Contextualizing Sexual Objectification

The preceding articles provide an excellent overview of relatively recent theory and research on sexual objectification of women from a psychological perspective. Importantly, the authors have contributed to the literature through their conceptual extensions and research applications of objectification theory. In this reaction piece, our goals are to direct attention to an underplayed aspect of objectification theory, offer applause and a caveat about specifying criteria for sexually objectifying environments, critically analyze false parallels and common yes, but challenges to objectification theory, encourage further consideration of sociopolitical dimensions of sexual objectification, and suggest avenues for continued work.