Research On The Relationship Between Female Self-objectification,Sexual Objectification Experience And Sexual Assault Experience

Sexual objectification means the treatment of a human being as a ‘‘thing,'' disregarding his/her personality,autonomy,and sentience.In the context of sexual objectification for a long time,some women will internalize a third perspective to observe their own body.At this time,women regard their body as an object rather than an independent and thoughtful person,which is called self-objectification.Sexual assault means that any sexual act which against the will of another person.A large number of studies shows that sexual assault,as an extreme form of sexual objectification,brings both physical and psychological harm to women.The results show that the experience of sexual objectification leads some women self-objectification,and the individuals with high level of self-objectification are more likely to objectify others.Women who report have more sexual objectification experience also report have more sexual assault experience;Women's self-reports says that more sexual assault experience are associated with higher levels of self-objectification and body shame.If sexual assault is against women's willing,then female have power on their self-objectification to some extent,to explore how women self-objectification level affect experience of female sexual assault experience,and how does sexual objectification influence their relationship,and what other factors may affect the relationship between them,perhaps can reduce female sexual objectification experience and even the possibility of being sexually assaulted.Western research finds that women's sexual objectification experience can directly or indirectly predicts female sexual assault via the intermediary chain of self-objectification – sexual refusal assertiveness.So in the first study,add “sexual refusal assertiveness”(refers to that when women are in a sexual environment,she can express her real thoughts with confidence)factor in the discussion of the three relationship,try to explore the mechanism between three of them under the Chinese culture,the results showed:(1)There was a significant positive correlation between the level of female self-objectification,sexual objectification experience and sexual assault experience,but there was no significant correlation between sexual refusal assertiveness and others.(2)The female sexual objectification experience could significantly positively predict the female sexual assault experience,but the female sexual objectification experience could not predict the female sexual assault experience via the intermediary chain of self-objectification and sexual refusal assertiveness.Although the intermediary chain are not found in the relationship between the three of them,but confirms that under the background of Chinese culture,women's self-objectification level,sexual assault experience,sexual objectification experience has significant positive correlation between each other,and female sexual objectification can significantly predict the female sexual assault experience.However,the internal mechanism of the three still needs to be further explore.Western studies shows that female self-objectification level can significantly predict sexual objectification through the enjoyment of sexualization,"enjoyment of sexualization," as the name suggests-enjoys the sexual attention from the opposite gender.In the second study,the factor "enjoying sexualization" is included in the exploration of the relationship among the three factors.The results showed that:(1)Enjoyment of sexualization has significant positive relationships between three of them;(2)Women's level of self-objectification predicts women's experience of sexual assault through the complete chain of sexual objectification experience-enjoying sexualization.The first and second studies uses quantitative research to explore the relationship between the three,and the third study used qualitative research to supply it,aiming to understand women's sexual objectification experience,sexual assault experience and self-objectification level in detail from the individual level,and try to explore the relationship between the three more.After interviewing 12 women aged 18 or above and compiling the materials,according to the coding results of the interview materials,the understanding of the interviewees on "sexual assault" was mainly from the perspectives of "involuntary/forced" and "verbal or physical contact".The majority of respondents reported experienced sexual assault before,with the highest number of reports of "sexual assault on public transport" and "sexual assault from familiar";when they suffered sexual assault,a small number of interviewees would respond by "staring at him",which was only known by both parties.When talked about their mental activities when they suffered sexual assault,most of the interviewees were not sure whether it was a sexual assault or not,and some of the interviewees felt ashamed.When talked about female sexual objectification,nearly all respondents reported had such experience,when they met such events,part of the respondents showed a completely positive emotions(emotions(such as feel very happy),part of the respondents showed completely negative emotion(such as feel embarrassed),and rest of them said they had two mixed emotions.When talked about the factors which affecting the level of female self-objectification,the respondents believed that self-confidence,environment,vanity and so on would be impact.Talking about the relationships between three of them,some women agreed that "the higher level of self-objectification women have,the more likely they put themselves into the sexual objectification environment,and the more possibility they suffer sexual assault",but some women thought "long-term sexual objectification environment increases the chance of women self-objectification,and this kind of external manifestation of self-objectification makes women have more possibility to suffer sexual assault" makes much more sense,and there was a small number of respondents said that the three of they may not necessarily associatedThis study takes Chinese women as research objects and reveals the internal mechanism of self-objectification,sexual objectification experience and sexual assault experience by combining qualitative and quantitative methods for the first time.According to the findings,women may try to reduce the possibility of sexual objectification or even sexual assault by reducing the level of self-objectification and enjoyment of sexualization.