Explore the vast range of titles available.

In the new millennium a media discourse has arisen in the Anglophone press that discusses girls' dress as 'sexualising'. 'Protectionists' have come to build a causal link between 'harms' that may befall girls and the clothing that they wear. The tone and content of these discourses has in turn been criticised by 'liberal' academia. It condemns these as further placing girls at harm through a disproportionate focus on girls' activities and sartorial self-expression, creating an air of self-surveillance. This thesis argues that this can cause harm in two ways. Firstly, the fear and management of sexualisation may displace public discourses about the actual abuse of children that happens in and outside of the home. Secondly, this is particularly advantageous for boys and men, who are now excluded not only of responsibility, but from the discourse altogether. Nonprotectionist feminist scholarship further recognises a contradiction within antisexualisation debates. Protectionist writers set themselves up as authorities on the cultural perspective of the care for girls and place girls simultaneously as impressionable, immature and untrustworthy, and hence in need of regulation, but also as alluring and corrupting and hence implicated in their own sexual victimisation. This thesis adds to the existing liberal debates by undertaking a systematic study of select government reviews, newspapers and populist manuals. While sexualisation as a topic has enjoyed scholarly investigation, this thesis examines these protectionist contradictions in sexualisation discourses through a specific analysis of dress as a social communicator and point of contention through cultural and fashion theory. This thesis places itself within non-protectionist feminist research which critiques protectionist propensity for equating innocence with purity and sexual inactivity in a moralistic enterprise, which criticises and shames girls in their dress and considers them corrupting of others' innocence.

The use of social networking sites is associated with objectification tendencies of the self and others. However, only few studies investigate how users actually perceive sexualizing content on Instagram. In a recent study, we showed that perceiving sexy Instagram posts as appropriate and less revealing goes along with self-sexualization in German participants and that Instagram users tend to be more sexist than non-users. The present study aimed to replicate these findings in a cross-nations study to test for cultural differences. We asked N = 2055 persons from six different countries (Germany, Spain, United States, Italy, Turkey, and South Africa) to rate sexy Instagram posts with respect to revealing clothing, appropriateness, and attractiveness and collected self-report data on sexism, enjoyment of sexualization, and Instagram usage behavior. Our results show associations between the perception of the presented posts as appropriate, sexism, and self-sexualizing tendencies in all countries. Strength of the associations are mainly the same across all countries. Participants from Spain, the U.S., and Italy reported the lowest sexism scores and the most liberal ratings for the presented photos. We find no substantial main effect of mere Instagram use on sexism or photo ratings. The results suggest that Instagram use does not necessarily alter the perception of sexualized stimuli, but that greater appreciation of self-sexualizing others goes along with self-sexualization. This effect seems to be culturally invariant. The found mean differences between countries are plausible, but future studies should aim to obtain representative samples to allow serious assumptions about cultural effects.

The topic explored in this paper is the causes and effects of the heavy sexualization of the K-POP idol industry. This paper understands sexualization as engaging in behaviors in roles or things that make people aware of sex, especially in relation to men and women. Sexualization of idols in the K-POP industry has been numerous. This paper examines the various reasons for sexualization and the effects of sexualization on fans and on the marketplace. This article will delve into the reasons why K-POP is moving in the direction of a sexualized idol. It sees the current situation where the K-POP industry needs to transform. It analyzes the effects of sexualization and hopes to bring attention to the issue of sexualization of idols. Calls on all those involved to pay attention to the demands of idols and fans.

Media representations play an important role in producing sociocultural pressures. Despite social and legal progress in civil rights, restrictive gender-based representations appear to be still very pervasive in some contexts. The article explores scientific research on the relationship between media representations and gender stereotypes, objectification and sexualization, focusing on their presence in the cultural context. Results show how stereotyping, objectifying and sexualizing representations appear to be still very common across a number of contexts. Exposure to stereotyping representations appears to strengthen beliefs in gender stereotypes and endorsement of gender role norms, as well as fostering sexism, harassment and violence in men and stifling career-related ambitions in women. Exposure to objectifying and sexualizing representations appears to be associated with the internalization of cultural ideals of appearance, endorsement of sexist attitudes and tolerance of abuse and body shame. In turn, factors associated with exposure to these representations have been linked to detrimental effects on physical and psychological well-being, such as eating disorder symptomatology, increased body surveillance and poorer body image quality of life. However, specificities in the pathways from exposure to detrimental effects on well-being are involved for certain populations that warrant further research.

As a consequence of exposure to sexualized messages, girls and women may internalize the belief that sexual attractiveness to men is an important aspect of their identity. Whereas research on internalized sexualization has mainly focused on its consequences for girls’ well-being and academic outcomes, the present study (N = 222, women, aged 20 to 29) examined whether internalized sexualization is related to sexist attitudes and tolerance of sexual harassment among young women. It also analyzed internalized sexualization’ links to women’s views of notorious sexual abuse allegations in the so-called Weinstein scandal and attitudes towards the #MeToo movement, a campaign aimed at combatting sexual harassment and sexual assault. The study was conducted in Italy, a context characterized by pervasive sexualized messages and diffuse criticism against the #MeToo movement. The findings showed that internalized sexualization was associated with stronger endorsement of sexist attitudes and higher acceptance of sexual harassment myths, which worked as sequential mediators of skepticism towards sexual abuse allegations in the Weinstein scandals. Endorsement of sexist attitudes mediated the relation between internalized sexualization and negative attitudes towards the #MeToo movement. This study extends the knowledge on the correlates of sexualization, suggesting that women’s internalization of the belief that they should be sexually attractive to men might contribute to reinforce ideologies and attitudes that perpetrate women’s mistreatment while diminishing support for social activism on women’s behalf.

In the last few years, many countries have introduced laws combating the phenomenon colloquially known as ‘revenge porn’. While new laws criminalising this practice represent a positive step forwards, the legislative response has been piecemeal and typically focuses only on the practices of vengeful ex-partners. Drawing on Liz Kelly’s (Surviving sexual violence. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1988 ) pioneering work, we suggest that ‘revenge porn’ should be understood as just one form of a range of gendered, sexualised forms of abuse which have common characteristics, forming what we are conceptualising as the ‘continuum of image-based sexual abuse’. Further, we argue that image-based sexual abuse is on a continuum with other forms of sexual violence. We suggest that this twin approach may enable a more comprehensive legislative and policy response that, in turn, will better reflect the harms to victim-survivors and lead to more appropriate and effective educative and preventative strategies.

Sexual objectification (treating a person as a body or collection of body parts) involves a cultural prioritizing of women’s sexual appearance and appeal over other attributes. Sexual objectification is prevalent, permeates many aspects of women’s lives, shapes general assumptions about women and exacts many consequences on women and society. In this Review, we synthesize empirical evidence about the sources and consequences of seeing women as sexual objects, and of women’s objectification of themselves (self-objectification). In general, sexually objectified women are perceived more negatively, and as less competent and less fully human than women who are not sexually objectified. Exposure to this cultural messaging has broad consequences and fuels sexist attitudes and violence towards women. A central consequence for women is self-objectification, which is associated with a more negative body image; diminished mental, physical and sexual health; and impaired cognitive performance. Sociocontextual factors influence women’s experiences with sexual objectification, and here we explore the role of race and ethnicity, in particular. We conclude with suggested directions for future research.Sexual objectification refers to a cultural prioritization of sexual appearance and appeal over other attributes. In this Review, Ward et al. synthesize empirical evidence about the sources and consequences of seeing women as sexual objects, and of women’s objectification of themselves (self-objectification).