Treating women as mere body parts harm them the most

A new study of same and mixed-gender gaze patterns has found that women are viewed more frequently and for longer periods of time - even when their photos were blended in groups of both genders.

"What we found was that women overall were looked at more frequently. They were looked at first, they were looked at last and they were looked at for longer durations. This was the case for both male and female viewers," said Mary Jean Amon, doctoral student in University of Cincinnati's psychology programme.

Amon says the findings reflect objectification theory that suggests that women are frequently evaluated by their physical appearance.

"This often relates to sexualisation or even treating women as mere body parts, and that obviously can hold negative consequences over time," Amon added.

Short-term effects, for example, can involve lower self-esteem and reduced cognitive functioning.

Long-term effects are actually more difficult for women.

"They actually start objectifying and evaluating themselves in terms of their physical appearance," she noted.

For the study, participants were divided into two groups.

The first group involved 100 college-age men and women (50 participants from each gender) who were photographed portrait-style in front of a white background.

The second group was represented by 76 college-age students who were informed that they would be taking part in an investigation of psychological responses to visual stimuli, and that they would view random pictures of people, art, landscapes, animals or cartoons.

The viewing group was then seated in front of a computer monitor to view the photos.

The viewing patterns of the participants were unknowingly being measured by a remote eye-tracking device to record and measure their point of gaze.

Amon will present the research at the pre-conference for the 16th annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Long Beach, California, Feb 26.

The paper appeared in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.