In her documentary film Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom makes a connection that most of us are familiar with; that the mass objectification of women plays one of the largest roles in facilitating widespread violence against women and girls in our society.

But I’m not sure objectification is a strong enough word for the dangers of how women are seen and portrayed today.

We are a society feverish with the thrill of luxury possessions and we are more aware than ever of the power that comes with expense and ownership. So obsessed are we by the value of our objects that we not only insure our homes and our cars but we dole out cash monthly to protect the condition of our iPhones, jewellery and even body parts – David Beckham has covered his legs for $70 millon, while J-Lo’s bum is insured for $300 million.

I hardly need to say it: objectification is bad. It results in a view of women as devoid of agency, incapable of deep thought or meaningful emotion and, most importantly, as something to be bought, owned and sold. It creates a culture in which women can be stripped of their rights. And it perpetuates a world in which equal humanity is meaningless.

But as our obsession with objects deepens and as we increasingly rely on women’s bodies to buy and sell products, we are in turn becoming more aware of physical value. As objectification accelerates in its unreserved negation of women’s humanity, their corporeality is continually affirmed and celebrated.

While I was watching Miss Representation, one question stuck in my head: if the objectification of and violence against women and girls is a problem that stretches back as far as we can trace, then what can we really learn from our current attitudes towards women and their potential effects on our lives in the future?

In fighting the battle against objectification (a battle both enabled and hindered by 21st century technology), is it possible that feminists have overlooked the emergence of a potentially even more disastrous phenomenon right under their noses?

Objects are solid, they carry a weight, we have to make room for them or work out how to get rid of them; they can be looked after or abused. Objects make up everything. You can’t touch an image. Images flicker on screens in front of our eyes all day, they cover the sides of buildings and buses; they are crammed into newspapers and magazines. What worries me even more than objectification is the (patriarchal) attitude to imagery that I see all around me. Where objects are valued, images are, for the most part, free.

Don’t get me wrong, this in many ways a great thing. But the trouble is, most of us seem to have developed an ability to experience the world as a series of photographs or videos rather than as a complete reality. We can watch violent or gory films like never before and remain relatively unaffected, we don’t connect the woman on screen in her pants and bra with the women we know and love – these 'screen women' have been stripped not only of a human, but also a physical dimension.

Modern technology and secular Western thought has taught us that we can do almost anything we like… as long as it’s in 2D. Between the photo-shoot and the billboard, women are stripped of curves and distorted. Not only do we accept this, but we consistently send out the message that we prefer images of women who are airbrushed and 'perfect' and that we are not bothered by this manipulation and lack of respect. If your threshold for being shocked by 2D images of women being treated violently or raped has lowered – maybe you even allowed yourself to enjoy it because hey, it wasn’t real! – then surely this process can work the other way? You could look at a real woman being abused and see only a 2D image.

Extensive research into these kinds of violence is relatively new and we can never know how today’s numbers compare with the past. But perhaps we should stop viewing two wholly separate issues as one. Differentiating between these subtleties might come in handy if, in addition to the already mind-blowingly prevalent objectification that we know, we soon find that we are dealing with this totally new problem. Or maybe it’s already here?