MAKING SENSE OF SEXUALIZED IMAGES OF WOMEN IN A MALE DIRECTED MAGAZINE: A QUALITATIVE THINK ALOUD STUDY

Media sexualization of women may lead to objectification and poor well-being. To explore the more ‘in the moment’ and spontaneous responses to sexualized images men (n = 19) and women (n = 20) from Greece/Cyprus and the UK completed a qualitative think aloud task whilst exploring images of women in a male-directed magazine. Using thematic analysis, four themes emerged: What they see; Sense of celebration; Feeling insulted; Harmful consequences. Transcending these themes was the notion of choice/ownership. These themes were then further coded to explore differences between men and women and by culture (Greece/Cyprus vs. UK). Whilst men and women described what they saw as positive, negative or with moral judgement, women were also more likely to either celebrate women’s sexualized images and seeing them as empowering and justified, or felt insulted and angry, perceiving the media as objectifying women, and described possible harmful consequences. This tended to be underpinned by whether the women in the images were perceived to have choice/ownership over their actions. If women observers imputed no choice/ownership to the women in the images, such images were considered insulting whereas a sense of choice/ownership gave them a sense of empowerment. No clear differences by culture were observed.
Hellenic Journal of Psychology, Vol 19, No 2 (2022)