Posturas, escotes, tacón y maquillaje: percepciones de universitarios sobre las niñas sexualizadas en revistas de moda

The image that media communicates of childhood creates stereotypes about them and influences their lifestyles. Specially, girls’ bodies are converted into a show by certain corporate culture that consider girls as consumer objects. In this context, we wonder how Spanish college students perceive girls showed by fashion magazines exhibiting sexualizing attributes. The study also explores the sexualizing power of the attributes perceived. Another aim is to determine if there are different segments of individuals based on the previous perceptions. An online survey was conducted among 449 college students (18-25 years old), conscious about the communication world. The objective was to determine the attributes considered more and less related with a sexualizing power. Results show that participants are highly sensitive to the sexualization of girls in fashion magazines. Contestants can identify attributes with a high sexualizing power in aspects regarding to stylish, make up, postures, corporal exhibition and language portrayed in the images. There are four groups clearly identified according to more and less sexualizing power linked to the attributes perceived. A first group does not assign a sexualizing power to the attributes that adultize girls. Secondly, there are individuals who do not notice any sexualizing power in the attributes studied. A third group perceives the sexualizing power in the attributes related to the corporal exhibition. Finally, a group that observes a high sexualizing power in all the attributes.