Throwing Like a Girl: Self-Objectification Predicts Adolescent Girls’ Motor Performance

Objectification theory posits that Western culture socializes girls and women to self-objectify by adopting a third-person perspective on their bodies. Feminist philosopher Iris Young (1990) argued that such self-objectification accounts for “throwing like a girl” and other constrained and ineffective motor performances. The authors’ hypothesis was that higher self-objectification among adolescent girls would predict poorer throwing performance. The authors tested 202 girls, ages 10 to 17 (32% Anglo-American, 47% African American, and 20% other ethnic minorities). Each was asked to complete written measures of self-objectification and to throw a softball, three times, as hard as she could. Throwing performance was coded from video records. Results show that self-objectification predicted throwing performance above and beyond differences due to age and prior throwing experience. There were no differences by race. Discussion centers on how self-objectification limits girls’ and women’s physical activity, with implications for emotional well-being, physical health and safety, as well as cognitive functioning.