Ten Features of Objectification

OBJECTIFICATION is the seeing and/or treating of someone as an object—especially women.¹ It is “treating as an object what is really not an object, what is, in fact, a human being.”²

In her seminal 1995 essay, philosopher Martha Nussbaum identified seven ways (or features) of treating others as things instead of as humans. Philosopher Rae Langton later added three more features to Nussbaum’s list, bringing the total to ten.

Because objectification is a cluster concept, any one of the ten core features is a sufficient condition, on its own, for the objectification of persons to have occurred; more often, though, a plurality of features is present.

Ten features of objectification

WAYS TO TREAT A PERSON AS A THING

➊ Instrumentality

“The objectifier treats the object as a tool of his or her purposes.”³

➋ Denial of Autonomy

“The objectifier treats the object as lacking in autonomy and self-determination.”⁴

➌ Inertness

“The objectifier treats the object as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity.”⁵

➍ Fungibility

“The objectifier treats the object as interchangeable (a) with other objects of the same type, and/or (b) with objects of other types.”⁶

➎ Violability

“The objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary-integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.”⁷

➏ Ownership

“The objectifier treats the object as something that is owned by another, [or] can be bought or sold, etc.”⁸

➐ Denial of subjectivity

“The objectifier treats the object as something whose experience and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account.”⁹

➑ Reduction to Body

The objectifier treats the object “as identified with its body, or body parts.”¹⁰

➒ Reduction to Appearance

The objectifier treats the object “primarily in terms of how it looks, or how it appears to the senses.”¹¹

➓ Silencing

The objectifier treats the object “as silent, lacking the capacity to speak.”¹²

As scholars Meghan M. Boone and Benjamin J. McMichael note, “Such objectification results in almost certain abuse, sometimes of the most horrifying variety.”¹³

“The objectification of individuals or groups has, historically and cross-culturally, resulted in increased rates of violence and abuse towards those individuals or groups, sometimes of the most horrifying variety. When people are no longer thought of as fully human, they are no longer treated with the respect that such humanity warrants within shared cultural values. This results in an increase in the physical violence they experience.”¹⁴

Scholars have “linked objectification to the capacity to bear children, menstruate, and lactate, suggesting that women’s reproductive functions may serve as a basis for objectification.”¹⁵¹⁶ Concomitantly, fetal personhood ideology, along with essentialist views of gender and biology that center antiquated views of women’s “purpose” as that of childbearing, strip women and pregnant people of their personhood and human attributes. All this increases the risk of gender-based violence.

And because, in the United States, the treatment of women and those asigned female at birth as things—especially when pregnant—is so prevalent, it mostly goes unnoticed, unquestioned, and unchallenged. It’s time for us to change that.

It’s time to make sure objectification gets noticed, gets questioned, and gets challenged. — That’s why rePro-Truth will publishing a series of posts addressing each of the core features of objectification utilizing real-world examples, from anti-choice rhetoric and policies to fetal personhood propaganda materials, to male supremacists court opinions. And, as the saying goes, ‘once you see it, you can't not see it.’

1. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

2. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

3. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

4. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

5. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

6. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

7. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

8. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

9. Nussbaum M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x

10. Langton R. (2009). Autonomy-denial in objectification. In Langton R. (Ed.), Sexual solipsism: Philosophical essays on pornography and objectification (pp. 223–240). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199247066.003.0011

11. Langton R. (2009). Autonomy-denial in objectification. In Langton R. (Ed.), Sexual solipsism: Philosophical essays on pornography and objectification (pp. 223–240). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199247066.003.0011

12. Langton R. (2009). Autonomy-denial in objectification. In Langton R. (Ed.), Sexual solipsism: Philosophical essays on pornography and objectification (pp. 223–240). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199247066.003.0011

13. Meghan M. Boone & Benjamin J. McMichael, Reproductive Objectification, 108 MINN. L. REV. 2493 (2024). Available at: https://doi.org/10.24926/265535.4286

14. Meghan M. Boone & Benjamin J. McMichael, Reproductive Objectification, 108 MINN. L. REV. 2493 (2024). Available at: https://doi.org/10.24926/265535.4286

15. Mo, Q. L., Wang, X., & Cheng, L. (2026). I Do Not Want to Be a Mere Vessel for Reproduction: Perceiving Reproduction-Based Objectification Toward Pregnant Women Results in Reduced Reproductive Intentions Among Young Women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 50(1), 92-110.

16. See: Goldenberg, J. L., & Roberts, T.-A. (2011). The birthmark: An existential account of the objectification of women. In R. M. Calogero, S. Tantleff-Dunn, & J. K. Thompson (Eds.), Self-objectification in women: Causes, consequences, and counteractions (pp. 77–99). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/12304-004