Exploitation of women in mass media

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.[3][4][5]

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.[6]

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.[7] 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.[8]

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.[9]

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.[10]

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.[11]

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.[12]

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.[13]

The Hollywood actress Geena Davis 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)

In considering the way that films are put together, many feminist film critics have pointed to the "male gaze" that predominates in classical Hollywood film-making. Budd Boetticher summarises 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."[14] 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.[14] She states: "In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness," and as a result contends that in film a woman is the "bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning". Mulvey suggests that Lacan's psychoanalytic theory is the key to understanding how film creates such a space for female sexual objectification and exploitation through the combination of the patriarchal order of society, and 'looking' in itself as a pleasurable act of voyeurism, as "the cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking".[14]

Researchers have determined how sexual objectification of women in film negatively impacts the mindset of girls and young women. Research has discovered^{[weasel words]} that when girls have had an extended exposure to films in which female super heroes were dressed in over-sexualized costumes, they became more aware of their own body competence. This type of exposure can cause a detrimental view of female roles in the film industry. Research shows that within the 56 top-grossing films in North America, Scandinavia, Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, women and girls were four times more likely than men to be shown wearing revealing clothing; nearly twice as likely to be shown as partially nude; and four times more likely to be shown completely naked.[15] The over-sexualization of female roles in popular Hollywood films has been found to have a negative effect on girl's self-esteem and can cause them to want to alter their bodies to look more like the actresses in films and movies.[16]

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media an organization that has been pushing the industry for years to expand the roles of women in film.[17] Known for her roles in movies such as Thelma and Louise and Commander In Chief, Geena Davis founded her own nonprofit research in order to research and change the way that young girls and women are portrayed in films. 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.[18]

Research into the social implications of the presentation of women in film and its effect on the African-American community indicates that young black girls are exposed to a stereotyped portrayal of black females which goes beyond sexual objectification. Young black girls are presented with only one type of depiction: an angry black woman who is obnoxious, ignorant, confrontational and loud.[19] 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.[19] At the same time black characters are typically depicted in films in occupational roles such as athletes, servants, musicians and criminals, roles which hold a lower status than the roles of white characters.[20]

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.[21] Popular music often contains messages about women that involve misogyny, sexual violence and abuse.

Listeners are often absorbing messages exploiting women without it being obvious. There are multiple online articles that seek to identify songs that have misogynistic undertones woven throughout them.[22][23] 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.[22]

Music is a key factor in the socialization of children. Children and adolescents often turn to music lyrics as an outlet away from loneliness or as a source of advice and information. The results of a study through A Kaiser Family Foundation Study in 2005 showed that 85% of youth ages 8–18 listen to music each day.[24] 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.[25] Numerous studies have been conducted to research how music influences listeners behaviors and beliefs.[26][27][28] 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.[29]

Gan, Zillmann and Mitrook found that exposure to sexually explicit rap promotes unfavorable evaluations of black women. Following exposure to sexual rap, as compared with exposure to romantic music or to no music, the assessment of the female performers' personality resulted in a general downgrading of positive traits and a general upgrading of negative ones.[30] 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.[31] 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.[32]

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.[33][34]

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.[35] The perpetuation of females being nothing more than seductive "creatures" to men can presumably lead to young girls internalizing their self worth as nothing more than mere objects.

In her article, "Negative effect of media on girls," Monique Smith discusses the evolution of acceptable female figures throughout time. The transition between sexy meaning curvaceous to sexy meaning thin made it difficult for women to keep up with the ideal feminine figure. Striving for the virtually unattainable perfect body, women were viewed as a new way to make money. The use of size 0 in advertisements and products of the clothing industry has been met with criticism. For example, Dawn Porter, a reporter from the UK who had been challenged to go on an extreme celebrity 'size zero' diet for a new BBC programme, Super Slim Me, logged her experiences about her journey to a size zero.

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.[36]

According to model, Sarah Ziff, stories are told in the industry about models being sexually assaulted.[37] 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.[38] 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.[39] He was sentenced to 59 years in prison.[40]

Models have been denied food on shoots as they are expected to be thin, according to model Vanessa Perron.[41] 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".[42] 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.[42] The Model Alliance, created by the model Sara Ziff, provides its members with protection, advice and support. It is guided by a partnership between the American Guild of Musical Artists and the Actors' Equity Association.[43]

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.[44] 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...[45]

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.[46] 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.[47] 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.[48]

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.[49] When social media usage increased, adolescents began to form stronger relationships online while their sense of self was impacted negatively. According to a study conducted by Xinyan Zhao, Mengqi Zhan, and Brooke F. Liu, social media content that weaves emotional components in a positive manner appears to have the benefit of also increasing one's online influence.[50] Positive social media content results in increased presence on networking sites among adolescent users.

Digital social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat allow individuals to establish their influence through sharing opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with others.[51] 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.[52] 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.[53]

The prevalence of social media and its influence on self-perception among adolescents, especially young girls, is undeniable. Research has shown a significant scientific link between social media and depression among young girls.[54] In addition, this link between depression and social media perceptions has been connected to obesity among young girls.[54] The negative implications social media poses on women associated with their appearance or how they carry themselves reveals a chain reaction; the depression related to negative social media experiences can manifest itself in the form of poor academic performance and further mental and physical health issues.[54]

Such evidence of substantial mental and physical harm suggests that the root of the problem can be found not only within social media advertising and usage, but in the way young girls are taught to internalized responses on various social media platforms.

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.[55]

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."[56]

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.[57]

According to a report by the Women's Media Center (WMC), it found that the gender gap has not declined and that in some industries it has gotten worse. In television, it found the percentage of female TV characters has decreased and that the ones who make it on-screen are not likely to get the lead roles compared to the male characters. "According to the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film's 'Boxed In' report, CW Television Network[58] is the only TV network where women can be seen in accurate proportion to their representation in the U.S. population".[59]

The video game heroine Lara Croft (here portrayed by Alison Carroll) is one of the many examples cited 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.[47] Women's roles in many modern games usually are less important to the game and rely heavily on stereotypes.[60] Video games' female characters also tend be lighter skinned individuals, as are their male counterparts. Furthermore, many of the female characters found in video games intentionally depict woman to be sultry and enhance the body form of females in an effort to appeal to men's desires[61] Although not demonstrating blatantly racist stereotypes, many games practice racism through omission of racially diverse characters.[62]

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.[63] 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,[64] 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".[65] 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.[66]

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.[67] 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.[68]

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.[60][69] 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]".[70]

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), most 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.[60] A national sample of youth aged 8 to 18 found that "8.5 percent of video game players exhibited pathological patterns of play," which is "very similar to the prevalence demonstrated in many other studies of this age group, including across nations".[71]

Statistically, a significant number of young children are exposed to sexualized media forms from early within their childhood: influence upon girls' self-image has been reported within girls as young as 5 or 6.[83] According to the social cognitive theory, modeling such behaviors outlined within popular media have long-lasting effects upon the self-awareness and self-identity of young girls.

In a study on the sexualization of women in media, by the American Psychological Association, it was found that women or girls are, statistically speaking, more likely to be dressed provocatively and forced into poses that suggest sexuality. Another study, on print media, completed by psychology researchers at Wesleyan University found that 51.8% of the time, women are objectified in advertisements. This number changes when the study was narrowed to men's print, where women were objectified in an increased 76% of advertisements.[84]

A common problem seen among young girls is any number of afflictions directly attributed to a negative body image, caused by these objectified ads. The APA is aware of this situation and put together a task force to complete a study across all major advertising and media platforms. What they found was numerous problems being found in young women can be traced back to these displays of women as sexual objects. The affects span a wide range of disorders and illnesses, from anxiety, to eating disorders, to depression, and even prevent young girls from creating a healthy sexual life. This task force is reaching out to both the media and families with young children in an attempt to properly inform all people on the negative impacts of the way media is used nowadays.[85]

A study conducted by the Department of Psychology at Knox College provided insight into risk factors such as media consumption hours, maternal self-objectification, maternal religiosity, and television mediation; each has been shown to affect rates of media influence and rates of self-internalization of their potential negative influence.[86]

Support has shown that the effects of media exploitation vary for women of different ethnicities. Research has depicted that these implications often resonate beyond cultural boundaries, to cause significant differences among African American, Latina, and Asian American women.

According to the American Psychological Association, when comparing one's body to the sexualized cultural ideals, this significantly impaired the ability for women of these ethnicities to regulate cognitive functions, including logical reasoning and spatial skills.[73]

Spanish-language TV in the United States statistically projects more stereotypical roles for Latina women, often portraying them as 'exoticized' and 'overly sexual'; meanwhile, more Latina youth, on average, watch more television than that of the standard caucasian American child.[83] This combination projects increased rates of the acceptance of the negative effects within minority women within the US, leading to a greater acceptance of standard gender roles and negative stereotypes projected by Latina characters. However, studies have shown that Latina women who watch more black-oriented television shows see a general increase of body acceptance over time.