ABSTRACT
Much of feminist theory has been committed to the claim that the sexual objectification of women is harmful, degrading, and oppressive. To be viewed as a sex object is to be regarded as less than a full human person, to be debased and reduced to mere flesh. The male gaze-which is male primarily in its effect, not necessarily in its origin, in that women can also adopt it-defines and constrains women, assesses their beauty, and in doing so dehumanizes them.
