Sexualization of men and women
Introduction
For centuries, the pictures of barely dressed males and females are used in adorning magazine covers, posters, advertisements, and all manner of media which have become a regular feature in popular culture. Critics also criticize the obvious growing sexualization of advertising and broadcast media. However, from a theoretical point of view, it is not entirely clear how much of an increase in sexuality usage in the mass culture and branding has occurred, if any. A 2011 study posted in Sexuality and Culture, Equal Opportunity Objectification? The Sexualization of Men and Women on the Rolling Stone Cover analyzes if or not males and females were disproportionately sexualized by contrasting of Rolling Stone magazine cover throughout 1967 up to 2009. The authors, Hatton and Trautner, claim to have chosen the magazine for its consistency in publication, and because the depictions of females and males on Rolling Stone’s cover largely match common cultural photos, especially for more than lifestyle publications that are often specifically about relationships, sex or sexuality.
Journal Discipline
A variety of writers and academics have referred to males and females’ objectification in mass media to claim that Modern society is becoming sexual or maybe even pornified and to explain if males or females have been sexualized more often or more intensively over a period (Krassas, et al., 2001). They examine the photos of males and females on the magazine pages in a quantitative format. Researchers believe that explicit images of women and men have risen, although females’ gender continues to be sexualized more likely than the male gender. The most significant observation is how females are sexualized, but not male. Female is more and more prone to be hypersexualized but not male (Goffman, 1979). Such observations not only record shifts in the sexualization of women as well as men in mass culture in a long period, they still lead to a reduction of forms of doing female sexuality that is historically appropriate, as portrayed in mass media.
Literature reviews
Kang (1997) notes that certain forms of sex stereotyping, like males being showed to be taller than females, had practically vanished by 1991, but there was a rise in female body displays. Analyzing this mixture of rises and falls in sex generalizing as some kind of measuring scale, Kang believes that there has been no shift in the representation of females in advertising over the 11 years. Lindner (2004) employed three parameters: the potential to travel rapidly and further, the private against public space, and the objectification of how the star’s main role is to be stared at. Following such steps, Lindner notes that magazines depend on sex roles, but in various forms, especially when it comes to sexualization. Lindner concludes that stereotyping happens without the use of sexualized pictures of ladies. Though each one of the researches includes new variables to quantify sexualization, they do not fully capture the spectrum of sexualized features in the Hatton and Trautner (2011) evaluation. Therefore, although measuring the frequency of sexual characteristics, they do not quantify if the picture of a woman as a whole instead of just her boobs, has become much more common and more frequently sexualized over years.
Method Used
The authors create an index of sexualization to quantify the strength of sexualized depictions by females and males. A picture was assigned marks for sexualization if, for instance, the participant’s lips were split or his or her tongue was visible, the participant was only slightly dressed or nude, or the text defining the participant used specifically sexual terminology or they had been lying on a bed or posing in a sexually provocative manner. Depending on the scale, the researchers described three classifications of images: those who were largely not sexualized getting 0 to 4 points, those who were sexualized getting 5 to 10 points, and those who were sexualized so intensively that the researchers branded them as hypersexualized getting 11 to 23 points (Hatton and Trautner 2011). The method used was not appropriate because the individuals used in the magazine could be advertising for a swimming costume or somebody products hence being characterized as sexual. It creates an assumption where for those that are fully dressed not to be termed as beautiful or sexy hence encouraging more use of nudes which lowers the moral standard of the community.
Conclusion
Depictions of both females and males have gradually become much more sexualized with time and females tend to be sexualized more often than men. It’s not troubling for women to be depicted as sexy (Hatton and Trautner 2011). But it’s troubling when almost every picture of women show them not only as gorgeous women but as helpless targets for the sexual satisfaction of somebody else. Sex sales do not justify the pattern towards female’s hyper-sexualization because if it were correct, there would be so many female’s pictures on the covers of Rolling Stone in which only 30 percent of the covers highlight female’s pictures, and much more sexually explicit and highly sexualized male’s pictures. Sexually provocative representations of women undermine or intensify violence towards women and children, along with sexual assault and views of females among boys and men. Such representation has increased the levels of appearance insecurity and or eating problems among males, girls, and women; and also, to reduce sexual pleasure among females and males. The intensity of female sexualized pictures in common media, especially in combination with the excessive frequency of their sexualization, is indeed a cause for concern.