The Calendar That Haunts Me: Objectification and Abuse.
It all begins in Childhood
Disclaimer: Sensitive topics discussed respectfully.
Every new year, a new calendar is hung in the living room of my house.
Now you would be like of course duh! Every year a new calendar has to come up. But this is a story of when I was very young (somewhere around 6-7) No memes please!
We usually hung our traditional calendar at home. But that time, we received a new calendar.
It had something my young mind did not think about much that time.
But now it completely haunts me.
Yes, it had the photos of women.
Women in flowing gowns.
Women with their cleavage exposed.
Women with sensual expressions.
Okay, I do agree that there are many women who agree to do this as per their choice and rights.
The Calendar Girls: Respect the Cause, Hate the System.
The story of Calendar Girls is well-known. It is a real-life incident where eleven women from Yorkshire, England posed nude in calendars to raise money for Blood Cancer patients in UK.
Yes it was voluntary, but my question is what led them to this cause?
Why are women's bodies seen as commodities, as objects that can earn profits?
Upon further research, I found out that the women who were featured in Calendar Girls were middle-aged women.
It was to show that beauty does not go away as women age.
It was to show that beauty is not only confined to the young models.
I respect that perspective.
But my question is:
“Is the beauty of a woman only confined to her body?”
“Why does a women have to strip to prove to the society that she is beautiful?”
“WHO CREATED THESE BEAUTY STANDARDS?!”
See, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against the Calendar Girls, in fact I genuinely respect them for their noble cause.
It is only the act that I am still not able to comprehend—
And the bitter truth is that most do not even bother to see or understand the inner beauty of the women, to celebrate her courage.
They inspect her body.
Get Janhavi Mehta’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
No calendar would be sold in large numbers if a woman posed herself powerfully in formals and full sleeves. Unless our society changes :(
Objectification is so usual we don't even notice it.
Now, this behaviour of normalizing female objectification does not first take place because of society.
No it does not.
It happens at home.
Or more specifically because nobody cared at home.
Ask yourself honestly, where did you learn everything regarding puberty, sex and bodily changes from?
It was either the media or friends. But mostly its deliberate searches. And the information online is not really educational, but more sensual.
So why don't parents teach their kids about something so important?
I had once openly asked my mother that why she had not taught me about good touch and bad touch, the most important part of comprehensive sexuality education.
She got uncomfortable and told me you already learn all this in school.
I was like Wow!
See the problem is not the term, it is how we see and treat the term.
Breaking Barriers: CSE
Comprehensive Sexuality Education, or CSE is not teaching about explicit sexual content, it is something else entirely.
According to World Health Organization:
i)CSE is giving children age-appropriate information about sexuality and reproductive health.
ii)It is about making children understand 'consent', sexual abuse sexually transmitted infections.
iii)It is essentially teaching children about cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality.
All these things are not taught by media when a child makes deliberate searches out of curiosity. These are steps that only parents and teachers can and must take.
According to a data taken from UNICEF, 120 million girls are subjected to sexual abuse. And the data of boys is not evident.
Reason?
The boys never tell anyone.
My personal experience
Even as a girl, I felt really afraid to tell my parents the first time I got touched in a bad way. It was so subtle, quick but he repeated it, twice. I kept telling myself I was just making things up, that I don't have to go becoming that "Strong Girl" all the time.
As a teenager, what I feel is that even though there might be millions of awareness content about good touch and bad touch on the Internet, until and unless a parent does not talk with the child about it, the child will never feel safe.
And yes! This is backed up by research.
Yes, the educational videos may allow them to assert themselves but maybe they won't feel absolutely safe talking to their parents about it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the problem is not only the calendars we hang on walls but the mindset we grow with.
Women’s body- treat as an object, a source of pleasure: Stems from lack of comprehensive sexuality education.
Men remain silent, what we call toxic masculinity, all this stems from stigma and insecurity created in society. Which turns to the roots of lack of comprehensive sexuality education.
