PETA and the Sexual Objectification Checklist

Posted on by

Identifying sexual objectification in the media is a good skill to learn! Here we’ve applied the sexual objectification checklist to PETA campaigning.

1. Does the image show only part(s) of a sexualized person’s body?

Image of woman's body under a scan. Her bra reads "Be Proud"; her bottom reads: "Of your body scan; go vegan"

Bottom half of a woman in a thong with hair protruding. Reads: Fur trim. Unattractive.

2. Does the image present a sexualized person as a stand-in for an object?

Alyssa Milano dressed in vegetables. Reads: "Let Vegetarianism Grow on You."

Naked woman painted like a globe. Reads: "Fight Climate Change with Diet Change, Go Veg"

3. Does the image show sexualized persons as interchangeable?

Several thin naked women standing close and intertwining. Reads: "Feel beautiful in your own skin."

Group of cheerleaders wearing the same bikini outfit with long hair, tan skin, same thin athletic physique. Reads: "Tackle Cruelty: Bench Fur"

4. Does the image affirm the idea of violating the bodily integrity of a sexualized person who can’t consent?

Image depicts the upper body of a woman butchered and hanging on a meat hook. Reads: “Hooked on meat? Go veg.”

Woman on the ground wrapped in chains, legs spread and exposed, cleavage. Reads: "Shackled, Beaten, Abused."

5. Does the image suggest that sexual availability is the defining characteristic of the person?

Sasha Gray sits naked on a bed shown from behind, looking over her shoulder and cupping her breast

Thin white blonde woman sprawled out on some haystacks with legs spread pulling her dress down over her bosom. Reads: "No one likes an 8 second ride."

6. Does the image show a sexualized person as a commodity that can be bought and sold?

Image shows a white woman reclining on her hand. She is naked and painted with "meat cuts"

Woman laying under plastic wrap like a piece of meat with a bar code.

 

Corey Lee WrennDr. Wrenn is Lecturer of Sociology. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She received her M.S. in Sociology in 2008 and her B.A. in Political Science in 2005, both from Virginia Tech. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute. She has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016).

Receive research updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter.