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This article presents data from a study of Black men and masculinities at a predominantly White university. I argue that the campus racial climate on predominantly White universities are important sites of boundary work where fear and sexualization of Black masculinities are normalized in ways that shape Black men’s social relations on college campuses. In doing so, I will share narrative data of how Black male college students perceive the campus racial climate, with a focus on how they are feared and sexualized in predominantly White spaces. I also analyze the ways in which they managed race, gender, and sexuality within school spaces, and situate their gendered performances within the context of the boundary work of the university. Attention will be given to their agency in how they respond to White fears and sexualization of Black men.

Self-sexualization is an emerging area of research relevant to clothing researchers as evaluations of sexual appeal often stem from specific items and uses of dress. Our research purpose was to systematically review the available research on self-sexualization. In our review we focused specifically on three topics: what precedes self-sexualizing? What outcomes are associated with self-sexualizing? And how has self-sexualization been operationalized? The time frame for this review was 2007–2020. To locate the 31 journal articles that supplied the data for this research, multiple data bases were searched using the following search terms: self-sexualization, self-sexualizing, and sexual self-presentation. Important precursors to self-sexualization include exposure to media and social media, self-objectification, internalization of sexualization, and desiring attention from others. Empowerment has been studied as an outcome of self-sexualization along with negative inferences concerning both young women and girls that self-sexualize. Operationalization of self-sexualization is varied and likely contributes to inconsistent findings.

Postfeminist young women are encouraged to “embrace” their sexuality by sexualizing their bodies as a means of empowerment. In stark contrast, dominant understandings of violence identify these same bodily displays as risk factors, condemning women who enact them as “asking for” victimization. While these competing demands on the female body have been widely documented in popular media, empirical work has not investigated if, and the extent to which, women reproduce these tension-filled constructions of the body in their own lives. Using in-depth interviews with 15 participants of varied race, class and gender identity in the US, this paper explores the ways in which these conflicting discursive constructions of the body are enacted by participants in their everyday lives. While participants took up varied sensibilities of the body and empowerment (including several that emphasized sexiness and sexuality), participants uniformly discussed perceptions of risk that inscribed the female body as vulnerable. This produced tensions in reasoning for some participants (but not all), in ways that were intersectionally inflected by race and gender presentation. More broadly, data suggests that postfeminist (and other) visions of the body that appear to otherwise produce lived experiences of empowerment are deemed invalid in contexts of risk.

Recent research has examined the sexualization–objectification link (i.e. whether sexualized individuals are appraised as if they were objects rather than persons). This research has found that sexualized individuals are more likely to be processed and categorized as if they were objects and are also perceived as possessing fewer humanlike traits than nonsexualized individuals. In addition, sexualization prompts negative behaviors such as social exclusion. Altogether, these findings shed light on mechanisms that might underlie violence toward sexualized individuals., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

We investigated the relationship of self-sexualization to self-objectification, weight concerns, self-efficacy, academic outcomes, and career aspirations among preadolescent girls. Participants were 89 six- to nine-year-old girls; parental reports were also obtained. Two thirds of girls showed signs of self-sexualization by choosing a sexualized doll over a nonsexualized doll as who they preferred to look like and/or who they currently look like. Girls who self-sexualized reported higher self-objectification and weight concerns than girls who did not self-sexualize. Self-sexualization was unrelated to social, emotional, and academic self-efficacy and to girls’ career confidence and interest. However, parents of girls who self-sexualized reported their daughters had lower academic performance and enjoyed school less compared to girls who did not self-sexualize. Additionally, parents of girls who self-sexualized had lower academic expectations for their daughters. It is possible that in preadolescence self-sexualization affects girls’ body cognitions and parental expectations without (yet) affecting self-efficacy or academic goals.

Peer sexual harassment (PSH) occurs frequently and across contexts during adolescence. The current study examined the relations among PSH in school, psychological distress, sexual experimentation, and sexual risk-taking in a sample of African American middle and high school girls. Results indicate that negative body appraisals mediated the relationship between PSH and psychological distress, suggesting that PSH is one way to operationalize interpersonal sexualization and sexual objectification. PSH was directly associated with sexual experimentation, but the association between PSH and sexual experimentation was not mediated by negative body appraisals. Neither PSH nor negative body appraisals were related to sexual risk-taking. This suggests that frequent exposure to high levels of sexualization and sexual objectification, in the form of PSH, is associated with more psychological distress and sexual experimentation, but not with sexual risk-taking, regardless of how girls feel about their bodies.

Youth in Western countries are exposed to many messages that sexualize women. We selectively review the literature on sexualization with the goal of clarifying and integrating theories, constructs, and models of the pathways and mechanisms via which exposure to such messages may affect youth. In the first section of the article, we define sexualization and discuss historical change concerning the construct. In the second section, we highlight the role that core values concerning sexuality and gender play in designing and interpreting research on sexualization. In the third section, we provide a conceptual analysis of the various psychological constructs related to sexualization, noting their roots in particular theories. In the fourth section, we discuss developmental issues and, in fifth and sixth sections, we present conceptual models of the antecedents and consequences of believing that sexual attractiveness to men is an important aspect of the female gender role among girls and boys, respectively.

An emerging literature suggests that females are more likely than males to take and post selfies and that such selfies tend to both conform to and legitimize the sexualization of femininity. It has been found that key predictors of selfie behaviors are narcissistic personality traits and that taking a higher number of selfies may, in turn, put young people at risk of engaging in negative social interactions online. No studies to date have investigated the mediating effects of selfies and, moreover, selfies that are taken with the intention of to appear physically attractive (i.e., sexualized selfies), on the relationship between narcissism and cyber behaviors. The following study examined selfie taking among a group of 262 adolescent girls (aged 13–16). Results of a path model found a serial mediation effect, indicating that exploitativeness was associated with increased selfie taking, which increased sexualized selfie taking and in turn increased cyber aggression and victimization. In contrast, contingent self-esteem was associated with taking sexualized selfies (with indirect positive effects on cyber behaviors). Results of this model also show that the effect of taking selfies on cyber behaviors is fully mediated by taking sexualized selfies. These findings are discussed in relation to the characteristics of the online environment and the risks of young women’s sexualized online self-presentations.

Sexualized gender stereotypes (SGS) include the belief that girls should singularly prioritize their sexualized attractiveness for the attention and approval of boys. By elementary school, boys and girls perceive girls’ sexualized attractiveness to be incompatible with intelligence and competence. In the current 2-year study, we examined whether girls’ higher SGS endorsement in seventh grade predicted a diminished mastery goal orientation and lower perceptions of academic ability in eighth grade and whether this was moderated by gender typicality and self-monitoring. Cross-lagged panel analyses tested whether earlier academic attitudes better predicted later SGS endorsement than the inverse. The study included 77 girls in the final sample from four public middle schools ( MageT1 = 12.4, SD = .57). The sample was ethnically diverse (45% identified as White, 21% as Latinx, 19% as Black/African American, and 14% as multiracial). Girls’ greater endorsement of SGS in the seventh grade predicted lower academic self-efficacy later, controlling for age, academic ability, and earlier levels of academic attitudes. Highlighting a likely feedback loop, earlier academic self-efficacy equally predicted later SGS endorsement. For highly gender-typical girls, greater SGS endorsement also predicted lower mastery goal orientation over time.

In this paper, we draw upon group interviews in London and New York City to explore how differently classed and racialized groups of teen girls navigate media constructions of hot, sexy, femininity. We explore how cultural ideals of sexiness are shifting to include more skin shades and larger body parts in specific proportions which align to new sexualized and racialized ideals of femininity. Some celebrities embody these new forms of what is termed racial mobility, but these ambiguous mixtures still relate to a standard that references normative white, middle-class femininity. All girls found navigating the contradictory and impossible ideals of sexy femininity challenging, but white girls had internalized the norms and technologies of “perfectibility” the most, and believed that achieving sexy femininity would bring them confidence. In contrast, racially marginalized girls were much more critical of normative ideals of sexiness. Black girls had a heightened awareness of how their bodies were consistently read as either not sexy enough or hypersexualized and they discussed the dangers this posed to them in both their school communities and in other public spaces. Overall, our findings demonstrate how diverse girls must undertake very different forms of work to navigate and manage expectations around racialized and classed sexiness.

Using an experimental methodology, the present study assessed college students’ perceptions of a male peer who presented himself on Facebook in either an objectified or nonobjectified manner. One hundred eighty-nine college students ( n = 111 women, n = 78 men) viewed a Facebook profile with either an objectified or a nonobjectified profile photo of the same young man and then evaluated the profile owner. They also reported on the desirability of dating the profile owner. Results indicated that the objectified profile owner was considered less competent but not less socially appealing or physically attractive. Participants liked the nonobjectified profile and profile photo better than the objectified profile and profile photo. There was also more interest in a committed dating relationship with the nonobjectified profile owner than the objectified profile owner. Findings suggest that using an objectified profile photo on Facebook may come with some costs for young men.

Using male and female gaze theories as frameworks, this article analyzes the visual design and composition of four distinct breastfeeding (BF) photographs posted by Alyssa Milano to her Instagram in order to better understand the public’s mixed responses of support and criticism. I argue that Milano borrows visual elements from the male gaze and combines them with feminine content in an attempt to (1) challenge the dominant, patriarchal norm of deriving pleasure from viewing sexualized women and (2) instead encourage an understanding of the maternal woman as visually pleasing. In turn, Milano’s message supports the normalization of public BF. Milano’s position as firmly entrenched in the male-dominated world of television and film is key: it enables her to speak and promote change from within the system, for external oppositions often remain on the outside, as counterpoint. Using Instagram promotes this as well. Rather than dilute their power, intermingling BF images with those representing the dominant culture may prove more successful for its gradual progression to normalization. The end goal, of course, is to encourage not just acceptance but a sense of pleasure in seeing feminine representations of women, including those focused on aspects of motherhood, like BF.

In this short article we will aim to do three things. First, we want to use this opportunity to reflect on some of the changes we have seen in the scholarly field of gender, sexuality, and intimacy over this period, and on new emerging directions. Second, we want to discuss the move away from discussions of ‘sexualization’ to a more critical and political register interested in a variety of ways in which sex and power intersect. Thirdly, we will discuss MeToo as an example of this shifted form of engagement, and raise some questions about its possibilities and limitations.

The overt objectification and dehumanization of Black people has a long history throughout the Western world. However, few researchers have explored whether such perceptions still persist implicitly and whether Black women are sexually objectified at an interpersonal level. We sought to address this gap by exploring whether Black women are sexually objectified to a greater extent than White women and whether target sexualization exacerbates this effect. In Study 1, using eye-tracking technology (N = 38), we provide evidence that individuals attend more often, and for longer durations, to the sexual body parts of Black women compared to White women, particularly when presented in a sexualized manner. In Studies 2a (N = 120) and 2b (N = 131), we demonstrated that Black women are implicitly associated with both animals and objects to a greater degree than White women with a Go/No-Go Association Task. We discuss the implications of such dehumanizing treatment of Black people and Black women in U.S. society. We hope that this evidence will increase awareness that objectification can happen outside the realm of conscious thought and that related interventions ought to include an ethnicity-specific component. Additional online materials for this article, including online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching, are available on PWQ's website at [http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index] http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index

Recent research found that sexualized bodies are visually processed similarly to objects. This article examines the effects of skin-to-clothing ratio and posture suggestiveness on cognitive objectification. Participants were presented images of upright versus inverted bodies while we recorded the N170. We used the N170 amplitude inversion effect (larger N170 amplitudes for inverted vs. upright stimuli) to assess cognitive objectification, with no N170 inversion effect indicating less configural processing and more cognitive objectification. Contrary to Hypothesis 1, skin-to-clothing ratio was not associated with cognitive objectification (Experiments 1-3). However, consistent with Hypothesis 2, we found that posture suggestiveness was the key driver of cognitive objectification (Experiment 2), even after controlling for body asymmetry (Experiment 3). This article showed that high (vs. low) posture suggestiveness caused cognitive objectification (regardless of body asymmetry), whereas high (vs. low) skin-to-clothing ratio did not. The implications for objectification and body perception literatures are discussed., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Sexualized gender stereotypes (SGS) are commonly endorsed by adolescent girls. These stereotypes include the notion that girls can enhance their social status by prioritizing their sexualized attractiveness, which necessitates downplaying other traits such as intelligence. According to the stereotype emulation hypothesis, a girl will be more likely to “emulate” SGS if she also identifies as a typical girl. Based on this hypothesis, the current study examined the relationship between girls’ SGS endorsement and their academic motivations, beliefs, and motivations—and whether this relationship was moderated by gender typicality. Girls ( N = 99), aged 11 years to 14 years ( Meanage = 12.4 years, SD = .57 years), completed a survey assessing their academic outcomes, SGS endorsement, and gender typicality. As hypothesized, results indicated that higher endorsement of SGS was generally associated with maladaptive academic outcomes, and this association was the strongest for highly gender-typical girls. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.

Women are objectified through overt sexualization and through a focus on physical appearance, but empirical research has not yet made this distinction. In three studies, we found evidence consistent with the hypothesis that although both forms of objectification strip women of their humanness, there are unique dehumanizing signatures associated with each. When women were objectified by a focus on their sexual features or functions ( sexual objectification), they were perceived as lacking uniquely human attributes (i.e., animalistic dehumanization). Conversely, when women were objectified by an emphasis on their beauty or physical appearance ( appearance-focused objectification), they were perceived as lacking human nature (i.e., mechanistic dehumanization). In Study 3, we also examined an outcome associated with women’s risk of harm and found that mechanistic dehumanization, in response to appearance-focused objectification, uniquely promoted the perception that a woman was less capable of feeling pain. Implications for objectification research are discussed.

Women in the sex trade have experienced victim blame from first responders and victimization from buyers and traffickers. Women’s ability to exit the sex trade may be negatively affected by bias from prostitution myth adherence that has normalized sexual exploitation and violence against women. Few studies have examined beliefs and behaviors that predict these problematic attitudes. In the current study, we assessed predictors of prostitution myth endorsement in a sample of 355 college students (196 women, 159 men). Gender, increased sexist attitudes toward women, frequency of pornography consumption, and self-control deficits significantly predicted prostitution myth adherence. Interactions between gender and study variables were not significant, demonstrating that gender did not moderate the relations between sexist attitudes toward women, lifetime sexual victimization, self-control deficits, and frequency of pornography consumption on prostitution myth endorsement. We discuss practice implications and future research directions with particular focus on the need to challenge and transform the current sociopolitical culture related to gender equity and healthy sexuality through advocacy and education.

Objectification theorists argue that repeated exposure to sexually objectifying media content leads to higher levels of self-objectification. Although consequences of self-objectification for women...

Sexual attraction and desire in the field have long been taboo subjects, where the researcher is expected to remain an objective observer, devoid of sexuality. Recently, scholars have advocated for the acknowledgment of sexual attraction and desire in the field as a way to think reflexively about the research process and subsequent impacts, known in anthropology as “erotic subjectivity.” This article reflects on the ethical dilemma of the female feminist researcher doing ethnographic fieldwork in such a space where sexual performativity and active desiring is demanded of them by the research subjects themselves. Based on an ethnographic account of professional men’s strip-tease show, this article details the dilemmas concerning the need to remain objective and distanced from such acts as a researcher, the feminist discomfiture in the blatant objectification and sexualization, both physically and visually of men, and the expectation to publicly perform sexuality by peers and research subjects alike.

The present study examines the “adultification” of girls and “youthification” of women in popular magazines, in which girls are “dressed up” to look like women, and women are “dressed down” to look like girls. The analysis includes a total of 540 advertising and editorial images from women’s, men’s, and teen girls’ U.S. magazines. Results show that adultification is more prevalent than youthification, that youthification is equally prevalent in men’s and women’s magazines, that girls who are adultified are more likely to be provocatively dressed and exhibit sexy facial expressions, and that advertising and editorial images are equally likely to feature adultification and youthification.

At an early stage of visual processing, human faces and bodies are typically associated with larger N170s when presented in an inverted (vs. upright) position, indexing the involvement of configural processing. We challenged this view and hypothesized that sexualized bodies would not be sensitive to inversion, thereby suggesting that they would be processed similarly to objects. Participants saw sexualized male and female bodies, nonsexualized male and female bodies, as well as objects in both upright and inverted positions while we recorded the N170. Results indicated that inverted (vs. upright) nonsexualized male and female bodies were associated with larger N170 amplitudes. In contrast, no N170 amplitude inversion effect emerged for sexualized male and female bodies or objects. These results suggest that sexualized bodies are processed similarly to objects and quite differently than nonsexualized bodies. We discuss the results and their implications in the light of the literatures in person perception and objectification.

‘Successful ageing’ has been a controversial concept in cultural gerontology, prompting critiques of its inherent individualism, neglect of structural inequalities and promotion of neoliberal strategies of self-care. This article aims at developing the critique of its heteronormative underpinnings. Drawing on cultural gerontology, feminist theory and queer theory, a critique of the rhetoric and visual representation of ‘successful ageing’ is developed that demonstrates the extent to which ‘success’ is equated with enactments of normative, gendered heterosexuality. The intent is not to simply map the exclusion or marginalization of queer representations but to make visible the ways in which assumptions of heterosexuality organize the visual field of ‘successful ageing’. Using examples from ‘lifestyle’ magazines and health promotion materials aimed at mid-to-later life adults, I demonstrate how the promise of ‘heterohappiness’ shapes visions of anticipatory ageing. This article forms part of ‘Media and the Ageing Body’ Special Issue.

I look at several depictions of birth in popular culture that seem to be breaking ‘Hollywood’s last taboo’ against showing graphic representations of the birthing body. I offer four illustrations of this relatively recent departure from conventional birth imagery and discuss (1) the 2006 sculpture of Britney Spears birthing on a bearskin rug, (2) the crowning scene in the 2007 movie Knocked Up, (3) a 2012 birth scene depicted in the HBO show Game of Thrones, and (4) a birth montage from an episode of the Netflix show Sense8, to suggest that representations of birth no longer solely depict asexual bodies. I consider the consequences that these sexualized representations of the birthing body might have for women’s embodied experience of birth and evaluate this sexy birth imagery in light of a cultural shift towards an increasingly (hetero)sexualized femininity. In particular, I am interested to explore how normative (hetero)sexualized femininity may align with the growing medical management of childbirth and the uptick in surgical delivery. I investigate whether graphic depictions of birth leave us with increased sexual objectification or the possibility for a new sexual subjecthood. I close by offering a queer reading of the birth depictions in the Netflix drama Sense8 and consider how its non-normative depictions of women’s laboring bodies may unsettle the powerful norms that constitute (hetero)sexualized femininity and refigure women’s experiences of childbirth.

We explore ‘sexualisation’ from a new materialist position, as an assemblage of bodies, things, ideas and social institutions. Interview data on 22 young people’s sexual activities reflect a range of relations and ‘affects’ contributing to the sexualisation of young people, including peers, social events, alcohol, media, popular culture and pornography. While a ‘sexualisation-assemblage’ may produce any and all capacities in bodies, it is typically blocked and restricted into narrow and circumscribed capacities. Limited and unimaginative practices portrayed in sexualised media and pornography narrow definitions of sexuality, and may reproduce and reinforce misogyny, sexual objectification and circumscribed sexualities. We argue for sexualities education for both children and adults that can ‘re-sexualise’ all our bodies.

Public discourses and culturalist research often present patriarchal social control as the key element of minority youth’s family relations. They focus on conflicts related to young women’s sexual reputation when discussing Muslims and nonwestern minorities. Social control is often connected to honor-related violence and applied to assumptions of how young women are oppressed by their family members. In this article, we problematize such a connection and approach social control as a broad phenomenon that shapes social life and is exercised by several actors. The article elaborates a perspective of differences on social control, building on feminist theories of intersectionality, and distinguishing between different dimensions of social control (formal/informal, public/private). This theoretical framework is then applied to the empirical analysis of different elements of social control related to young women’s clothing and bodies. It is argued that the framework enables examination of the multifaceted dyna...

© The Author(s) 2019. Although everyday exposure to mainstream media is theorized to be associated with women’s self-objectification, empirical tests of this association have yielded mixed results. There are several possible explanations for these mixed results. For example, it may be that mainstream media relate to women’s broader tendency to self-sexualize rather than to self-objectify, that newer forms of media (i.e., social media) should be incorporated into these models, or that these associations may operate indirectly. Accordingly, the current study examines how traditional media and Facebook investment are associated with women’s tendency to self-sexualize and tests whether these associations are mediated by the view of women as sexual objects, internalization of the thin ideal, and perceived pressure to conform to this ideal. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that magazine and Facebook investment predicted only internalization of the thin ideal, whereas reality television and sitcom exposure predicted all three mediators. Media use was indirectly related to self-sexualization through internalization of the thin ideal and the view of women as sexual objects. These results support the value of incorporating broader definitions of self-sexualization, diverse forms of media, and potential mediators into future models. ispartof: SAGE Open vol:april issue:2 pages:1-14 status: published

Objectification and sexualization of women starts at a young age and carries with it negative consequences for a woman’s self-worth. A person’s self-worth is one component on the Wheel of Wellness, but it can affect many other aspects of an individual. The lack of self-worth that a woman may experience can affect her ability to enjoy her sexual experiences with her partner and inhibit her from reaching a state of connecting with her spirituality, especially during sexual encounters. The lack of enjoyment for a woman can then affect the partner’s enjoyment and, in turn, can affect the enjoyment of the relationship. This article discusses incorporating Adlerian and feminist theoretical perspectives into the practice of couples counseling in order to address relational issues related to a process of self-objectification.

This article draws on a memory-work project on the childhood experiences and memories of pornography in Finland to argue that the autobiographical younger self used in these reminiscences is a creature distinct from the cultural figure of a child at risk, and that the forms of learning connected to pornography are more diverse and complex than those limited to sexual acts alone. The notion of an asexual child susceptible to media effects remains detached from people’s accounts of their childhood activities, experiences and competences. By analyzing these, it is possible to critically reexamine the hyperbolic concerns over the pornification and sexualization of culture.

Although the objectification of women is pervasive, it has not been studied extensively in the context of romantic relationships. This is a curious oversight, given that physical appearance is considered a prominent factor in romantic attraction and conceptualizations of objectification tend to involve an exaggerated emphasis on physical appearance. Thus, objectification theory may have interesting implications for romantic relationships. Women who enjoy sexualization may be more likely to have a partner who objectifies them, which could have negative implications for the relationship, as objectification research has generally found that the experience of objectification has negative consequences for women. Across three studies of heterosexual women in relationships ( N = 114, N = 196, and N = 208), results showed that those who enjoyed sexualization tended to feel more objectified by their partner, which in turn related to lowered relationship satisfaction. These findings persisted even when controlling for perceptions of partner’s sexual desire, self-objectification, and objectification from strangers. Furthermore, Study 3 provides preliminary evidence that self-objectification may be a precursor to this mediation in that self-objectification was associated with higher enjoyment of sexualization, which was associated with higher partner-objectification, which in turn was associated with lower relationship satisfaction. This research sheds light on how the objectification of women operates within the context of a heterosexual romantic relationship.

Extending the American Psychological Association (APA) report on the Sexualization of Girls, this study investigated how young women identified sources of coerced sex. Findings from three focus groups with 25 Black and White adolescent women uncovered a perceived overarching force that “pushed” them to have sex before they felt ready. Participants identified four domains of coerced sex: (a) Sociocultural Context, (b) Internalized Sexual Scripts, (c) Partner Manipulation of Sexual Scripts, and (d) Developmental Status. Coerced sex was a complex system consisting of cultural, peer, and internal messages that create pressures to engage in sexual activities. Future implications for research and practice are presented.

The US girl cartoon genre began in the 1980s with the Federal Communication Commission’s deregulation of television, allowing the programming of toy-based cartoons. The toy industry’s gender binary of girl toys vs boy toys was translated into the definitive split of girl cartoons and boy cartoons. This first wave of girl cartoons defined the gender normative parameters that would identifiably label a cartoon program as a girl cartoon: rainbow unicorns and star sparkles in friendship communities with motivational girl leaders that displayed confidence, determination and savvy while processing emotions and solving conflicts through communication. These characters were young girls, not teenagers or young adults with developed bodies. It is rarely addressed that these cartoon characters presented an empowered girl media product in popular culture a decade before the nomenclature ‘Girl Power’, and did so sans sexualization. In this article, the author discusses the second wave of girl cartoons that came about with US television’s cartoon renaissance in the 1990s. This research explores the ways that lead girl characters were newly portrayed and how they evolved from the girl cartoon representations in the first wave era. Along with the representation of empowered girl characters, this research identified a feminine triptych. In character settings with more than one girl lead, the feminine portrayals were represented in the triptych of the beauty, the brains and the brawns. This research also revealed a persistent glitch to the empowerment of girl cartoon protagonists in the form of secondary characters, identified as mean girls and misogyny boys or no-homo boys. Another shortcoming is identified as boobs and boyfriends, to demonstrate the compulsion to give characters above the age of 12 sexualized bodies and heteronormative relationships. Several cartoon episodes of The Powerpuff Girls, Maggie and the Ferocious Beast, Dora the Explorer, Ni Hao- Kai Lan, Franny’s Feet, Lilo and Stitch: The Series, Maya & Miguel, Word Girl and Mighty B! are textually analyzed to document both verbal and visual gender cues.

In two studies, we examined the impact of sexualization of prepubescent girls on college students’ perceptions of girls’ mental capacity and moral standing. Previous research has shown that women depicted in sexualized and other body-focused ways are perceived as lacking mental capacities and moral standing; these perceptions reduce concern about them when they are victimized. However, no other research to date has examined whether the same effects hold for young girls. Study 1 demonstrated that college students attributed lower mental capacity and lower moral status to girls dressed in revealing attire in the same way, and to the same degree, as they viewed sexually mature women. In Study 2, we replicated this finding and found that objectifying perceptions are associated with less sympathetic responses to girls in a bullying scenario. Participants showed less care that sexually objectified girls had been harmed, less favorable attitudes towards helping them, and a greater belief that the girls were responsible for being victimized. Taken together, these findings suggest that the potentially damaging manifestations and consequences of objectification are manifest before girls reach womanhood. We suggest recommendations for reducing the sexualization of young girls. Additional online materials for this article are available to PWQ subscribers on PWQ’ s website at http://pwq.sagepub.com/supplemental

In recent years the ‘sexualization’ of pre-teen and younger girls has been a dominating presence in the media and popular press. Female celebrities’ hypersexual performances and styling, in particular, have been significantly implicated in claims about girls being launched into premature sexuality under the influence of their idols. Yet, despite the claims, relatively little is known about how pre-teen girls make sense of ‘sexualized’ media in relation to self and others. This paper contributes to an emergent feminist literature that aims to expand our knowledge about pre-teen girls’ understandings and negotiations of sexually saturated popular culture. Drawing on material from a project in which 71 pre-teen girls recorded media video diaries about their everyday engagement with popular culture, the paper examines girls’ negotiation of female pop celebrity performances of hypersexual subjectivities. Our discursive analyses highlight girls’ negotiations of hypersexual celebrity as necessarily complicated and contradictory, reflecting their location in intersecting discourses of age, sexuality, and femininity.

This article reports on research funded by the National Union of Students, which explored women students’ experiences of ‘lad culture’ through focus groups and interviews. We found that although laddism is only one of various potential masculinities, for our participants it dominated the social and sexual spheres of university life in problematic ways. However, their objections to laddish behaviours did not support contemporary models of ‘sexual panic’, even while oppugning the more simplistic celebrations of young women’s empowerment which have been observed in debates about sexualization. We argue that in their ability to reject ‘lad culture’, our respondents expressed a form of agency which is often invisibilized in sexualization discussions and which could be harnessed to tackle some of the issues we uncovered.

This article focuses on a ‘new generation’ of female politicians in Central and Eastern Europe who have emerged in the post-socialist context. These women are found in various countries and their political affiliations and agendas are diverse. However, they share a peculiar penchant for using the mass media to offer provocatively packaged public displays of their bodies in ways that relate to their political careers. These strategies of mediated self-exposure include posing for erotic magazines or using sexualized messages in various other video and print formats. In addition to drawing attention at home and abroad, these sensationalized and sexualized displays of female politicians’ bodies highlight the changing tastes and manners of post-socialist political culture. This article examines emblematic examples of female politicians’ mediated self-exposure and uses them to raise critical questions about the gendered nature of post-socialist political culture as it intersects with commercial media culture.

Sexually objectifying messages about girls and women are common in U.S. popular culture. As a consequence of exposure to such messages, girls may develop “internalized sexualization,” or internalization of the belief that sexual attractiveness to males is an important aspect of their identity. We hypothesized that internalized sexualization is associated with behavioral and psychological consequences, including sexualized clothing use, body surveillance, and body shame. In two studies of early adolescent girls (total N = 330, age range = 10-15), we found that girls with higher levels of internalized sexualization wear more sexualized clothing (Study 1) and show higher levels of body surveillance and body shame (Study 2) than girls with lower levels of internalized sexualization.

Scholars have long argued that women are denied a basic sense of humanness—are objectified—when focus is directed toward their physical rather than mental qualities. Early research on objectification focused on women’s self-objectification and measured objectification indirectly (as an emphasis on physical appearance). Recent research, however, has provided direct evidence that a focus on the physical aspects of women by others causes women to be perceived like, and act like, objects lacking mind. Manifestations of this literal objectification include attributing women less of the traits that distinguish people from objects and visual-recognition and neural responses consistent with nonhuman-object perception. Women themselves also behave more like objects (by, e.g., speaking less) when they are aware of this focus by others. Real-world implications and ways to defuse literal objectification are discussed.

Advertising, Sex, and Post-socialism: Women, Media, and Femininity in the Balkans. Elza Ibroscheva. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2013. 174 pp. $65.00 hbk.If you saw an advertisement of a woman stripping from her professional, business attire down to her bare chest, what would you predict was the purpose of the advertisement? To sell lingerie? Perhaps to promote a pay-per-view film? But what if the woman was a politician trying to secure your vote? For the Bulgarian audience, this is not difficult to imagine because this was a reality detailed by Elza Ibroscheva in Advertising, Sex, and Post-socialism.Ibroscheva is an associate professor and the director of graduate studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and she has published several articles on the por- trayal of women in the Bulgarian media. In her book, Ibroscheva examines the devel- opment of advertising and subsequent mass consumption in the Balkan region, with special attention paid to Bulgaria, and the effect advertising has had on cultural per- ceptions of sex and gender. She argues that media advertising is a powerful cultural dictator that effectively shapes gender identities and reinforces gender hierarchies, which, in the Balkan region, allows for the sexualization and commodification of women. Her case is detailed in five chapters: "Sex? Please We Are Socialist"; "Advertising and the Socialist Economy"; "Liberating Women"; "Of Vodka, Watermelons, and Other Sexy Fruit"; and "Sex and Politics.""Sex? Please We Are Socialist" provides the reader with a comprehensive under- standing of socialist life during the Soviet era and how the media's function was to promote socialist ideals. Ibroscheva educates the reader on gender roles during the socialist regime by effortlessly weaving together concrete examples from the Balkan magazines Zhenata Dnes, Lada, and Bhozur. She describes how the party claimed gender equality, while forcing women into two archetypes: worker and mother. Because of this, women were portrayed in the media through this party-driven socialist context only and physically represented with a practical, functional appearance. Thus femininity, fashion, and sexuality were widely absent in socialist media.In "Advertising and the Socialist Economy," Ibroscheva reveals how advertising functioned in socialist society by analyzing three different major newspapers pub- lished over four decades. Essentially, socialist advertising existed as a means of culti- vating culture and driving practical consumption. Socialist ideologues recognized the need for consumption, but only promoted the consumption of necessities (in contrast to developing desire). To make clear this distinction, Western advertising was demon- ized in these newspapers because its sole goal was to improve sales for companies, drive competition, and promote excessive consumption.These earlier chapters may be considered the foundation for the argument Ibroscheva presents in "Liberating Women." The marketing of femininity during the Balkans' transitional period from socialism to post-socialism (late 1970s to early 1990s) effectively shaped women's "social, economic, and political positioning" in society, which is still in effect today. This chapter examines multiple publications from the Balkan region, focusing on the media's depiction of gender and the growth of a budding capitalist market. During the transitional period, the public became increasingly aware of the variety of consumer choices their Western counterparts enjoyed and, as an act of rebellion, began to mass consume themselves through black markets. With women, this rebellion manifested itself as the process of consuming to enhance femininity, a stark contrast to functional consuming habits of previous gen- erations of women. The media adjusted to these changes by also featuring more feminine women in their articles and discussing the topics of beauty and fashion. This trend was seen as progressive as it gave women agency over their sexuality; however, the media's prolific promotion of femininity enforced the significance of physical beauty, essentially subscribing to traditional patriarchal conventions. …

The current study used crime scene analysis (CSA) to identify the psychological characteristics of child molesters and examined the contribution of these behavioral themes for sexual offender risk assessment. CSA was conducted on a sample of 424 cases of child sexual abuse in Berlin (Germany) using non-metric Multi-Dimensional Scaling. The analysis revealed the behavioral themes of fixation, regression (sexualization), criminality, and (sexualized) aggression, consistent with previous theories and empirical research in child molestation. The construct validity of the four themes was demonstrated through correlational analyses with known sexual offending measures, ratings of offender motivation, and criminal histories. The themes of fixation and (sexualized) aggression were significant predictors of sexual recidivism and added incrementally to the Static-99 for the prediction of sexual recidivism. The results indicate that crime scene information can inform the assessment of child molesters’ risk-relevant propensities and improve the prediction of sexual recidivism.

Self-sexualization refers to intentionally engaging in activities expressly to appear more sexually appealing. The purpose of our studies was to examine gender similarities and differences in how women and men conceptualize self-sexualization as well as introduce measures appropriate for large-scale data collection. In a qualitative study, we first established the existence of self-sexualization among women, although we were unable to document a similar construct among men. The Self-Sexualization Behavior Questionnaire for Women (SSBQ–W), developed over the course of three studies using samples from two small liberal arts colleges, demonstrated adequate internal consistency, stability, and construct validity. Discriminant validity for the SSBQ–W was demonstrated with the Surveillance subscale of the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale, the Sexualizing Behavior Scale, and the Enjoyment of Sexualization Scale. The SSBQ–W may especially be useful in addressing debates about the relationship of self-sexualization to sexual empowerment, agency, and oppression in young women. Additionally, our attempts to develop a parallel sound measure for men failed, and gender differences in item-by-item comparisons concluded that men are less likely to engage in specific self-sexualizing behaviors than women. These findings raise the possibility that self-sexualization is neither as meaningful nor as pervasive for men. In sum, our findings help to further refine how researchers and practitioners might best conceptualize self-sexualization, concluding that it is highly gendered activity that is largely confined to women and offering a measure for women that may promote further research.

The Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, published in 2007, is one of the most frequently accessed APA reports. The task force was formed and report was compiled in response to concerns regarding the impact of sexualization on girls and society at large. This article presents a review of research published since the report was released to examine the continued presence and impact of sexualizing material. In addition, we review the new evidence in light of critiques of the report that followed its publication. Finally, we present emerging ideas regarding prevention and interventions. While general findings of the original report hold true, and some criticisms have been addressed, the present review suggests the need for more research on childhood, rather than adolescents and adults, and more research using samples that have gender, sexuality, racial, and ethnic diversity.

This study analyzes how teens represent themselves through their profile photographs on a popular nonymous chat site. Using visual content analysis methods, we analyzed 400 profile photographs, controlling for the self-reported gender and the apparent race of the photographic subject. The analysis finds significant differences in gaze, posture, dress, and distance from the camera according to gender and race, although racial differences are stronger for boys than for girls. To a surprising extent, the findings mirror previous findings of gender and race differences in face-to-face interaction, suggesting that the teens construe their profile images as invitations to interact with others online. At the same time, their photo choices reproduce culturally dominant ideologies of gender and race as reinforced by mass media images.

Themes of transformation recur in a wide range of media and more broadly in self-help and makeover culture which invites us to join in with a process of endless improvement that Meredith Jones has described as ‘always-becoming’. The visual effects that are achieved through CGI (computer-generated imagery), Photoshop and 3D printing technologies, as well as a multitude of body modification practices can also be considered as part of a battery of techniques that are widely seen as tools of transformation. This article considers how these techniques are bound up with the interruption of ideas about how girls and women should look and behave, and, more broadly, about age-appropriate appearance and behaviour. It asks how we might consider current debates about the sexualization of culture in this broader context where self-presentation is so closely tied to representational practices and where representational regimes are being radically transformed.

This article presents a case study of the sexualization of paid domestic workers in the city of Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. The author argues that the sexualization of workers is linked to historical concerns around purity and contamination. The article looks at the figure of Tlazolteotl, a pre-Hispanic goddess patroness of dust, filth and promiscuous women. It identifies the way colonial acts of translation might have informed concerns, meanings and practices that link ideas of dirt, sexuality and morality. The article explores experiences of sexual harassment among domestic workers that were interviewed and the role of female employers on the reproduction of ideas that define workers’ sexualities as ‘deviant’ and potentially contaminating.

Sociologists have developed compelling pedagogical strategies to focus the undergraduate gaze on problems of gender and sexuality. Nested within the social construction of gender norms, the sexualization of girls and women negatively impacts individual, interpersonal, and societal levels of social interaction. Nevertheless, this important issue remains under-explored in the sociology of teaching and learning. This article reports on a pedagogical module that utilizes a multimedia presentation to define and illustrate the sexualization of girls and women. Lesson impacts were assessed through an online survey. Results indicate a critical gap between the social importance of this topic and educational exposure. Students unanimously recommended this module be taught in introductory sociology courses and offered specific examples of individual and interpersonal impacts. Our findings suggest an ongoing need to address the sexualization of girls and women inside, and outside, of the classroom.