Women: A comparison of sexualization vs. desexualization

         Desexualization is to take away the sexual characteristics of a person surgically such as, their testicles or ovaries or to castrate or "spay". Sexualization is to make or become sexually aware.

            Women have been desexualized a lot in the past and now women are starting to get their sexualization back. In the Middle East many young girl have been desexualized by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This is because of cultural, social, and religious practices. This is mostly a practice, but it has become "law by custom" even though there is no mention of it in the Koran or the Sunnah. I find this very sad and disturbing because they are girls at the age of ten going through FGM. This desexualizes women greatly in that their genitals, that make them female, are taken away and altered. Women have the right to their own body parts and I see this as disrespecting women's privacy and right over their own body.

            Lately, women have been sexualized greatly in more disrespectful ways than respectful. Women have expectations now-a-days to look like modern day "Barbies". Models, most of them, are not exactly all "natural". Most models have had surgical alterations to their bodies just to strive for "perfection", but what IS perfection? Nobody knows anymore. The "model", causes many women to have low self-confidence because they do not look like the "preferred" way that people would like to, or see women as.Another example is, Child Beauty Pageants. Children are now being entered in Beauty Pageants by their parents. They give their daughters the expectations of what the world wants to see, not how they feel they should look like. It gives children low self-confidence and it fogs their reality of life.

             Women have been desexualized and sexualized in many ways and these are just a few examples. So, is desexualization and sexualization wrong or right? How does it help the world? I say it has not helped the world very much, but it has changed it to have silly expectations of people. People show love and be who they are and the way they were born, not surgically change themselves or lie about themselves to the point where they will eventually get lost and disappointed in life with wanting more. Desexualization and sexualization for women have mostly been negative through-out the years.

• Farlex, F.. "The Free Dictionary." The free dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2011. Web. 12 Jan 2012. <http://www.thefreedictionary.com>.
  
• Cacciato, Diane. Women, Sex, and Power. 2011. <cacciato-sj12.blogspot.com>.