DIANA · LEIA YANIV

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The 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death has now come and gone. When I think back to the day Diana died, I am reminded of my own youth. I was 20, living in Maidenhead, and had ridden my bike into the city to buy food.  I wandered through the streets, listening to an unusual quiet which had gripped every shop and pub usually noisy with mayhem. I knew something terrible had happened. I wonder whether the media, has learned anything since Diana’s death.

The intense media objectification Diana suffered was so maniacal, that reporters stood over her in the back seat of the car she was in and instead of helping her, took pictures of her dying. Listen to this, take it in. Rather than help Diana, reporters stood and took pictures of Diana dying. A picture of her dying was more important to us than saving her life.

​Objectification of women is dehumanising- it is inhumane and humiliating. We culturally encourage girls to objectify themselves. In doing so we ask women to dehumanise themselves and we normalise it. We ask their humanity ‘die’ in front of the camera because supporting the idea or fantasy of a woman is more important than her human reality.

Women are either so feared we must be objectified and complicit in this control to maintain a low threat level to society or something about us is so desperately needed in this hungry world, that we are obsessively doted on to attain it? But the attainment is distorted, the freedom we are given comes with a price. Next time you see a woman no matter how powerful she is, she will be in her underwear on a poster, on a street somewhere, safely sexualised, stupefied, and objectfied.

​Remember when someone says ‘think of them all naked’ when advising us to control our fears around others?

Don’t we socially prescribe the constant objectification of women as de-humanised and humiliated in the same way?

That will make us feel better.

It doesn’t by the way.

–LY

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Author

Leia Yaniv is a Writer, Researcher, and Academic currently studying her Masters in Gender and International Relations at Bristol University. A background in Dance/Bodywork and Drama fuels her continuing interest in Social Science. An amalgamation of these fields provide the backdrop to her ongoing creative writing and journalism, which reflect her passionate interest in the history of/ and also current notions of Film, Gender and Capitalism. These remain her particular areas of study and expertise. ​