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The social construction of gender works to reinforce masculinity and femininity and create the different sexual objectification of men and women.

The ideology of gender placed within different institutions result in the slut-shaming of women and hyper-sexualization of men. These characteristics attached to being a man or a woman limit how men and women can act, dress and express their sexuality.

For example, girls in school are told not to wear too short of skirts or spaghetti-strap tank tops, whereas men don’t receive those limitations. When speaking with Leigh Gaskin, a professor in gender and women’s studies, she said the way that women and girls are told to dress a certain way, specifically in high school, sets them up to be slut-shamed in a lot of ways.

“It’s a larger system than just a dress code,” she said.

The overarching system of gender roles causes society to label a woman because of how she presents herself through her wardrobe. Although women try to walk the line between being a prude and being a slut, societal expectations limit our ability to express our sexuality freely.

In relation to women suffering from slut-shaming, the ideology of gender enforces men as being hyper-sexualized, insinuating that all they want is sex. Throughout a man’s life, institutions tell them to do certain things to be a “macho man.” This not only limits how individuals see a man who can’t fit into the masculine image, but it allows men to slut-shame women for being objects that they can sexually conquer.

When a woman has multiple partners, she’s labeled a slut, whereas men are seen as players, who have “scored,” so to speak. This is an example of the double standards that women are often subjected to.

Nikki Finnestead, WSU Health and Wellness Services Violence Prevention Coordinator, explained that sexual relations in media, society and other institutions portray sex as a conquest, something that you do to someone, rather than something that happens between two people.

When regarding the double standard for women’s and men’s clothing and their sex lives, I noticed from Finnestead’s comment that sex has become an object or another thing that is no longer intimate. The “conquest of sex” allows for the double standard of men justifying their power with sex, while women walk a thin line of whether they’re having too much sex or not enough sex.

Gender objectification comes down to the cultural message from society of how to discipline different genders. Although gender appropriation may continue, women and men can choose to be free in their sexuality as long as they can handle the social ridicule for wearing something revealing or acting too sexual.

We, as a society, need to reconsider our standards for both genders and understand that our sexual activity should not define how we are perceived by others.