Showing papers on "Sexual objectification published in 2006"

Exposure to Sexually Objectifying Media and Body Self-Perceptions among College Women: An Examination of the Selective Exposure Hypothesis and the Role of Moderating Variables

Abstract: Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) contends that media that places women’s bodies and appearance at a premium can acculturate women to self-objectify (i.e., to view the self primarily in terms of externally perceivable attributes), or to feel anxious or ashamed of their bodies. However, another unexplored possibility is that antecedent levels of self-objectification, appearance anxiety, and body shame could drive the selection or avoidance of sexually objectifying media. The goals of the present study were two-fold: first, to test the directionality of the associations between exposure to sexually objectifying media and body self-perceptions (i.e., does exposure to sexually objectifying media predict body self-perceptions or vice versa); and second, to explore the possible moderating influence of thin-ideal internalization, global self-esteem, and BMI on the relations between exposure to sexually objectifying media and body self-perceptions. A 2-year panel study of female undergraduates was conducted. The results show that Time-1 trait self-objectification, appearance anxiety, and body shame all negatively predicted Time-2 exposure to sexually objectifying media. Moreover, Time-1 exposure to sexually objectifying media predicted an increase in Time-2 trait self-objectification, particularly among women who were low in global self-esteem.

Weight Control Motives for Cigarette Smoking: Further Consequences of the Sexual Objectification of Women?:

Abstract: Research has revealed numerous negative consequences associated with the sexual objectification of women. Guided by the constructs of self-objectification and objectified body consciousness (OBC), the present study sought to extend the objectification literature by examining the reasons women report smoking cigarettes in relation to viewing oneself as an object. Undergraduate women (N = 146) completed questionnaire packets assessing OBC, body image, self-esteem, smoking behavior and smoking motives. The results showed that current smokers scored higher on OBC components than did never smokers, and body shame significantly predicted smoking cigarettes in order to control appetite and weight. The results suggest that internalizing the prescribed cultural standard for the female body, a proposed consequence of viewing oneself as an outsider, may play a role in the behavioral choices made by women with respect to smoking.

Lukács and Sexual Humanism

Abstract: Georg Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness and Karl Marx's 1844 Manuscripts are founding documents of the discourse of Marxist humanism. This essay scrutinizes Lukacs's definition of the human from a queer perspective which, I argue, is consistent with the Manuscripts in terms of its definition of the human. While for queer politics a contextualized emphasis on the social and political legitimacy of the body's sexual objectification is basic, Lukacs uncritically recapitulates Kantian morality, which represents sexual objectification as inherently dehumanizing. Property ownership, moreover, is a basic aspect of Kantian morality: because humans are supposed to own objects, they cannot also be objects. What a queer perspective is then especially well equipped to reveal, I argue, is that Lukacs, while developing a powerful epistemological critique of Kant, ultimately allows Kant's moral naturalization of property ownership to stand.

Body Image, Body Objectification, and Depression

Abstract: The present study tested the full objectification theory model, as elaborated by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997), as it applied to the proposed mental health consequence of depression, and as it might be extended to a male population. Results supported some components of the model, but not the model in its entirety. The construct of self objectification was observed to have similar applicability to men and women in relationship to depression. This finding was consistent with recent literature that addresses the implications of the changing sociocultural influence (e.g., the media) on male body image and sexual objectification. Support was found for some, but not all, of the originally proposed mediating subjective psychological experiences that were thought to lead to depression. In this study, there was strong support for appearance anxiety, and weak support for peak motivational states (flow) as mediators of the relationship between self-objectification and depression, but no support for decreased awareness of internal bodily states. There was additional strong evidence for body shame as a mediator of the above relationship; however, in this sample, the direction of the relationship was counter to prediction and created some question as to how exactly the experience of body shame operates. Lastly, expected gender differences in the degree of self-objectification experienced were not found. While women in this sample did report more self objectification, the difference was not statistically significant. This finding was in contrast to early research on self-objectification that demonstrated significant differences between men and women, and that did not find evidence for self-objectification processes in men. Degree Type Dissertation Rights Terms of use for work posted in CommonKnowledge. This dissertation is available at CommonKnowledge: http://commons.pacificu.edu/spp/40 Copyright and terms of use If you have downloaded this document directly from the web or from CommonKnowledge, see the “Rights” section on the previous page for the terms of use. If you have received this document through an interlibrary loan/document delivery service, the following terms of use apply: Copyright in this work is held by the author(s). You may download or print any portion of this document for personal use only, or for any use that is allowed by fair use (Title 17, §107 U.S.C.). Except for personal or fair use, you or your borrowing library may not reproduce, remix, republish, post, transmit, or distribute this document, or any portion thereof, without the permission of the copyright owner. [Note: If this document is licensed under a Creative Commons license (see “Rights” on the previous page) which allows broader usage rights, your use is governed by the terms of that license.] Inquiries regarding further use of these materials should be addressed to: CommonKnowledge Rights, Pacific University Library, 2043 College Way, Forest Grove, OR 97116, (503) 352-7209. Email inquiries may be directed to:. copyright@pacificu.edu This dissertation is available at CommonKnowledge: http://commons.pacificu.edu/spp/40 ABSTRACT The present study tested the full objectification theory model, as elaborated by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997), as it applied to the proposed mental health consequence of depression, and as it might be extended to a male population. Results suppOlted some components of the model, but not the model in its entirety. The construct of selfobjectification was observed to have similar applicability to men and women in relationship to depression. This finding was consistent with recent literature that addresses the implications ofthe changing sociocultural influence (e.g., the media) on male body image and sexual objectification. Support was found for some, but not all, of the originally proposed mediating subjective psychological experiences that were thought to lead to depression. In this study, there was strong support for appearance anxiety, and weak support for peak motivational states (flow) as mediators ofthe relationship between self-objectification and depression, but no support for decreased awareness of internal bodily states. There was additional strong evidence for body shame as a mediator ofthe above relationship; however, in this sample, the direction of the relationship was counter to prediction and created some question as to how exactly the experience of body shame operates. Lastly, expected gender differences in the degree of self-objectification experienced were not found. While women in this sample did report more selfobjectification, the difference was not statistically significant. This finding was in contrast to early research on self-objectification that demonstrated significant differences between men and women, and that did not find evidence for self-objectification processes in men.The present study tested the full objectification theory model, as elaborated by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997), as it applied to the proposed mental health consequence of depression, and as it might be extended to a male population. Results suppOlted some components of the model, but not the model in its entirety. The construct of selfobjectification was observed to have similar applicability to men and women in relationship to depression. This finding was consistent with recent literature that addresses the implications ofthe changing sociocultural influence (e.g., the media) on male body image and sexual objectification. Support was found for some, but not all, of the originally proposed mediating subjective psychological experiences that were thought to lead to depression. In this study, there was strong support for appearance anxiety, and weak support for peak motivational states (flow) as mediators ofthe relationship between self-objectification and depression, but no support for decreased awareness of internal bodily states. There was additional strong evidence for body shame as a mediator ofthe above relationship; however, in this sample, the direction of the relationship was counter to prediction and created some question as to how exactly the experience of body shame operates. Lastly, expected gender differences in the degree of self-objectification experienced were not found. While women in this sample did report more selfobjectification, the difference was not statistically significant. This finding was in contrast to early research on self-objectification that demonstrated significant differences between men and women, and that did not find evidence for self-objectification processes in men. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my parents, Francis and Elizabeth Ilaria, for supporting me all these years and for always believing in me. To the SPP community, for providing a rich leaming environment, and the faculty who have guided me through this professional journey. Special thanks to my dissertation committee, Krista Brockwood and James Lane.

Fashioning the Second Wave: Issues across Generations

Abstract: I write as someone who was a teenager in the 1960s and by the 1970s had engaged with Second Wave feminism. I look now on a new generation of young women, far removed from my own in many ways and yet in some ways worryingly close in the contradictions and tensions which exist for them in relation to fashion and dominant representations of femininity in the media. Feminism has failed to adequately address these problems in the past twenty years and it is only now beginning to re-appraise the work done by the Second Wave in interrogating the cultural construction of femininity. The position taken by Second Wave feminism on fashion and female representation has been consistently associated, especially since the 1980s, with "bra burning" Puritanism. This cliche belies the complexities of approach to be found in the range of feminisms of which the Second Wave was comprised. Unfortunately, however, such reductivist representations of Second Wave ideas have become culturally embedded and contributed to and conditioned a great deal of Post- and Third-Wave feminist writing on the subject from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. In the early 1990s, so called Post-Feminist writers such as Camille Paglia in the USA and Natasha Walter in Britain argued that the concerns with sexual objectification of women so central to Second Wave consciousness were no longer relevant to a subsequent generation who experienced fashion as playful and fun and as part of their own sexual empowerment (Walter 88). A recent flurry of Third Wave feminist writings which revaluate of the Second Wave feminist position on the politics of appearance in a positive way has been reassuring to women such as me who have long expressed concern over the collusion of post feminism with mainstream consumer culture in the excessive commodification of femininity. Writing by younger academics such as that by Gillis, Howie, and Monford has identified the generational divide between the Second and Third Wave as "a family affair" and located a reproductive narrative in the marginalizing of the aging body of the Second Wave. Yet if as Elizabeth Wilson states: "Dress is a cultural metaphor for the body, it is the material with which we write or draw a representation of the body into a cultural context" (Ash and Wilson 6), then many Third Wave Feminists inhabit the young body of the Second Wave through the current obsession of the fashion industry and the media with the look of the 1960s. The 1960s is the subject of a wide and continuing cultural pre-occupation. Ever since American Graffiti graced our screens in the early 1970s, nostalgia for the 1960s has been an increasingly significant part of the postmodern cultural landscape. This has been particularly obvious in fashion markets to a point where now the look of the mid-1960s has become synonymous with youthful femininity, the definitive expression of female identity in the early twenty-first century. Obviously other periods have been strongly referenced, most recently the 1980s, but it is the '60s which is the most consistently represented across popular culture and most visibly in fashion. Young men too cannot escape from the decade in terms of style, but I would argue that the significance for women is more profound as the look of the mid-1960s speaks so powerfully about female sexuality. In the constant touching and reworking of the 1960s in the media, the terms "permissive society" and "women's lib" are amongst the most frequently quoted and misunderstood. In contemporary fashion where styles of the 1960s are reworked, they are constructed in a way which implies freedom and glamour and contributes to a larger mythologizing which simply misses the point and the reality of the decade. Jeffrey Weeks said of the '60s: "the sexual liberation of women was developing in a dual context: of male definitions of sexual need and pleasure, and the capitalist organization of the labor market and of consumption" (26). …