I have always fully and firmly believed that women have bodily autonomy.
SYKE.
No, we don’t.
I mean we do but the world doesn’t really accept that, does it?
It’s the same thing with feminism. We have always been equal to men not lesser, it’s just that we constantly have to remind the world that we also deserve to be treated with respect. I often find it silly when people sling rebuttals my way, claiming that women have all the rights they could possibly need so feminism is unnecessary. How is that true when the Taliban has stripped women of their rights in Afghanistan? How can that be true when Sudanese women are committing mass suicide to avoid being tortured and sexually assaulted by soldiers? How can that be true when we live in a world where femicide is at an all time high? How can that be true when women fear men more than a violent bear? How can that be true when Zimbabwe only raised its age of consent from 16 to 18 in 2016?
Women do not in fact have the rights that the world seems to think they do have or deserve. I can honestly say that some women in other countries aren’t in situations as dire as the women in Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan and even South-Africa for example. These women’s positions and lack of basic human rights could very well be our reality at any point in time. So, isn’t it only right that it’s a topic we all talk about until our lungs give out? Until policies are pushed and castration is made mandatory for rapists? Nigeria is on the right track in that regard and it’s imperative for the rest of the world to follow suit. I think that’s a brilliant idea.
Bodily autonomy – MSI United States told me to tell my dear readers that bodily autonomy is the right to make choices about your body without violence or coercion. It’s a fundamental human right that’s recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights agreements
Self-objectification – VeryWellHealth told me to my dear readers that self-objectification is a psychological process where someone views themselves as an object to be evaluated and viewed based on their appearance, rather than as a human being. It’s a common topic in sex and gender discussions, and while both men and women can experience it, it’s more common in women.
Self-sexualisation – Sage journals says that self-sexualisation refers to intentionally engaging in activities expressly to appear more sexually appealing.
Hypersexuality– VeryWellHealth featured again and told me to tell my readers that hypersexuality is known as compulsive sexual behaviour or sexual addiction, is a condition where someone has an intense focus on sexual thoughts, urges, or behaviours that they can’t control.
Why we don’t have bodily autonomy:
1. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) – East and West Africa
In countries like Somalia, Sudan, and parts of West Africa, FGM remains a widespread practice, where girls and women are forced to undergo procedures that alter or injure their genitalia without medical reason. Despite being illegal in many places, cultural norms often perpetuate this practice as a rite of passage or a means of ensuring “purity,” severely impacting women’s autonomy and health.
2. Child Marriage – South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa
In regions of South Asia, like Bangladesh and India, and Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Niger and Malawi, child marriage is still prevalent. Millions of girls are married off before they turn 18, stripping them of the choice to make decisions about their education, bodies, and future. Often, economic pressures or cultural norms drive families to marry off daughters early, and these young brides are typically expected to start having children immediately, limiting control over their reproductive health.
4. Honor-Based Violence and “Honor” Killings – Pakistan and Jordan
In parts of Pakistan and some Middle Eastern countries, women who are perceived to have “dishonoured” their families—often simply by choosing their own partner or dressing a certain way—face violence, imprisonment, or even death. The concept of family honour being tied to women’s behaviour robs women of autonomy, as they are pressured to conform to strict social expectations regarding their bodies and lives.
5. Workplace and Reproductive Rights – China and India
In China, reports have emerged about employers pressuring female workers to take birth control to avoid pregnancy, as well as discouraging pregnancy among female employees to ensure productivity. In India, there have been similar practices, where women face job insecurity if they choose to have children, restricting their reproductive choices and forcing them into decisions about their bodies based on economic necessity.
6. Veiling and Dress Codes – Iran and Saudi Arabia
In Iran, women are legally required to wear the hijab in public, with strict enforcement and consequences, including imprisonment for defiance. Although some women choose to wear the hijab as an expression of faith, the laws that make it compulsory remove their right to choose, limiting bodily autonomy by enforcing control over their appearance and clothing.
7. Sex Trafficking and Forced Prostitution – Southeast Asia and West Africa
In regions of Southeast Asia, such as Thailand and Cambodia, and parts of West Africa, such as Nigeria, women and girls are often trafficked or forced into prostitution against their will. Economic vulnerability and lack of legal protections make women and girls susceptible to trafficking, and once caught in these situations, they have little control over their own bodies or freedom to escape.
As usual, I wanted to prattle about a topic that irks my soul. Lol, don’t all these topics irk my soul? There’s no need to answer, I guarantee you that I already know the answer. Women and girls have been sexualised for as long as I can remember. Our bodies have always been just that—bodies. Our femininity and womanhood and especially humanity has been reduced to our bodies and nothing more. Our bodies have always been objects of desire that are ripe for the picking. The scariest part about this whole hypersexual society ordeal is that men don’t discriminate, they pick whatever suits their fancy even if it’s a toddler, a monitor lizard, a pregnant goat, a comatose woman and even a woman’s corpse. Ah yes, even in death women’s bodies don’t even belong to themselves.
Here’s the thing, is self-sexualisation empowering or is society manipulating you into thinking it is? I mean, do you see the majority of men sexualising themselves? I don’t think so!
Body positivity & feminism
The rise of social media made it so that women can fight back the constraints of patriarchal society by taking full autonomy over their bodies. Girls and women have taken to Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat to name a few social media platforms to eradicate slut shaming culture. Girls and women have taken to wearing racy clothes to show the world that their bodies belong to themselves and no one else.
And you know what? HECK YEAH!
I absolutely adore the idea of women having bodily autonomy…BUT…
GAAAASP—
I know, I know you were not expecting a but huh? I often wonder if displaying our bodies like meat on a silver platter and sexualising ourselves is really empowerment or just a farce. Well folks, I have come to the informed conclusion that girls and women are being scammed. Bodily autonomy is not self-objectification or self-oversexualisation nor does it come from any of those things.
In fact, I am of the firm belief that we aid men in their mission to treat us like slabs of meat when we treat ourselves the way they have always seen us—as bodies. I know many people may think that my line of thinking is very antifeminist but I actually beg to differ. I would argue that I was what one would call a liberal feminist not too long ago. I picked this path because I found it more palatable and digestible to my very antifeminist society. I was very adamant on pleasing both my gender and the patriarchy’s “acceptable” renditions of feminism.
However, I would say I recently had a very violent awakening. I realised that my liberal feminist outlook wasn’t necessarily getting me anywhere. Sure, I wanted women to be protected, taken care of and at the same time I didn’t want society to be appalled by me. After all, how can I spearhead systematic change if I’m hated by the powers that be? (men, unfortunately…kidding…am I?) How could I aid my fellow women in effective change if I was sitting on the fence? Anyway, I told my meek liberal feminist mind to take a hike and leapt over the fence, sprinting towards radicalism. I do not regret my decision at all, on the contrary I absolutely love it because I feel like I finally have wings and the tits to call a spade a spade.
My first order of business as a radical feminist who wants to see women thriving and protected is: SEXUALISATION ISN’T POWER, IT ACTUALLY FEEDS THE PATRIARCHY.
In today’s world (mostly in Western societies) women have somewhat reclaimed their bodies. Women have taken to expressing their sexuality. And why not? Society allows men to do the same thing with little to no correction. They are never reprimanded for the obscene way they talk about women. They are never reprimanded for sexualising little girls. Society just lets them talk and talk and say well, it’s just something that men do. Well duh, it’s something they do because we have collectively submitted to that nonsense and let them do it.
My recent realisation is that reclaiming our bodies in a sexual way hasn’t really done much to spearhead our mission to regain our bodily autonomy. Why?
Well…
For starters, I am pretty sure we’re reinforcing objectification!
Patriarchal systems are built on objectifying women and seeing them through a lens of value tied to appearance or sexuality. When someone self-sexualises to gain power, they may feel empowered individually but are still operating within a framework that judges and values them by their body. This doesn’t challenge the system but rather adapts to it. So, question becomes, are we working to dismantle the system if we adapt to it? If we want to achieve bodily autonomy, shouldn’t we be actively trying to DESTROY a system that was created to trample us and see us as nothing but bodies?
The empowerment is conditional at best!
Hear me out, self-sexualisation can offer a sense of control, but this “empowerment” often depends on fitting into specific beauty standards set by society, such as youth, thinness, or whiteness and in our society being a light-skinned woman. This empowerment is fleeting and conditional, as it relies on external validation and does not provide an inherent sense of worth or challenge deeper systemic issues. Am I really empowered if I have to mould my power in a way that is not independent or unique from the precedent set by our society?
Sexualisation doesn’t really challenge power dynamics!
Yes, I said it.
At first self-sexualisation may feel like an assertion of agency, but it doesn’t challenge the underlying power dynamics that define patriarchy (like lack of empowering women through education or the lack of urgency to dismantle harmful patriarchal practises). True empowerment would mean a fundamental change in how women are valued, one that is based on intellect, contribution, and individuality rather than appearance. Speaking to most men, I find myself freaked out by their genuine surprise for my ability to assert myself or communicate well. They are surprised by my love for politics because how is it that I can love the colour pink and look pretty while being concerned about the political and economic state of the world? (I stole that line from Jaden Smith because he was onto something). Just because women like to be feminine doesn’t mean they are incapable of thought and reason. That’s just a weird misconception that makes no sense whatsoever. Being feminine and smart is not mutually exclusive. The two can coexist. I can like Barbie and getting my hair and nails done while screaming about how Africa needs total independence from the West.
My point is that women shouldn’t strive to adapt to a system as it does nothing to change power dynamics. It merely enforces them.
Obscures alternative pathways to power!
By sexualising ourselves we’re basically chucking other pathways of empowerment out of the window. As women our vocation has always been to fight. We have had to fight so that men RECOGNISE our rights (we have always had them we just had to fight for them to be acknowledged). We have had to fight to get an education. We have had to fight our way into office. Our lives have just been filled with fighting. It’s unfortunate but that’s what our lives entail. There are many ways to seek empowerment and assert independence outside of sexualisation—through education, career success, financial independence, creative expression, or activism and if you’re not that type of woman that’s okay you can go down the path of accepting that you are more than a body. Patriarchy is best challenged when diverse narratives of empowerment are celebrated, moving beyond the focus on physical appearance…because guess what? We’re more than our bodies. We’re more than YOUR arm candy!
Capitalisation by patriarchal systems!
The commodification of self-sexualisation can quickly be capitalised on by patriarchal and capitalist systems that profit from presenting women as objects for consumption. Social media, entertainment, and fashion industries often co-opt these acts, turning them into marketable products, which ultimately serves corporate interests rather than individuals or communities.
Don’t you think this sexualisation appeals to the male gaze? Don’t you think self-sexualisation feeds the male gaze?
Don’t you think this sexualisation only serves men and their pleasure?
Don’t you think men want you to think that being sexually promiscuous is liberating because it works in THEIR favour?
I feel like the biggest lie ever told to women was believing that giving away our bodies to virtual strangers was liberating and empowering when it’s actually the opposite. You’re not in control of anything when your body is demanded and paid for. Your body is being treated like a commodity and you’re consenting to that commodification.
The weird thing that society does to sexualise children…
Hypersexuality is NOT empowerment. I am mortified by the fact that young girls find themselves needing to don racy apparel just so they can be acceptable to a society that will ogle them, pleasure themselves at their expense and then denigrate them for sexualising themselves after they are done with consuming their bodies. It’s rare to watch shows on television without witnessing a sex scene unfold between people who are acting as minors on shows or who are actually minors in reality. Everything is increasingly hypersexual and it’s ALARMING!
It has and never will sit right with me that turning 18 is seen as a key that makes self-sexualisation normal or acceptable, like sure someone who is 18 is legally an adult, but that doesn’t mean that they are mentally and emotionally intelligent and aware enough to truly understand and navigate expressing their sexuality in a world where even their own empowerment feeds directly into the male gaze and can be used against them.
“I honestly wish young girls weren’t being tricked into sexualising themselves online under the guise of feminism because that’s not what feminism is AT ALL.”
Another concept that terrifies me is how society assists in the mass sexualisation of young girls. You’ll find 30-year-old adult entertainment industry actresses dressing up as minors and proceeding to do the deed for the world to see. Why does the adult entertainment industry normalise weird titles like barely legal or just turned 18?
Teenage girls, you don’t need to be sexy. You don’t need to have sex appeal. You don’t have to appeal to the male gaze. You’re legally a child and there’s nothing wrong with that.
“I remember when I first heard about sex-positive feminism and women having casual hookups just like men. My friend was trying to sell me on how “liberating” it was, and all I could think was “Yeah, sure, but isn’t that exactly what men want from us? Sex without any expectations or commitment?” I couldn’t help but notice how all of my friends would pine after their “casual hookups” and feel used when the guy didn’t reciprocate their feelings. Then, I saw research suggesting that most women don’t even have an orgasm during casual sexual encounters. That’s when I knew it was all a scam.” – @j.robertson9025
When it’s all said…
Women empowerment should be the knowledge that our worth is not tied to our sexuality. I think that when we internalise that thought process, we can actively start to dismantle this weird society that we unfortunately have no choice but to live in.
My definition of bodily autonomy is reclaiming my body by seeing myself as more than just a body. I am a whole being, I am intelligent, funny, unique and nuanced and so are the rest of the females in this world. My body is just part of my person—NOT who I am.
– The “Weird” Brown Girl.
SOURCES:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-objectification-5441926
This is a thought-provoking masterpiece that highlights a crucial issue. Many ladies and girls inadvertently perpetuate patriarchal society by sexualizing themselves. Your insightful message will undoubtedly inspire women to reevaluate their self perception because by avoiding self sexualization women can challenge harmful gender stereotypes and reclaim their autonomy and agency. Thank you for this enlightening blog🔥