Being a Body: Women’s Appearance Related Self-Views and their Dehumanization of Sexually Objectified Female Targets

When sexually objectified, women are reduced to their bodies or sexual body parts and become likely targets of dehumanization. Not only men, but also women engage in this process. In the present research, we tested the link between women’s appearance related self-views and their tendency to dehumanize sexually objectified female targets. Specifically, we test two mediational models and predict that (1) women’s motivation to look attractive to men and (2) their tendency to internalize the sociocultural beauty standards are linked with the dehumanization of sexually objectified female targets, and their level of self-objectification mediates both relations. To test these hypotheses, a sample of 55 heterosexual undergraduate female students from Northern Italy volunteered. Participants’ motivation to look attractive to men, their level of internalization of the sociocultural beauty standards, and their tendency to self-objectify was measured. Results confirmed that only sexually objectified female targets were significantly dehumanized, while their non-objectified counterparts were not. Moreover, both participants’ motivation to look attractive to men and their tendency to internalize the sociocultural beauty standards were positively linked with the dehumanization of sexually objectified female targets. As expected, these relations were mediated by participants’ level of self-objectification. These results show that higher levels of self-objectification among those women who are motivated either to look attractive to men or to internalize the sociocultural beauty standards are linked with their tendency to dehumanize sexually objectified female targets.     

Speaking of One’s Life: What Can We Learn from Transcultural Studies?

The work by Demuth et al. (Integrative Psychological and Bahavioral Science 45:1–20, 2011) is very important in the scenario of transcultural research, as it goes beyond the specific contexts of India and Germany. They successfully explored the dialogic relation between remembered autobiography, the self and the culture from a trans-generational development perspective, managing to identify common and unique processes of each culture. I, however, using a dynamical systems approach, present a supplementary way to the one chosen in the study, with the goal of analyzing how these new perspectives might contribute to the understanding of this phenomenon. The dynamical systems is a perspective sensitive to non-linearity of phenomena and interested in understanding how processes emerge, as it may be useful to analyze the family as a dynamical system under constant interaction with other systems, which makes the emergence of the self, possible. Besides, it would enable the identification of trajectories that individuals build over time, the moments of change and variability, as well as identifying different types of patterns in the process of construction of the self.     

Women’s Perceptions and Use of “Anti-Aging” Products

Recent advances in the cosmetics industry have accelerated the availability of products marketed as “anti-aging.” Our research goals were to identify the factors that predict women’s purchase of these products, and to gain insight into women’s perceptions of the anti-aging market. Three hundred and four Canadian women were surveyed about their use of anti-aging products, body satisfaction, aging anxiety, appearance importance, sociocultural pressures and self-esteem, as well as open-ended responses about their perceptions of anti-aging products. Greater aging anxiety and higher importance of appearance were related to greater likelihood of purchasing anti-aging products. Women also described an interesting paradox whereby they report using these products while remaining critical of media messages and embracing the idea of natural aging.     

Your Sexism Predicts My Sexism: Perceptions of Men’s (but not Women’s) Sexism Affects One’s Own Sexism Over Time

The effects of perceived normative (societal) levels of benevolent (BS) and hostile sexism (HS) on one’s own sexist attitudes were examined over a four-month period in an undergraduate New Zealand sample (76 women, 26 men). Perceptions of normative levels of men’s BS produced longitudinal change in one’s own BS, and this effect was invariant across gender. However, contrary to previous research suggesting that women endorse BS when men are high in HS for its protective benefits, women instead expressed subjectively positive paternalistic attitudes toward their gender to the extent that they perceived BS as normative in men. The transmission of patriarchical-defined ideologies is tempered by the degree to which such ideologies espouse benevolent versus more overtly hostile attitudes toward women.     

Genetic Testing Likelihood: The Impact of Abortion Views and Quality of Life Information on Women’s Decisions

Little is known about factors predicting the likelihood of choosing genetic testing in college aged women versus older women, including knowledge of quality of life (QOL) associated with a disorder. Using vignettes with female college students (Experiment 1: n = 257, mean age = 19.70 yrs) and female faculty/staff/alumni (Experiment 2: n _nulliparous = 83, mean age = 30.20 yrs; n _mothers = 53, mean age = 33.77 yrs), we examined the contribution of multiple factors to predicting genetic testing likelihood for cystic fibrosis. We investigated malleable situational factors (style of genetic risk presentation and providing QOL information including physical and social aspects) and stable dispositional factors (abortion views). Parity (i.e., prior births) was more influential in women’s genetic testing likelihood than was age. Greater acceptability of abortion for oneself and self-assessed knowledge following QOL information were predictors of higher testing likelihood for college students. Greater acceptability of abortion for another person was a predictor for nulliparous women. Abortion views moderated the effect of predictors for nulliparous women and mothers. Findings encourage genetic counselors to utilize QOL information to promote informed decision making through genetic testing.     

Self-objectification and Well-being: The Impact of Self-objectification on Women’s Overall Sense of Self-worth and Life Satisfaction

Research on objectification theory (Fredrickson and Roberts in Psychology of Women Quarterly 21:173–206, 1997) has demonstrated relations among self-objectification, body shame, and negative health outcomes. Less research has focused on the relation of self-objectification to indicators of well-being. We examined associations among self-objectification, body shame, and two indicators of well-being (i.e., self-esteem and satisfaction with life) in a path analytic model. We also tested explicitly whether body shame mediated the relation between self-objectification and self-esteem and whether self-esteem mediated the relation between body shame and life satisfaction. Female undergraduates (N = 227) from the United States completed questionnaires assessing the constructs of interest. Results indicated that the proposed model fit the data and that body shame and self-esteem mediated as predicted. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

“Clean and Fresh”: Understanding Women’s use of Vaginal Hygiene Products

We explore Canadian women’s use of vaginal hygiene products including feminine washes, douches, sprays, deodorants, wipes, and powders. Vaginal hygiene products in North America are part of a two billion dollar industry, which focuses on cleanliness and freshness in their advertising toward women. In interviewing women who were currently using or had previously used vaginal hygiene products, we found that vaginal cleanliness and freshness were also frequently brought up as reasons for using these products. Using an inductive thematic analysis informed by Braun and Clarke (2013) we explore how attaining a clean-and-fresh vagina has become a subjective physical need for the participants in our study. In a society where female genitalia are constructed as unclean, we argue the marketing of vaginal hygiene products contributes to the problematization of women’s genitalia by suggesting women need to use these products to attain an ideal (i.e., clean and fresh) vagina. The reliance on vaginal hygiene products reported by participants in attaining sensations of vaginal cleanliness and freshness raises concerns in the context of medical literature suggesting adverse health risks that may result from using some of these products. Potential risks include bacterial vaginosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, and a higher susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections, among others. We believe that companies that advertise these products as beneficial for vaginal health and hygiene can be perceived as not just misinforming women but also profiting from products that are harmful.     

“My Life Purpose Is…”: Assessment of Youth Purpose in Context

In the introduction to this special issue on youth purpose, the authors discuss the challenges in assessing purpose in adolescents; purpose is a concept that has more often been studied in adults but not in youth. First, theauthors discuss how purpose has been defined in the literature. The authors then situate purpose in the context of a host of related constructs, such as intentional self-regulation, future orientation, goal setting, and identity. Additionally, the authors discuss the importance of accurately measuring youth purpose, as well as in what contexts the assessment of purpose is useful, such as for positive youth development researchers, as well as practitioners and evaluators of youth development programs.     

A Woman’s Place and a Man’s Duty: How Gender Role Incongruence in One’s Family Life Can Result in Home-Related Spillover Discrimination at Work

The purpose of this study was to investigate how gender role incongruence in terms of women being primary wage earners and males being secondary wage earners in their families could affect them at work. Using an experimental design and a sample of 306 college students, I explored how females who are the primary wage earners in their families and males who are the secondary wage earners are perceived and evaluated in a work setting. I proposed, and found, that female primary wage earners are seen as the least overqualified and are given lower reward recommendations than equally qualified male peers (i.e., peers with exactly the same credentials and job performance). Male secondary wage earners are seen as being the most overqualified and are given higher reward recommendations than equally qualified female peers. Results demonstrate how the lack of fit model, which has been shown to penalize women who succeed in traditionally masculine domains (Dipboye, Acad Manag Rev 10:16–127, 1985; Heilman, Res Organ Behav 5:269–298, 1983, J Soc Issues 57:657–674, 2001), can be applied to situations where gender-incongruent behavior exists in the form of women being primary wage earners in their families. I refer to this phenomenon as “home-related spillover discrimination,” named after the spillover effects that derive from societal expectations that are transferred into employment situations (Nieva and Gutek, Acad Manag Rev 5:267–276, 1980). The practical implication of this finding is that this may present a new form of sex discrimination against women that has not yet been considered. This is the first study to show how violating stereotypical roles in terms of family wage earner status can influence outcomes in work settings.     

How Nice of Us and How Dumb of Me: The Effect of Exposure to Benevolent Sexism on Women’s Task and Relational Self-Descriptions

This research demonstrates how women assimilate to benevolent sexism by emphasizing their relational qualities and de-emphasizing their task-related characteristics when exposed to benevolent sexism. Studies 1 (N?=?62) and 2 (N?=?100) show, with slightly different paradigms and measures, that compared to exposure to hostile sexism, exposure to benevolent sexism increases the extent to which female Dutch college students define themselves in relational terms and decreases the extent to which they emphasize their task-related characteristics. Study 3 (N?=?79) demonstrates that benevolent sexism has more pernicious effects when it is expressed by someone with whom women expect to collaborate than when no collaboration is expected with the source of sexism. The implications of these results are discussed.     

Challenge and Conformity on “Contested Terrain”: Images of Women in Four Women’s Sport/Fitness Magazines

Women’s sport magazines were launched during the mid-to-late 1990s as a response to the growing women’s sport movement in the United States. These magazines, including Real Sports, Sports Illustrated for Women, and Women’s Sports & Fitness, were marketed as more active and sport-focused than established titles such as Shape, a popular magazine launched during the early 1980s for fitness-oriented women. Shape has been criticized by scholars for reinforcing male hegemony in US culture through its emphasis on sexual difference. In the present research, we analyzed photo images presented in Sports Illustrated for Women, Women’s Sports & Fitness, and Real Sports to assess the reinforcement or rejection of sexual difference in these magazines as gauged against the presentation of sexual difference in Shape. The results show that the newer magazines do, to varying degrees, contest male hegemony more than Shape does. The impact of these magazines is discussed, and we speculate on the reasons that, although Shape continues to thrive, these magazines have ceased publication.     

“Wonderful but Weak”: Children’s Ambivalent Attitudes Toward Women

Sex Roles - According to ambivalent sexism theory, prejudice toward women has two forms: hostile (i.e., antipathy toward women) and benevolent (i.e., patronizing and paternalistic attitudes toward...     

“Feeling my Sister’s Pain”: Perceived Victim Suffering Moderates the Impact of Sexualized Music Videos on Fijian Women’s Responses to Men’s Intimate Partner Violence against Women

To better understand how sexualized music videos affect women’s responses to intimate partner violence (IPV), we examined the role of individual variability in perceived victim pain and perceived victim culpability in moderating and mediating (respectively) the priming effects of sexual music videos on women. Female Fijian college students (n?=?243) were randomly assigned to one of three viewing conditions: stereotyped sexual music videos, non-stereotyped/non-sexual music videos, or neutral videos. All participants then read a portrayal of a male-toward-female IPV episode and their perceptions of the female victim and male perpetrator were assessed. Only women who minimized the victim’s pain were adversely affected by exposure to the stereotyped sexual videos. Specifically, for women who perceived low victim pain, those in the stereotyped video condition perceived the victim as more culpable and reported greater perpetrator-directed favorable responding than those in the other two conditions. For these women who perceived low victim pain, perceptions of victim culpability mediated the impact of video type on perpetrator-favorable responding. The findings help us better understand susceptibility to the negative impact of stereotypical sexual videos and highlight areas, such as emphasizing the suffering of victims and reducing myths about victim culpability, which may be worthy of particular emphasis in interventions.

     

Lotus Blossom or Dragon Lady: A Content Analysis of “Asian Women” Online Pornography

A content analysis was undertaken to consider the depiction of sexual behaviors in a random sample of videos from the “Asian Women” category of content on Xvideos.com, which is the largest and most popularly visited free online pornography tube site in US. The study has shown that women in the Asian women category were depicted very differently from women in other categories of pornography. Women in Asian women category of pornography were treated less aggressively. In addition, women in Asian women category were less objectified but also had lower agency in sexual activities. Thus, the Asian women stereotype in current pornography is closer to “Lotus Blossom” and far away from “Dragon Lady”. The results are considered in terms of their potential to influence the perceptions of content consumers.     

“I’m Not Your Stereotypical Mormon Girl”: Mormon Women’s Gendered Resistance

Research on women in gender-traditional religions has shown that women often exercise agency within the gendered confines of their religious institutions. This paper builds on the growing literature on women’s agency in gender-traditional religions by exploring whether and why some active Mormon women resist the gendered expectations of their faith more strongly than others. Drawing on interviews with women members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church, Mormon), we find that eight of the 30 women interviewed strongly resisted traditional Mormon gender expectations. We then explore their patterns of resistance and provide possible explanations for why they resist gender traditionalism more than the other participants. We discuss the wider implications of our findings, including a call for further examinations of the ways in which women’s religious experiences include both accommodation and resistance to traditional ideas about gender.     

Assessing College Women’s Perception of Putative Risk for Being Sexually Victimized by a Man: Development of the Sexual Assault Script Scale (SASS)

Sex Roles - Sexual assault is highly prevalent and a significant public health problem. The responsibility for sexual assault lies solely with the perpetrator, yet interventions to change...     

“It’s Sort of My Calling”: The Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility of Latino Immigrant-Origin Young Adults

The aim of this study was to describe civic patterns of engagement of Latino first- and secondgeneration (immigrant-origin) young adults and to provide insights into what differentiates these patterns. Based on 58 in-depth interviews with 18- to 25-year-olds of Dominican, Mexican, and Central American origin, the authors first established variations in different levels of civic engagement profiles. The authors then analyzed the characteristics that distinguish these civic profiles, considering demographic variables (generation, gender, education level, and undocumented status) as well as motivations for civic engagement. Two thirds of first- and second-generation participants were actively engaged, though variations in patterns emerged across civic profiles; undocumented status appeared a particularly salient driver of engagement. The authors found that rather than being instrumentally and individually motivated, Latino immigrant-origin young adults were primarily motivated to be civically engaged by social responsibility as well as by social (in)justices.     

A Model of Sexually and Physically Victimized Women’s Process of Attaining Effective Formal Help over Time: The Role of Social Location, Context, and Intervention

As empirical evidence has demonstrated the pervasiveness of sexual assault and intimate partner violence in the lives of women, and the links to poor mental health outcomes, attention has turned to examining how women seek and access formal help. We present a conceptual model that addresses prior limitations and makes three key contributions: It foregrounds the influence of social location and multiple contextual factors; emphasizes the importance of the attainment of effective formal help that meets women's needs and leads to positive mental health outcomes; and highlights the role of interventions in facilitating help attainment. We conclude with research and practice implications.