Sexualized and Athletic: Viewers’ Attitudes toward Sexualized Performance Images of Female Athletes

Using an experimental methodology, the present study investigated college students’ attitudes toward media images of female athletes. We are particularly focused on how viewers perceive media images of female athletes that have both an appearance and athleticism focus, such as those found in ESPN’s The Body Issue. An aim of our study was to assess viewers’ attitudes toward these images that are not purely objectified, thereby contributing to the objectification literature and providing empirical data relevant to theorizing on the social impact of these images. U.S. college students (n?=?563) viewed one of four types of images of the same athletes including: (a) sexualized athletes, (b) sexualized performance athletes (in which both athleticism and sexualization are present), (c) sport performance athletes (in which athletes are depicted playing their sport), or (d) non-sexualized athletes. They then rated the athletes’ competence, esteem, and sexual appeal. Overall, sexualized performance athletes were rated more positively than sexualized athletes, but less positively than sport performance athletes. These results have implications for advocacy efforts calling for more media coverage in which women are depicted as athletes rather than as sexual objects.

     

“Think Athletic Director, Think Masculine?”: Examination of the Gender Typing of Managerial Subroles Within Athletic Administration Positions

To examine the influence of gender stereotyping of administration positions in intercollegiate athletics, the present study evaluated the gender typing of managerial subroles by undergraduate and graduate sport management students from two northeastern universities in the U.S. (59 women, 189 men). Participants indicated importance of managerial subroles for the positions of athletic director, life skills coordinator, and compliance coordinator. Participants rated masculine managerial subroles as most important for athletic director, however feminine managerial subroles were rated of similar importance for both the life skills coordinator and the athletic director. There were no differences between women and men on evaluation of the importance of managerial subroles across all positions. Results of the current study provide some support for role congruity theory within athletic administration.     

Women’s Experiences of Female Ejaculation

Thirteen women responded to an open-ended questionnaire about their female ejaculation experiences. Responses are described from a phenomenological perspective. The major themes of responses include feelings of humiliation and shame or feelings of exploration and wonder, moving towards acceptance or acceptance tinged with resignation. Women explain their relationships to their bodies as well as their relationship to the ejaculation fluids and how this affects their sexual identities. The origins of their sexual fluids are mysterious. The stimulation needed for ejaculation differed among respondents, and was also found to occur separately from orgasm for some women. Ejaculation began at one of two distinct time points in the life course. This study supports the existence of female ejaculation as a common experience for some women, and proposes new areas for further exploration.     

Certified Athletic Trainers’ Understanding and Use of Sport Psychology in Their Practice

Nine certified athletic trainers from one National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I institution participated in semistructured interviews about their understanding of sport psychology and use of psychological strategies in their work with injured athletes. Through Consensual Qualitative Research (Hill, 2012 Hill, C. E. (2012). Consensual qualitative research: A practical resource for investigating social science phenomenon. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. [Google Scholar]) procedures, three major domains were constructed: (a) recognition of the common psychological challenges of injury rehabilitation, (b) knowledge and understanding of sport psychology, and (c) utilization of sport psychology skills and strategies for rehabilitation. Although athletic trainers utilized basic psychological strategies (e.g., goal setting, reassurance) during injury rehabilitation, findings support the need for an interprofessional team approach to enhancing psychological recovery.     

Power implications of touch in male—Female relationships

Nancy Henley argues that nonreciprocal touch in male—female relations is used by men as a status reminder to keep women in their place. This study examines Henley's argument by exposing 60 observers to photographs of male—female interactions and asking them to rate the pictured actors on the degree to which each dominates the interaction. The interactions differ across two dimensions: status differences evident in the age and dress of the participants (female higher vs. equal vs. male higher) and who is touching whom (female toucher vs. no toucher vs. male toucher). Results of the study support but qualify the status reminder argument. Nonreciprocal touch reduces the perceived power of the person being touched whether the high-status or the low-status person is doing the touching and whether the man or the woman is being touched. Thus, nonreciprocal touch can be used by high-status men to remind lower-status women of their subordinate positions. But it can also be used by lower status women to undermine the status claims of higher status men. In the equal status interactions, nonreciprocal touch does not alter power perceptions as systematically. This finding suggests that without other status cues evident in the relationship, touch alone is insufficient to establish a power advantage for either party.     

How Do Athletic Status and Disability Status Affect the Five-Factor Model of Personality?

This article addresses the issue of whether athletic status and disability status affect the Big Five personality dimensions (Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect/Openness to Experience). Scores were compared between groups of athletes and nonathletes who either did or did not have disabilities. Individuals with disabilities had higher scores for Emotional Stability and Conscien- tiousness and lower scores for Extraversion than did fully able respondents. Athletic status did not affect scores, although the time of onset of impairment had significant effects on scale scores. The personality model's internal psychometric properties (reliabilities, means, variances, correlational structure) among people with disabilities did not differ appreciably from fully able respondents. Implications are discussed.     

Is Female Body Esteem Shaped by Benevolent Sexism?

The present investigation sought to determine whether women's body attitudes could be understood as a manifestation of benevolent sexism. Results indicated that women who held many benevolent sexist beliefs not only used more cosmetics when preparing for a romantic date than women who endorsed few such beliefs, but they also expressed more positive attitudes toward an aspect of female body esteem, sexual attractiveness, that can be altered using cosmetic products.     

Deviant or Normal? Female Bodybuilders' Accounts of Social Reactions

In response to calls for more inclusive and nuanced studies of deviance, Heckert and Heckert (2002 Heckert , Alex and Druann Maria Heckert . 2002 . “A New Typology of Deviance: Integrating Normative and Reactivist Definitions of Deviance.” Deviant Behavior 23 : 449 – 479 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) developed a typology that incorporates both normative and reactive definitions. Their model accounts for negative deviance, positive deviance, deviance admiration, and deviant conformity (rate-busting). Through participant observation and in-depth interviews with ten amateur female bodybuilders at a university in the United States, we apply the typology to explain their perceptions of social reactions from a variety of audiences. Female bodybuilders' accounts of others' reactions to their increasingly muscular bodies, extreme dieting practices, and intense workout routines provide intriguing empirical examples of all four deviance types. Findings reflect the complexity of a deviance–conformity continuum and support the call for studies that go beyond negative social response and countercultural behavior or appearance.     

Sense of Coherence During Female Holocaust Survivors’ Formative Years

Four female Holocaust survivors were interviewed in order to investigate how they coped prior to the Holocaust, during the Holocaust years, following the end of World War II, and during integration within emerging Jewish society prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Antonovsky’s (1987 Antonovsky, A. (1987). Unraveling the mystery of health: How people manage stress and stay well. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. [Google Scholar]) concept of sense of coherence (SOC) and thematic analysis were employed. The analysis suggests that their ability to navigate these life-changing circumstances as young women was the result of the elasticity of the SOC components and the meanings ascribed to them, depending on the situations encountered.     

Female Online Sex Workers’ Perceptions of Exit from Sex Work

Although the sex work industry has evolved with the emergence of internet marketing, little research examines sex workers who advertise online (i.e., online sex workers) and how their work experiences may differ from those of other sex workers who have been studied more extensively. This qualitative study addresses this gap by examining female online sex workers’ perceptions of exit from sex work. Data come from semi-structured interviews conducted in Southern California in 2014, with twenty-seven female online sex workers. Participants varied in their perceptions of exit meaning, desirability, and feasibility, and in their intentions to exit from sex work.     

Female “Thin Ideal” Media Images and Boys' Attitudes Toward Girls

Both boys and girls are exposed repeatedly to “thin-ideal” images in the media, that is, images of unrealistically thin and attractive women. As yet, however, little research has examined the impact of these images on boys. In the present study we investigated the effect of exposure to televised thin-ideal images on boys' attitudes toward girls. The participants were 354 boys aged 13–15 years, who viewed either 20 commercials that epitomized the thin-ideal for women or 20 commercials that contained no such images. They then rated the importance of 10 characteristics, including slimness and physical attractiveness, in their choice of partner or girlfriend. Appearance schematicity, a trait measure of the extent of investment in appearance as the basis for self-evaluation, was also assessed. It was found that schematicity was positively related to boys' importance ratings of attractiveness, slimness, athletic ability, muscularity, and popularity in a girlfriend. Further, boys who scored medium (but not high or low) on appearance schematicity were influenced by the commercials. These findings suggest that the media may have an indirect impact on girls' body image through influence on boys' expectations and evaluations of girls' appearance.     

“Castration Anxiety” Revisited: Especially “Female Castration Anxiety”

ABSTRACT

I find the term castration anxiety a still relevant and important key body fearful fantasy in males, especially expressing fear of the father; as is female castration anxiety an equivalent key fear of the ablation of the sexual and reproductive organs of females, especially by the avenging mother. Freud’s and his followers’ version of the female anxiety, however, has repetitively been shown to be askew since the 1930s, yet it keeps appearing again, as if still worthy of serious argument. To demonstrate its utter blindness to an emotional or imaginative appreciation of female body reproductive functioning, a detailed critique is offered of the once classic paper, “The Body as Phallus” by Bertram Lewin (1933). I recommend that a straightforward sense of female castration is helpful in exploring female body anxieties as a more defined bodily referent than can be encompassed by separation anxieties that are currently more popular.     

Can Darwinian Feminism Save Female Autonomy and Leadership in Egalitarian Society?

As a Darwinian feminist I welcome any attempt at correcting the historical neglect of women’s roles in human evolution, as Rebecca J. Hannagan (2008, in this issue) does in her paper “Gendered Political Behavior: A Darwinian Feminist Approach.” There is much to be said for the view that women’s political agency in foraging societies has systematically been underestimated, due to a combination of researcher bias and the lesser visibility of women’s political strategies. As a feminist Darwinian, however, I must conclude that wishful thinking seems to have led Hannagan into overestimating the degree of female autonomy and leadership in these societies.     

Independent Female Escort’s Strategies for Coping with Sex Work Related Stigma

Despite the reframing of ??prostitution?? as ??sex work?? in research and advocacy literature, the stigma associated with this activity persists. This study examines how independent female sex workers advertising online as ??escorts?? perceive and manage the stigma associated with their work, and how these coping strategies impact their personal relationships. Thirty escorts participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews; Goffman??s (1963) theory of stigma and information management strategies was used as a theoretical framework to guide the analysis of women??s experiences. Women who engaged in selective disclosure regarding sex work reported greater access to social support, while women who concealed their work from most people often reported feeling lonely and socially isolated. Escorts?? stigma coping strategies may have significant impact on their social relationships and access to social support.     

Do Child Molesters Have Aberrant Perceptions of Adult Female Facial Attractiveness?1

The multiple fitness model (Cunningham, 1986) suggests that attractive adult faces combine youthful neonate features with indications of sexual maturity. But a question can be raised whether the multiple fitness model applies to child molesters. In contrast to prior studies that examined child molesters’ attraction to children, we examined child molesters’ perceptions of adult women. Incarcerated child molesters (N= 68) rated the attractiveness of photographs of 24 adult women. Their ratings were compared with ratings made by 30 heterosexual college men. The 2 groups displayed remarkably similar judgments (r= .91). Child molesters were not more attracted to neonate features compared to other men, nor were they more repelled by maturity features. Like the college men, the child molesters were attracted to faces with large eyes and high cheekbones. Because the multiple fitness model applied to child molesters, differences between the sexual behavior of child molesters and other men do not seem to be attributable to differences in their perceptions of potential adult female partners’ faces.     

The Grotesque Female in Malaysian Poems: Shaping the Migrant��s Psyche

The works of Malaysian poet, Wong Phui Nam's Against the Wilderness (vii) China bride and Variations on a Birthday Theme (iv) Kali, illustrate a bride and a mother in terrifying images. Wong's stylistic form of representing the female body through startling images of inversion and degradation evoke feelings of unease. The suspension between the known and the unknown causes a bewildering reality verging on madness. Interpreted through the lens of the carnivalesque, specifically, the grotesque body, festive language and parody, I attempt to reconstruct the psyche of the Chinese migrant which underpins these poems. The migrant who arrived in Malaya during the colonial era in the early nineteenth century faced political and social struggles in adapting to a new land. In the poems, the migrant juxtaposes his position to a female and uses the female body as a site of contention to intensify the torment of the psyche and to reflect the despair of the Chinese in Malaysia.     

Predictors of Female College Students’ Relationship Satisfaction: Attachment and Sexual Assertiveness

We examined attachment and sexual assertiveness to contribute uniquely to female college students’ relationship satisfaction. Results revealed that (a) attachment anxiety contributed negatively and uniquely to female college students’ relationship satisfaction and that (b) sexual assertiveness contributed positively and uniquely to relationship satisfaction after controlling the variances accounted by attachment. This study has an implication for noting the importance of women’s sexual assertiveness in their relationship satisfaction.     

Female first,leader second? Gender bias in the encoding of leadership behavior

In the current paper we investigate whether gender affects the encoding of leadership behavior. In three studies we found evidence that perceivers had difficulty encoding leadership behaviors into their underlying prototypical leadership traits when the behavior implied an agentic trait and the behavior was enacted by a female. Using a lexical decision making task, in Study 1 we demonstrated that agentic leadership traits were less accessible than communal leadership traits when the leader was female. Additionally, Study 1 also demonstrated that agentic traits were less accessible when the leader was female versus male. In Studies 2a and 2b, we replicated the differences we found for agentic leadership behaviors using perceiver’s self-ratings as the dependent variable. Results are discussed both in terms of their implications for future research on gender bias in leadership and their practical implications for eliminating gender bias against females who aspire to leadership positions.