“That's Just, Par for the Course”: Social Class, Objectification, and Body Image among White Working-Class Women in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Working-class women are disadvantaged by unequal classed and gendered power dynamics, which shape their experiences of objectification and affect their relationship with their bodies. However, existing objectification and body image literature has scarcely examined working-class women's experiences. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, the current research contributes to the literature by examining White working-class women's objectification and appearance-related experiences and sensemaking in the UK. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 White heterosexual cisgender working-class women (aged between 21 and 35 years) living in England. We found that working-class women understood their positions within society as one where they are inevitably subjected to objectification, harassment, and violence (Superordinate Theme 1). Their experiences of being stigmatized also led to feelings of internalized shame (Superordinate Theme 2), which engendered a need for self-protection. As such, working-class women were constantly vigilant over the way they appeared to others (Superordinate Theme 3) to avoid “sticking out” (i.e., being singled out), where becoming “unnoticeable” (Superordinate Theme 4) was a strategy to (visually) fit in. Our findings shed light on White working-class women's objectification experiences that are underrepresented in existing research. These findings suggest that differential power and control, as reflected by social class, facilitates different constructions of meanings within objectification experiences, which shape women's body and appearance.