Being somewhat of a feminist, I have often caught myself complaining about the sexual objectification of women that goes on in the media every day. Women’s bodies and how they should be displayed to the world seem to be a main topic for society today. For the last couple of years, there has been an uproar in the West about the “veiling” going on in non-Western regions. Islam has been slammed in every way, shape and form by most Western feminists (and women in general, really) including myself, until recently, when I discovered the new wave of feminism that is taking Western and non-Western societies by storm: Hijab Feminism.
So what on earth is a hijab? A hijab is a veil used by women to cover certain parts of their bodies in public. Hijab Feminists argue that by wearing a veil, women fight sexual objectification and gender oppression. Reading more about the topic truly changed my stance on the veiling issue, but it wasn’t until I stumbled upon a recent study that I realized this entire movement actually had scientific grounds that made the pro-hijab argument stronger.
Last year, the European Journal of Social Psychology published a study on how the brain processes the image of others. The results indicated that, by nature, our brains tend to “objectify” women. Yes, this offers a biological explanation as to why women are noticeably more susceptible to being sexually objectified than men.
Our brain has two ways of processing an image: globally or locally. When we globally process another subject, we identify the subject as a whole; when we locally process a subject, we see it in separate parts.
The survey included more than 200 men and women; each participant was first presented with non-sexualized images of men and women. They were later presented with one of the images they had already seen next to a copy with small modifications to certain body parts. The participants were then asked to identify the original image and recognized the alterations in female bodies with much more ease.
The researchers concluded that the human brain will cognitively identify males globally and females locally. When we see a woman, our brains identify her as a collection of body parts — as a set of breasts or as a slim waist, not as a single unit.
Now how does this wrap around the whole veil idea? Biologically speaking, covering our bodies with an unshapely garment will automatically force others to process our “tempting” feminine figures as a whole, not just as a “nice butt” or a “protuberant set of breasts.” Our brains will be forced to go beyond body parts and rely on other aspects, like personality!
I am certainly not doing justice to the many arguments of Hijab Feminists by presenting you with this study, but let me leave you with this food for thought now, and rest assured — there will be more.
As published in the Aug. 26, 2013 issue of the Pepperdine Graphic.
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Follow Maria Prada on Twitter: @Chuzac
