Advisor(s)

Laura Forbes
Mary Ann Bodine Al Sharif

Committee Member(s)

Carol Griggs
Emma Kay
Lisa Sharlach

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

6-1-2026

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

School

School of Education

Department

Education

Abstract

Over the past two decades, women’s subjectivity and sexual experience have been dramatically reshaped by the rise of dating apps, the normalization of hookup culture, the popularization of BDSM, and the dominance of neoliberal postfeminist sexual discourses. In the South, this all unfolds in the lingering residues of purity culture, creating a perfect storm of sexual objectification. This autoethnographic dissertation examines a defining period of my life shaped by the mental health consequences of sexual objectification and self-objectification. During this time, I experienced two brief marriages, many sexual relationships, posed on social media, dating apps, sexted, and performed sexual ‘agency’, all while becoming deeply entangled in these cultural forces. I was fueled by hollow notions of empowerment and social status, yet beneath were significant psychological and spiritual costs. I experienced internalized shame and misogyny, an unstable and shifting sense of identity, a deep psychic disconnection from my body and erotic self, and psychological and emotional struggles of body dysmorphia, depression, anxiety, ongoing safety concerns, and substance abuse. This autoethnography argues that, within a neoliberal postfeminist era, my lived experience reflects broader structures of gendered oppression rather than merely idiosyncrasies, individual choices, or happenstance (Morgan, 1970; de Beauvoir, 1949). Contemporary feminists argue that neoliberal and postfeminist ideologies blur the boundaries between empowerment and conformity and that these ideologies mask objectification under the rhetoric of agency and self-expression (Gill, 2016; McRobbie, 2015; Rottenberg, 2018; Banet-Weiser, 2018). I investigate how migration, race, and class interact with these ideologies to shape my experiences of gender, sexuality, and self-worth. To address these dynamics, I introduce the theoretical framework of the neoliberal postfeminist sexual objectification matrix, grounded in radical feminism, but also thread intersectional, poststructural, sex positive, and liberal feminist theory, as well as feminist media and recovery scholarship. I contend that reclaiming subjectivity requires conscious resistance through feminist theoretical analysis and embodied practices such as art-making, sobriety, therapeutic recovery, and feminist awareness. Grounded in the radical feminist principle that “the personal is political” (Hanisch, 1969), my goal is to contribute to contemporary feminist discourse on sexual objectification describing that private struggles are not just individual failures but manifestations of gendered oppression to which we can, collectively and individually, free ourselves from should we choose.

Keywords

mental health;neoliberalism;postfeminism;sexual objectification;subjectivity

Download

Share

COinS