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Does wearing makeup benefit women by changing how they perceive themselves, and are the perceptions that others make of makeup wearers positive, or negative? In two pre-registered experiments, we investigated the effects of makeup on women's self-perceived traits, and others’ objectifying perceptions of them. In Experiment 1, 229 women imagined one of four scenarios (e.g., a romantic date). Half applied makeup for that scenario before rating their self-perceived agency, humanness, romantic competitiveness towards other women and reactions to partner jealousy. Results showed little evidence that applying makeup affected women's self-perceived traits. In Experiment 2, 844 participants rated images of women's faces from Experiment 1 on their mental capacity and moral status. Women wearing more makeup were attributed less mental capacity and moral status, with attributions mediated by perceptions that heavier makeup-wearers have more sex and are more physically attractive. Findings suggest that although women experience cultural pressure to wear makeup, negative stereotypes of makeup-wearers may lead to detrimental perceptions of women.

The suppression of sexuality is culturally widespread, and women's sexual promiscuity, activity, and enjoyment are almost always judged and punished more harshly than men's. It remains disputed, however, to what end people suppress sexuality, and who benefits from the suppression of female sexuality. Different theories predict that women in general, men in general, women's intimate partners, or parents benefit most. Here we use the lies women and men tell-or imagine telling-about their sexual histories as an indirect measure of who is most involved in the suppression of sexuality. We asked men and women what they would reply if asked questions by their mother, father, current partner, attractive confederate, and various same- or opposite-sex friends and colleagues about their number of previous sex partners, age at first romantic kiss, age at first consensual sex, and cheating on a previous partner or spouse. By comparing the size and direction of the lies that subjects told, we tested competing predictions of several cultural and evolutionary theories concerning why female sexuality is suppressed and who is driving its suppression. We found that men and women told larger and more frequent lies to their parents, with women telling the largest and most frequent lies of all to their fathers. Additionally, the majority of lies by both men and women were in sexually conservative directions. Our findings suggest that mothers, and especially fathers, restrict female sexuality.

Women are more likely than men to be sexualized, objectified and dehumanized. Female sex workers experience stigma and violence associated with these judgements at far higher rates than other women. Here, we use a pre-registered experimental design to consider which aspects of sex work – the level of sexual activity, earned income, or perceived autonomy of the work – drive dehumanization. A first group of participants (N = 217) rated 80 vignettes of women varying by full-time employment, hobbies and interests on humanness. These ratings were subtracted from the ratings of a second group of participants (N = 774) who rated these same vignettes which additionally described a part-time job, hobby or activity that varied in sexual activity, income earned and autonomy over one’s actions. We find that women and especially men dehumanize women they believe are engaging in penetrative sex. We also find that women’s autonomy of, but not their income from, their sexual activity increases dehumanization. Our findings suggest that opposition to women’s ability to pursue casual sex and generalizations about the exploitative conditions of sex work may drive the harshest negative prejudice towards female sex workers and, by similar mechanisms, women’s sexuality in general.