The Female Body As Object

CW: language, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and unwanted sexual attention. Western culture has a terrible history of treating the female body as an object that exists for the pleasure - or displeasure - of everyone except the girl or woman who inhabits it. Her body is a safe place for her to inhabit only so far as it earns her safety and approval from the people and society around her. So splitting her sense of self off from her body makes sense. Her body becomes an object to her, too, and not one she is incentivized to treat as inherently worthwhile or precious.