Throwing Like a Girl

Abstract

Objectification theory posits that Western culture socializes girls and women to self-objectify by adopting a third-person perspective on their bodies. Feminist philosopher Iris Young (1990) argued that such self-objectification accounts for “throwing like a girl” and other constrained and ineffective motor performances. The authors’ hypothesis was that higher self-objectification among adolescent girls would predict poorer throwing performance. The authors tested 202 girls, ages 10 to 17 (32% Anglo-American, 47% African American, and 20% other ethnic minorities). Each was asked to complete written measures of self-objectification and to throw a softball, three times, as hard as she could. Throwing performance was coded from video records. Results show that self-objectification predicted throwing performance above and beyond differences due to age and prior throwing experience. There were no differences by race. Discussion centers on how self-objectification limits girls’ and women’s physical activity, with implications for emotional well-being, physical health and safety, as well as cognitive functioning.

Future directions for positive body image research

“…Moreover, adopting an observer's view on the self, the antithesis of embodiment (Menzel & Levine, 2011) and an obstacle to body appreciation (Augustus-Horvath & Tylka, 2011), is associated with reduced performance on mathematical (Helb, King, & Ling, 2004;Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998), cognitive (Quinn, Kallen, Christie, Twenge, & Fredrickson, 2004) and intelligence tests (Gay & Castano, 2010). Self-objectification is also associated with reduced physical performance Running Head: Future Directions 20 (Fredrickson & Harrison, 2005). The relationship between positive body image and academic achievement and performance is unclear.…”

The Ugly Duckling Effect: Examining Fixed versus Malleable Beliefs about Beauty

“…Similarly, self-objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) asserts such images socialize women to view themselves as a physical object which in turn leads to a greater emphasis on their physical appearance. Work guided by these theoretical perspectives has found that greater attention, effort, and anxiety in regards to one's physical appearance is associated with a number of negative body image outcomes, including impaired physical and mental capabilities (Fredrickson & Harrison, 2005;Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998), body shame (Fredrickson et al, 1998;Tiggemann & Slater, 2001), desire for cosmetic surgery (Markey & Markey, 2009), depression (Tolman, Impett, Tracy, & Michael, 2006), and eating disorder symptomatology (Becker, 2004). Overall, this body of work indicates that the more women focus on their physical appearance and feel they are falling short of the beauty ideal, the more they suffer from maladaptive appearance concerns.…”

How self‐compassion moderates the effect of body surveillance on subjective happiness and depression among women

“…Importantly, the potential benefits of self‐objectification are significantly outweighed by the mental health costs (see Moradi & Huang, , for a review; Szymanski, Moffitt & Carr, ). For example, numerous investigations have demonstrated that self‐objectification is associated with negative psychological consequences including anxiety about physical appearance and physical safety, low peak motivational states or flow, lower perception of internal body sensations, sexual dysfunction, depression, decreased well‐being, and disordered eating behaviors (e.g., Fredrickson & Harrison, ; Fredrickson & Roberts, ; Gervais, Vescio, & Allen, 2011; Miner‐Rubino, Twenge & Fredrickson, ). Additionally, failing to achieve a typically unattainable standard of beauty (e.g., a curvaceous yet thin body) typically results in body shame among women (e.g., McKinley & Hyde, ; Noll & Fredrickson, ).…”