alone is a compliment. Being known as the "hot girl with the big boobs" is not an insult to our personalities, and our brain's...it's a compliment. That's what bothers me the most.
I think that a lot of ad's focus on our boobs, butts, waistlines, and legs. Eventually we start trying to prefect those body parts because, we start to believe that those parts are the things that give us worth. How are we supposed to have a strong sense of self-worth when we are told that we are not whole individuals with thoughts, feelings, ideas, and hearts, but legs, butts, and boobs? How can we have self-worth if we see ourselves as just a bit of something? It's like being an amazing cake, but feeling like a crumb. If we see ourselves as separate pieces, and then divide out bodies mentally into sections, we won't be or feel whole. We won't see ourselves as whole people.
You are a WHOLE person. Don't let ANY advertisement, message, or person ever tell you other wise. You are MORE then a stereotypical photoshopped body. Do you want to know why you're more than that? Because you're a whole person. Being whole means seeing yourself entirely. Being whole means knowing that you're not something to look at, but something to be treasured and loved. This week maybe we can stop seeing ourselves as segmented body parts, but as whole, entire, and complete women.
**This post is ALSO a podcast!! Check it out at http://www.spreaker.com/page#!/user/g4gyourebeautiful/dismemberment
Picture taken off Google Images, G4G does NOT take credit for any photos.
Kacey D. Greening,
Capital University: The Objectification and Dismemberment of Women in the Media
Research by Media€tValuesin tern BarbieW hite
from Erving Goffman's Gender Adaertisements,HarperC olophonB ooP(a1 979).
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