Female trouble: The menstrual self-evaluation scale and women's self-objectification

TA Roberts - Psychology of Women Quarterly, 2004 - journals.sagepub.com
Psychology of Women Quarterly, 2004journals.sagepub.com
Strong cultural messages are sent to women that their bodies are unacceptable as they are,
thus encouraging engagement in a variety of body-altering practices. It seems that one of the
obligations that women have in a culture that sexually objectifies their bodies is to conceal
their bodies' more physical functions, such as menstruation. A new scale was constructed to
measure women's attitudes and emotions toward menstruation. A study was conducted to
test the relationship between self-objectification and women's menstrual self-evaluations …
Strong cultural messages are sent to women that their bodies are unacceptable as they are, thus encouraging engagement in a variety of body-altering practices. It seems that one of the obligations that women have in a culture that sexually objectifies their bodies is to conceal their bodies' more physical functions, such as menstruation. A new scale was constructed to measure women's attitudes and emotions toward menstruation. A study was conducted to test the relationship between self-objectification and women's menstrual self-evaluations. Results showed that women who internalize a more sexually objectified view of their physical selves have more negative attitudes and emotions, including disgust and shame, toward their own menstrual cycles.
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