A recent research has found that men under the influence of alcohol are more likely to see women as sexual objects. The scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US tried to find out the factors that influence men to objectify women.
For the study, they involved 49 men in their twenties, out of which 29 of them were given two alcoholic drinks to mildly intoxicate them and the rest were given non-alcoholic drinks.
The participants were then shown photographs of 80 undergraduate women, and the participants were asked to rate them according to their appearance and personality.
Before they showed the pictures to the participants, they were rated by an independent panel based on how much warmth, good-naturedness, friendliness, competence, intelligence, confidence, and attractiveness they exuded, MedicalXpress reported.
When the participants were shown the pictures, their gaze was tracked by an eye-tracking technology, noting which part of the women's bodies the participants were looking at.
It was found that they spent most of the time looking at their chests and waists, and less time on their faces. This was particularly true for women who had been rated high in attractiveness, previously.
It happened to a lesser degree when they saw the pictures of the women rated high in warmth and competence, especially when men were slightly drunk.
"The sum of these results supports the notion that being perceived as high in humanising attributes, such as warmth and competence, or being average in attractiveness provides a buffer that protects women from sexual objectification," said Abigail Riemer of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
"Environments in which alcohol is present are ripe with opportunities for objectifying gazes," Riemer added.
She also mentioned that the previously done studies on the link between alcohol and objectification of women by men relied on self-reports from women.
"Adopting objectifying gazes toward women leads perceivers to dehumanise women, potentially laying the foundation for many negative consequences such as sexual violence and workplace gender discrimination," she said.
"Understanding why the objectifying gaze occurs in the first place is an initial step toward stopping its incidence and its damaging effects...This may inform primary prevention programs to reduce the continuum of sexual violence that women disproportionately experience," she said.
