Advertising Jean Kilbourne,
Robert Jensen,
Sut Jhally and other cultural critics accuse
mass media of using
sex in advertising that promotes the objectification of women to help sell their goods and services. In
Gender Advertisements,
Erving Goffman sought to uncover the covert ways that popular media constructs masculinity and femininity in a detailed analysis of more than 500 advertisements. The relationship between men and women, Goffman argued, was portrayed as a parent–child relationship, one characterized by male power and female subordination. Many contemporary studies of gender and sexualization in popular culture take as their starting point Goffman's analysis in
Gender Advertisements. Among them, later research which expanded empirical framework by analyzing the aspects of women's sexualization and objectification in advertisements, M.-E Kang examined the advertisements in women's magazines between 1979 and 1991 and found out there are still showing the same stereotyped images of women: Nude or partially nude images of women increased nearly 30% from 1979 to 1991. Lindner further developed Kang's analytical framework in a study of women in advertisements and found out magazines rely on gender stereotypes, but in different ways, particularly in terms of sexualization. For example, in
Vogue, sexualized images of women are the primary way of portraying women in positions of inferiority and low social power. Research conducted by Eric Hatton and Mary Nell Trautner included a longitudinal
content analysis of images of women and men on more than four decades of
Rolling Stone magazine covers (1967–2009). It found that the frequency of sexualized images of men and women has increased, though the intensity of sexualization between men and women is different in that women are increasingly likely to be hypersexualized, but men are not. Researchers argue that the simple presence of images of sexualized men does not signal equality in media representations of women and men. Sexualized images may legitimize or exacerbate violence against women and girls, sexual harassment, and anti-women attitudes among men. They concluded that similarly sexualized images can suggest victimization for women but confidence for men, consider the implications when women are sexualized at the same rate as men are not sexualized, as they were on the covers of
Rolling Stone in the 2000s. Clothing designer
Calvin Klein was criticized for using images of young, sexualized girls and women in his advertisements, having said: :"Jeans are about sex. The abundance of bare flesh is the last gasp of advertisers trying to give redundant products a new identity." Calvin Klein has also received media attention for its controversial advertisements in the mid-1990s. Several of Calvin Klein's advertisements featured images of teenage models, some "who were reportedly as young as 15" in overly sexual and provocative poses. In a recent analysis, it was found that almost 30% of the clothing items available for pre-teen girls on the websites of 15 national stores had sexualizing characteristics. The clothing emphasized or revealed a sexualized body part (e.g., bikinis and push-up bras), or had characteristics associated with sexiness (e.g., red satin lingerie-like dresses). This exploitation of women is being seen in younger girls.
American Apparel, founded in 1989, is a clothing retailer. Its advertising strategy was described by the
National Center on Sexual Exploitation as normalizing the objectification of women by regularly featuring nude young women, emphasizing their buttocks and breasts. The founder of the company and its CEO, Dov Charney, was accused of keeping videos on a company server of him sexually engaged in sex acts with female models and employees. The overt use of sexuality to promote
breast cancer awareness, through fundraising campaigns like "I Love Boobies" and "Save the Ta-tas", angers and offends breast
cancer survivors and older women, who are at higher risk of developing breast cancer. Women who have breast cancer say that these advertising campaigns suggest that having sexy breasts is more important than saving their lives, which devalues them as human beings. Another trend that has been studied in advertising is the victimization of women. A study conducted in 2008 found that women were represented as victims in 9.51% of the advertisements they were present in. Separate examination by subcategory found that the highest frequency of this is in women's fashion magazines where 16.57% of the ads featuring women present them as victims. The portrayal of women in advertising is influenced by
the beauty myth, an idea that results in the presentation of primarily slender women with flawless skin and other socially acceptable features. Globalization has led to this portrayal becoming more uniform across different societies and cultures. Most women are unable to achieve the beauty standards shown because the appearance of the models has been modified using technical effects. Since the 20th century, women have increasingly been sexualized and objectified in media, including television, movies, ads, and music videos. The physical appearance,
body image, social norms, and beauty of women have always been portrayed in media falsely and unrealistically. In ads, music videos, and films, girls and women are shown as objects, and their humanity is diminished. The exploitation of women's bodies is used for advertising everything for entertainment. The fashion industry oversexualizes women's and girls' apparel; they are typically portrayed in sexually explicit attire, sexually suggestive cosmetics, and hypersexualized in advertisements. These brands usually prey on children and parents striving to keep up with the latest fashions. Models, supermodels, beauty queens, and even toys promote the idea that women and girls require unattainable levels of beauty and physical perfection.
Camille Paglia holds that "Turning people into sex objects is one of the specialties of our species." In her view, objectification is closely tied to (and may even be identical with) the highest human faculties toward conceptualization and
aesthetics.
Film in a speech at the
Millennium Development Goals Countdown event in the
Ford Foundation Building in New York, addressing gender roles and issues in film (24 September 2013) Historically, the film industry has been exploitative toward women both on and off screen. Stereotypically in film, women are often depicted as one dimensional characters, overly emotional, and subsequent compared to their male counterparts. This can be attributed to a myriad of reasons, for instance, the male dominance within the industry and lack of female representation. When it comes to the depiction of women on screen, there is a limited perspective of what women's humanity entails. According to Ward and Harrison, “media portrayals typically construct rather narrow and stereotypical portraits of women and of femininity.” In film, there is more of an emphasis on the physical and sexual appeal of women, as objects of desire, or on the other side, appear as a respectable housewife or mother, allowing no depth or character development in between these stereotypes. Furthermore, feminist film theorists have considered the
Bechdel test, a popular test used in film to evaluate how women are represented in film. The Bechdel test, named after 1980's cartoonist
Alison Bechdel. The test consists of two requirements: two women in the film have to have a conversation with one another about something other than a man, and the two female characters must be named. Even blockbuster movies that are considered to be more progressive fail this test, including The
Avengers (2012),
Avatar (2009), and
Lord of The Rings (2001–2003). Although the Bechdel test is not an indication of whether or not women are properly represented in films, it brings attention to the gender inequality that exists in film and entertainment. Many feminist film critics have pointed to the "
male gaze" that predominates in
classical Hollywood film-making.
Budd Boetticher summarizes the view thus: "What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance."
Laura Mulvey's germinal essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (written in 1973 and published in 1975) expands on this conception of the passive role of women in cinema to argue that film provides visual pleasure through
scopophilia and identification with the on-screen male actor. The over-sexualization of female roles in popular Hollywood films has been found to harm girl's self-esteem and can cause them to want to alter their bodies to look more like the actresses in films and movies. Although girls and women are heavily represented in the media, they are often portrayed as unrealistically beautiful, such as being significantly thinner and younger than the average. Women are also portrayed as being passive, dependent on men, and housewives. The media frequently present two archetypes of women: good and bad. Good women are loyal and focused on family life, taking care of their husbands and others. Bad women are the opposite – hard, cold, or aggressive. One nonprofit organization, the
Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, has been pushing the industry for years to expand the roles of women in film. Geena Davis has expressed that throughout the film industry, there has been a lack of female representation and a pattern of inaccurate portrayals of women and girls in movie roles. Black women are presented by mass media as obnoxious, ignorant, confrontational and loud. Not only do they struggle with internalizing these fixed notions of who they are, they are also faced with definitions of beauty for African American girls that are measured against white standards of what beauty should be. Film and social media reflect an idea of female beauty based on features closely resembling those of women of European origin, which is nearly impossible for a black girl to attain, or indeed any young girl.
Music A survey conducted as a part of the Human Use of Music Information Retrieval Systems (HUMIRS) project found that 73.1% of respondents identified themselves as being "avid listeners" of music. Popular music often contains messages about women that involve misogyny, sexual violence and abuse. There are multiple online articles that seek to identify songs that have misogynistic lyrics. For example, an article in the online US women's magazine
Bustle provided a clip of lyrics from the song "Fine China" by Chris Brown. He sings "It's alright, I'm not dangerous / When you're mine, I'll be generous / You're irreplaceable; Collectible / Just like fine China." The article went on to conclude that the song was demeaning to women by referring to them as objects or possessions. While music is commonly thought of as only a means of entertainment, studies have found that music is often chosen by youth because it mirrors their own feelings and the content of the lyrics is important to them. Numerous studies have been conducted to research how music influences listeners behaviors and beliefs. For example, a study featured in the
Journal of Youth and Adolescence found that when compared to adolescent males who did not like heavy metal music, those who liked heavy metal had a higher occurrence of deviant behaviors. These behaviors included sexual misconduct, substance abuse and family issues.
Music's effect on how women are perceived There are multiple online articles that seek to identify songs that have misogynistic undertones woven throughout them. For example, an article in the online US women's magazine
Bustle provided a clip of lyrics from the song "Fine China" by Chris Brown. He sings "It's alright, I'm not dangerous / When you're mine, I'll be generous / You're irreplaceable; Collectible / Just like fine China." The article went on to conclude that the song was demeaning to women by referring to them as objects or possessions. Another example of this is found in the song "Animals" by Maroon 5. A lyric from this song is "Baby I'm preying on you tonight. Hunt, you down eat you alive. Just like animals." A 2008 study by Zhang et al. showed that exposure to sexually explicit music videos was associated with stronger endorsement of sexual
double standards (e.g., belief that it is less acceptable for women to be sexually experienced than for men). Exposure to sexual content was also associated with more permissive attitudes toward premarital sex, regardless of gender, overall television viewing, and previous sexual experience. However,
Gad Saad argues that the premise that music videos yield harmful effects and that the harm would be sex-specific (e.g., women's self-concepts will be negatively affected) has not been supported by research. A survey found that 72.2% of black, 68.0% of white, and 69.2% of Hispanic youths agree with the suggestion that rap music videos contain "too many" references to sex. Despite the lack of adequate research linking music videos to negative self perception by young girls, research has shown adolescents have a higher susceptibility rate than other age brackets. More importantly, music videos are one of the many significant mediums that perpetuate sexual objectification of females, implicitly creating fixed gender norms.
Modeling A study conducted in the UK found evidence that anorexia nervosa is a socially transmitted disease and exposure to skinny models may be a contributing factor in the cause of anorexia nervosa. According to model, Sarah Ziff, stories are told in the industry about models being sexually assaulted. Fernanda Ly, a pink-haired model who has worked for designers such as
Louis Vuitton and
Christian Dior, says that she was
groped at a young age by a stylist while shooting a
lookbook, and the memory still haunts her. In 2007
Anand Jon Alexander, a successful designer who appeared on
America's Next Top Model, was arrested on charges of rape, sexual battery and performing lewd acts on a child, charges which in many cases concerned models who aspired to work for him. He was sentenced to 59 years in prison. Models have been denied food on shoots as they are expected to be thin, according to model Vanessa Perron. Due to the low level of regulation in the industry, modeling agencies often view their models as independent contractors rather than employees and attempts to unionize the industry have been largely unsuccessful. There are allegations that a fraudulent modeling agency in Florida drugged aspirant models and used them to create pornographic films. According to former agency executive Carolyn Kramer: "When you're a supermodel like Giselle or
Christy Turlington you're treated like royalty, but 99% of models are treated like garbage". The low level of regulation makes it easy for bad agencies to thrive and treat workers as nothing more than a source for profit. In their defence, modeling agencies have said that models work at odd hours for different clients, which means they cannot be considered employees. Legally speaking, models sign on to management companies and not the other way around. Being a fashion model is much more complex than it seems. The fashion industry is frequently exposed for abusing its models unethically. The fashion industry perceives itself as empowering beautiful women and expressing them through the lens. Still, it has a darker side that differs from the glamorous image in high fashion magazine prints. The modelling industry promotes eating disorders, lacks diversity, sexually abuses its models, and hires too-young models. Famous supermodels like Ashley Graham, Winnie Harlow, and Jourdan Dunn came out against the bias for the stereotypical model, which is tall, slim, and blonde. The business has come under fire for its lack of racial and bodily diversity. Only ten years have passed since the industry began developing laws responding to unrealized expectations. The Council of Fashion Designers of America addressed the issue of eating disorders among models in 2007, the same year Britain banned the employment of models under the age of 16.
Pornography Pornography has contributed to the exploitation of women in media. In
Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography, a review of pornography research conducted for the Surgeon General in 1986,
Dolf Zillmann noted that some inconsistencies in the literature on pornography exist, but overall concluded that extensive viewing of pornographic material may produce some negative
sociological effects, including a decreased respect for long-term,
monogamous relationships, and an attenuated desire for
procreation. He describes the theoretical basis for these conclusions stating:The values expressed in pornography clash so obviously with the family concept, and they potentially undermine the traditional values that favor marriage, family, and children... Pornographic scripts dwell on sexual engagements of parties who have just met, who are in no way attached or committed to each other, and who will part shortly, never to meet again... Sexual gratification in pornography is not a function of emotional attachment, of kindness, of caring, and especially not of continuance of the relationship, as such continuance would translate into responsibilities, curtailments, and costs...Another study conducted by Svedin, Åkermana, and Priebe concluded that male partners' use of pornography might be integrated within the objectification theory framework for women, considering that pornography is a socialization agent for sexual attitudes and behavior. It often portrays men objectifying women via gazing at women's breasts and/or labia, non-permitted aggressive and sexualized touching of women's body parts, making sexual and derogatory remarks about women's body parts, and engaging in forceful oral and anal sex despite women gagging and crying. As pornography portrays women succumbing to this objectification, male viewers may internalize a view that these behaviors are acceptable. According to the tenets of
social learning theory, men who view pornography may learn and transfer the objectifying behaviors they view in pornography to sexual encounters with their female partners. Men's pornography use may correspond to higher levels of experienced sexual objectification by their female partners. Pornography usage may also enable men to treat their female partners in objectifying ways and believe that it is acceptable to do so. Partner's use of pornography can also be negatively linked to women's well-being. Qualitative studies of women whose male partners heavily use pornography have revealed that these women reported lower relational and psychological well-being. The women perceived that their partner's pornography use was connected to their inability to be intimately and authentically open and vulnerable within their relationships. Women from this qualitative research also reported a personal struggle regarding the implications of their male partners pornography use for their own self-worth and value. These women were feeling less attractive and desirable after becoming aware of their male partner's pornography use. Similarly, women view their partners in a new way. The general conclusion that women feel is that their partner is not who they originally thought he/she was. The mate is seen as a sexually questionable and degraded being since the partner seeks sexual fulfilment through the objectification and sometimes degradation of women. On the Internet, there is a widespread practice of female exploitation. This ranges from: trafficking, prostitution, mail-order-bride trade, pornography, rape, and sexual harassment. In pornography, women often act as though they want to be violated and possessed, and men as though they want to violate and possess these women. This represents the inequality of the gender hierarchy, where females are seen as sub-human in comparison to men. Pornographic materials are predominately focused around men's sexual desires.
Black Women in Pornography Mireille Miller-Young believes that the adult film industry is another device to racialize black women. Miller-Young talks about Jeannie Pepper being a pivotal figure in the adult industry for black women. Black women are being fetishized as sexual object to obtain by men, this perception has been around since the slave trade. The porn industry presents dangerous stereotypes that hinder black women, as well as, normalizing violence towards black women. Not only does the adult film industry feed on racism but it does not knowledge the work that black women do for the economy.
Social media Social media has a prominent effect on people's lives, especially those who use social media platforms more frequently than others. A study conducted in 2006 found inverse relationships between the frequency of social media usage and the relationships adolescents formed with the impact it had on their sense of self. In the 2000s, these platforms have emerged as integral communities for publics to voice their opinions, resulting in a changed online behavior associated largely with misinformation. One example of these behaviors is displayed in a 2017 Dutch study conducted by Johanna M. F. van Oosten. This study found that adolescents play out stereotypical gender roles in their self-presentations in social media. Results of this study show that it is predominantly women that feel pressured to conform to hyper femininity and stereotypical gender roles online, including personality traits, domestic behaviors, occupations, and physical appearances. Furthermore, social media has a prominent influence on how adolescent girls and women have on their self-image. In Cohen's study, #BoPo on Instagram, found that young women have more favorable attitudes toward posts and accounts that promote body positive content, as opposed to thin-ideal accounts, which cause a negative association. Furthermore, social media trends such as “fitspiration” contribute to negative body image for females. In a study by Simpson and Mazzeo, they found that users are more likely to comment according to body-image standards, rather than health standards, and had a comparable amount of praise for fitness appearance as a thin appearance. Social media comparison can go beyond physical appearance. In Sheldon and Wiegand's study, they found that on Instagram, young females and women also compare themselves on the basis of success, intelligence, and happiness. Research has shown a significant scientific link between social media and depression among young girls. In addition, this link between depression and social media perceptions has been connected to obesity among young girls. If people would not be as dependent on social media, these statistics would be different.
Television Television is often subject to criticism for the sexual exploitation of women on screen, particularly when teenagers are involved. In 2013, the Parents Television Council released a report that found that it was increasingly more likely for a scene to be exploitative when a teenage girl was involved. The report also found that 43 percent of teen girls on television are the targets of sexually exploitative jokes compared to 33 percent of adult women. Rev. Delman Coates, a PTC board member said, "young people are having difficulty managing the distinction between appropriate and inappropriate sexual conduct". This report is of a series that's about media sexualization of young girls. The researchers from the study claim that "[i]f media images communicate that sexual exploitation is neither serious nor harmful, the environment is being set for sexual exploitation to be viewed as trivial and acceptable. As long as there are media producers who continue to find the degradation of women to be humorous, and media outlets that will air the content, the impact and seriousness of sexual exploitation will continue to be understated and not meaningfully addressed in our society." A 2012 study led by sociologist Stacy L. Smith found that in both prime-time television and family films, women were highly likely to be depicted as thin and scantily clad. They were also vastly underrepresented in
STEM fields when compared to their male counterparts, and had less speaking roles. According to this study, only 28.3 percent of characters in family films, 30.8 percent of characters in children's shows, and 38.9 percent of characters on prime time television were women. According to a 2013 report by the
Women's Media Center (WMC), the gender gap was not declining at that time and in some industries it was increasing. In television, it found that the percentage of female TV characters had decreased and that the ones who appeared on-screen were less likely to be leading roles than the male characters. "According to the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film's 'Boxed In' report, CW Television Network is the only TV network where women can be seen in accurate proportion to their representation in the U.S. population."
Video games (here portrayed by
Alison Carroll) is often cited as an example for the
sexual objectification of women in video games. According to a report done by the Entertainment Software Association in 2013, 55% of game players are male and 45% are female. Many games practice racism through omission of racially diverse characters. Video games have been found to offer a smaller range of roles to female characters compared to male characters, and these roles tend to involve being victims or prizes to be won. The majority of female characters are also
not playable. These roles for women have been found to have a negative impact on the perception of women in gaming and even main playable female characters are found to be unrealistically proportioned with revealing clothing. If a sexualized female character is the main protagonist and portrayed in a positive light, studies have shown a potential negative effect if the character is hyper-sexualized in a stereotypical manner. A recent Ohio State University Study has found that sexist and violent content in games cause male gamers to identify with the male lead, and find less empathy with female victims of violence, although a 2017 review of this paper suggested several flaws and a reanalysis of the dataset using different statistical methods found no sexist effect, concluding "These results call into question whether use of “sexist” video games is a causal factor in the development of reduced empathy toward girls and women among adolescents". Similarly, the results of a 2015 study suggested that "sexist video game play is related to men perceiving women in a stereotypic and sexist way", but found that the same correlation did not occur with female players. A German longitudinal study from 2011 to 2015 explored the connection between gaming and sexist attitudes. The results of this study concluded both that playing video games was not predictive of sexist beliefs and that sexist beliefs were not predicative of video game play. The researchers stressed, however, that the study did not, nor was intended to, disprove the existence of sexist attitudes in general. A 2012 study also raised concerns about the correlation between video games and individual attitudes. Focusing on the Singaporean subjects playing the game
Grand Theft Auto, the study found some evidence of "first order cultivation effects" – which relate to the perceptions of situations and issues – but found that second order effects, relating to beliefs and issues, were provided with only limited support by the study. This led the authors to conclude that previous studies on cultivation effects from television may not directly relate to effects from video game playing. The trend of portraying sex-typed images of women and violence against women in popular video games continues to proliferate and promulgate in video games. Video games depicting
sexual objectification of women and violence against women resulted in statistically significant increased
rape myths acceptance for male study participants but not for female participants. A 2016 study by Fox and Potocki had similar findings, in which they ran a survey which found that "video game consumption throughout the life span is associated with interpersonal aggression, hostile sexism, and RMA [Rape Myth Acceptance]". Out of the top 10 video games listed midyear 2010 (New Super Mario Brothers; Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare; Battlefield: Bad Company 2; Final Fantasy XIII; Wii Fit Plus; God of War III; Pokémon SoulSilver; Wii Sports Resort, Mass Effect 2, Pokémon HeartGold Version; Morris, 2010), several have violent content, including violence against women, and some contain sexual objectification of women. Not only are gamers increasingly being exposed to video games containing sexual objectification of and violence against women, but research also indicates that such exposure can be excessive. ==Effects on society==