Ellie Anderson: "Is Self-Objectification Bad?

Feminist philosophy and social psychology have shown that seeing oneself as an object can be a tool of internalized oppression. At the same time, some feminists have reclaimed 'selfies as self-care', while philosophers over millennia have vaunted the benefits of adopting an objective stance on oneself. Thus, is self-objectification a bad thing in itself? Or does it just sometimes lead to harmful consequences? Using existentialism, feminist phenomenology, and philosophies of personal identity, I argue that self-objectification is not bad: rather, it is a foundational feature in developing a sense of self, even as it can go awry.