Feeling Like a Woman: Interoception and the Objectified Body.

Interoception—the sense of the body's internal state—is not a simple matter of detecting biological signals accurately. Instead, it is an active psychological process shaped by physiological signals, context, and social and cultural experiences, such as the chronic evaluation of women's bodies. Self-objectification, the experience of living in a body that is constantly judged, redirects attention toward the body and can alter how internal sensations are perceived and interpreted. This framework explains paradoxes in the literature, including women's lower accuracy at detecting heartbeats yet higher reporting of symptoms, and mismatches between subjective and physiological reports of menopausal hot flashes. The account has implications for women's health, including reproductive health, ACL injury risk, and chronic pain.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Much of the interoception literature assumes that people can accurately detect their heart rate, stomach contractility, muscle tension, and other biological cues. This is not true. Instead, interoception is an active integrative psychological process where the feeling of one's internal state emerges from physiological signals, contextual cues, and the social and cultural experiences of living in a body. Thinking of interoception this way shifts the focus from measuring accuracy at detecting biological signaling to studying lived experience. One such experience is the widespread objectification of women's bodies. Living in a body that is chronically evaluated creates a particular form of self-consciousness. Here, we propose that self-objectification redirects attention toward the body, potentially reshaping both the allocation of attention to internal sensations and their interpretation and thereby offering a theoretical account of paradoxes in the interoception literature, such as women's lower detection accuracy but higher symptom reporting, and mismatches between subjective and physiological reports of menopausal hot flashes. We consider implications for women's health, including reproductive health, ACL injury risk, and chronic pain. Our framework suggests that "feeling like a woman" reflects an interoceptive experience shaped significantly by objectification, with important consequences for well-being.