Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Anchoring Sexualization: Contextualizing and Explicating the Contribution of Psychological Research on the Sexualization of Girls in the US and Beyond

  • Chapter
Children, Sexuality and Sexualization

Abstract

In the US, psychological researchers have been at the forefront of establishing and contributing to a public discourse on sexualization that holds responsible the media and corporations for using sexualization for profit. A growing body of knowledge produced by psychologists asks a particular set of research questions: What are the negative effects of sexualization on girls and women? How can we understand girls’ and women’s ‘participation’ in sexualization practices while maintaining the perspective that external forces are ultimately responsible and should therefore be called out and redressed? In the US public discourse, sexualization is understood as perhaps an unfortunately simplistic word for two distinct phenomena: (1) the sexualization of culture, which is an intensified presence and infusion of often uncalled-for sexuality into products, media and norms; and (2) the sexualization of individuals, meaning both the process and the effects of living within this sexualized context particularly on girls and women. This includes how girls navigate these pervasive representations of women and girls as sexual objects and introduces the psychological phenomena of self-sexualization and overt resistance to sexualization and being sexualized. Consistent with much of mainstream psychology, the behaviour of girls and women in relation to sexualization is studied with the assumption that this process is a response to the cultural omnipresence of sexualized imagery.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ali, S., Wong, C., & Slobe, T. (7 February 2014) Trans people speak their own truths — and that scares Piers Morgan. [Weblog post]. Retrieved from http://www.sparksummit.com/2014/02/07/trans-people-speak-their-own-truths-and-that-scares-piers-morgan/

    Google Scholar 

  • American Psychological Association (2013) Experts available to discuss Halloween costumes, body image, sexualization of girls. [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/10/costumes-sexualization.aspx

    Google Scholar 

  • American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. (2007) Report of the APA task force on the sexualization of girls. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Retrieved from www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.html

    Google Scholar 

  • Attwood, F. (2006) Sexed up: Theorizing the sexualization of culture. Sexualities, 9, 77–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aubrey, J., Hopper, K., & Mbure, W. G. (2011) Check that body! The effects of sexually objectifying music videos on college men’s sexual beliefs. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55, 360–379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bailey, R. (2011) Letting children be children: Report of an independent review of the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood. London: Department of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beauvoir, S. (1952) The second sex (H. M. Parshley Trans.). New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, V. S., Boys, S., Rose, C., & Beck, E. (2012) Violence against women in video games: A prequel or sequel to rape myth acceptance? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27, 3016–3031.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Behm-Morawitz, E., & Mastro, D. (2009) The effects of the sexualization of female video game characters on gender stereotyping and female self-concept. Sex Roles, 61, 808–823.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bragg, S., & Buckingham, D. (2013) Global concerns, local negotiations and moral selves: Contemporary parenting and the ‘sexualisation of childhood’ debate. Feminist Media Studies, 13, 643–659.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burgess, M. R., & Burpo, S. (2012) The effect of music videos on college students’ perceptions of rape. College Student Journal, 46, 748–763.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calogero, R. M., & Thompson, J. K. (2009a) Sexual self-esteem in American and British college women: Relations with self-objectification and eating problems. Sex Roles, 60, 160–173. doi: 10.1007/s11199–008-9517-

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calogero, R. M., & Thompson, J. K. (2009b) Potential implications of the objectification of women’s bodies for women’s sexual satisfaction. Body Image, 6, 145–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carr, E. R., & Szymanski, D. M. (2011) Sexual objectification and substance use in young adult women. The Counseling Psychologist, 39, 39–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Z., Teng, F., & Zhang, H. (2013) Sinful flesh: Sexual objectification threatens women’s moral self. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 1042–1048.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daniels, E. (2009) Sex objects, athletes, and sexy athletes: How media representations of women athletes can impact adolescent girls and college women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24 (4), 399–422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dines, G. (2010) Pornland: How porn has hijacked our sexuality. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duschinsky, R. (2013) The emergence of sexualization as a social problem: 1981–2010. Social Politics, 20 (1), 137–156. doi: 10.1093/sp/jxs016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edell, D., Brown, L. M., & Tolman, D. (2013) Embodying sexualisation: When theory meets practice in intergenerational feminist activism. Feminist Theory, 14 (3), 275–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Egan, R. D. (2013) Becoming sexual: A critical appraisal of the sexualization of girls. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Egan, R. D., & Hawkes, G. L. (2008) Endangered girls and incendiary objects: Unpacking the discourse on sexualization. Sexuality & Culture, 12, 291–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Else-Quest, N. M., & Hyde, J. S. (2009) The missing discourse of development: Commentary on Lerum and Dworkin. Journal of Sex Research, 46, 264–267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erchull, M. J., Liss, M., & Lichiello, S. (2013) Extending the negative consequences of media internalization and self-objectification to dissociation and self-harm. Sex Roles, 69, 583–593.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, A. (1984) Sex war: The debate between radical and libertarian feminists. Signs, 10 (1), 106–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fiss, O. M. (1985) Free speech and social structure. Iowa Law Review, 71, 1405–1425.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fredrickson, B. L., & Harrison, K. (2005) Throwing like a girl: Self-objectification predicts adolescent girls’ motor performance. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 29, 79–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T. (1997) Objectification theory: Toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 173–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fredrickson, B. L., Roberts, T., Noll, S. M., Quinn, D. M., & Twenge, J. M. (1998) That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 269–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gay, R. K., & Castano, E. (2010) My body or my mind: The impact of state and trait objectification on women’s cognitive resources. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 695–703

    Google Scholar 

  • Grabe, S., & Hyde, J. S. (2009) Body objectification, MTV, and psychological outcomes among female adolescents. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39, 2840–2858.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grabe, S., Ward, M. L., & Hyde, J. S. (2008) The role of the media in body image concerns among women: A meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 460–476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graff, K. A., Murnen, S. K., & Krause, A. K. (2013) Low-cut shirts and high-heeled shoes: Increased sexualization across time in magazine depictions of girls. Sex Roles, 69, 571–582.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graff, K., Murnen, S., & Smolak, L. (2012) Too sexualized to be taken seriously? Perceptions of a girl in childlike vs. sexualizing clothing. Sex Roles, 66, 764–775.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, L., & Secarea, A. M. (2010) College students’ attitudes toward the sexualization of professional women athletes. Journal of Sport Behavior, 33, 403–426.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatton, E., & Trautner, M. (2011) Equal opportunity objectification? The sexualization of men and women on the cover of Rolling Stone. Sexuality & Culture, 15, 256–278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hatton, E., & Trautner, M. (2013) Images of powerful women in the age of ‘choice feminism’. Journal of Gender Studies, 22, 65–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hebl, M. R., King, E. B., & Lin, J. (2004) The swimsuit becomes us all: Ethnicity, gender, and vulnerability to self-objectification. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1322–1331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill Collins, P. (1990) Black feminist thought. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Impett, E. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2006) To be seen and not heard: Femininity ideology and adolescent girls’ sexual health. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 35, 131–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, M., Nesbitt, M., Gujral, M., Evans, L., Luckhurst, G., & Ubiñas, B. (14 February 2014) Real girls, real talk: ‘I’d give #AerieReal a B’. [Weblog post]. Retrieved from http://www.sparksummit.com/2014/02/14/real-girls-real-talk-id-give-aeriereal-a-b/

    Google Scholar 

  • Kofoed, J., & Ringrose, J. (2012) Travelling and sticky affects: Exploring teens and sexualized cyberbullying through a Butlerian-Deleuzian-Guattarian lens. Discourse, 33 (1), 5–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Labbe, I. (17 June 2013) Ugh, dress codes. [Weblog post]. Retrieved from http://www.sparksummit.com/2013/06/17/ugh-dress-codes/

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindberg, S. M., Grabe, S., & Hyde, J. S. (2007) Gender, pubertal development, and peer sexual harassment predict objectified body consciousness in early adolescence. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 17, 723–742.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Loughnan, S., Pina, A., Vasquez, E. A., & Puvia, E. (2013) Sexual objectification increases rape victim blame and decreases perceived suffering. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 37, 455–461.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Machia, M., & Lamb, S. (2009) Sexualized innocence: Effects of magazine ads portraying adult women as sexy little girls. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 21, 15–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McClelland, S. I., & Fine, M. (2008) Writing on cellophane: Studying teen women’s sexual desires, inventing methodological release points. The Methodological Dilemma: Creative, Critical and Collaborative Approaches to Qualitative Research, 232–260.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mercurio, A. E., & Landry, L. J. (2008) Self-objectification and well-being: The impact of self-objectification on women’s overall sense of self-worth and life satisfaction. Sex Roles, 58, 458–466.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moscovici, S. (1984) The phenomenon of social representations, in R. Farr & S. Moscovici (Eds.) Social Representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Papadopoulos, L. (2010) Sexualisation of young people review. London: Home Office. Retrieved from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/Sexualisation-of-young-people.html

    Google Scholar 

  • Petersen, J. L., & Hyde, J. S. (2013) Peer sexual harassment and disordered eating in early adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 49, 184–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quinn, D. M., Kallen, R. W., Twenge, J. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2006) The disruptive effect of self-objectification on performance. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 59–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Renold, E., & Ringrose, J. (2011) Schizoid subjectivities? Re-theorizing teen girls’ sexual cultures in an era of ‘sexualization’. Journal of Sociology, 47, 389–409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ringrose, J. (2010) Sluts, whores, fat slags and playboy bunnies: Teen girls’ negotiations of ‘sexy’ on social networking sites and at school, in C. Jackson, C. Paechter, & E. Renold (Eds.) Girls and Education 3–16: Continuing Concerns, New Agendas. Basingstoke: Open University Press, pp. 170–182.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ringrose, J., & Renold, E. (2012) Slut-shaming, girl power and ‘sexualisation’: Thinking through the politics of the international SlutWalks with teen girls. Gender and Education, 24, 333–343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rush, E., & La Nauze, A. (2006) Corporate paedophilia: Sexualisation of children in Australia. Canberra: The Australia Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanchez, D. T., & Kiefer, A. K. (2007) Body concerns in and out of the bedroom: Implications for sexual pleasure and problems. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36, 808–820.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schooler, D., Ward, L. M., Merriwether, A., & Caruthers, A. S. (2005) Cycles of shame: Menstrual shame, body shame, and sexual decision-making. The Journal of Sex Research, 42 (4), 324–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Starr, C., & Ferguson, G. (2012) Sexy dolls, sexy grade-schoolers? Media & maternal influences on young girls’ self-sexualization. Sex Roles, 67, 463–476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tolman, D. L. (2002) Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Sexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolman, D. L. (2012) Female adolescents, sexual empowerment and desire: A missing discourse of gender inequity. Sex Roles, 66 (11–12), 746–757.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tolman, D. L., & Brown, L. M. (2010) Halloween and the sexualization of girls. Retrieved 24 July 2014 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-ltolman/halloween-and-the-sexuali_b_769891.html

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolman, D. L., & McClelland, S. I. (2011) Normative sexuality development in adolescence: A decade in review, 2000–2009. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 242–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, I. M. (1990) Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment, motility, and spatiality, in Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 141–159.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Deborah L. Tolman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Christin P. Bowman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jennifer F. Chmielewski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cardiff University, UK

    Emma Renold

  2. Institute of Education, University College London, UK

    Jessica Ringrose

  3. St Lawrence University, New York, USA

    R. Danielle Egan

Copyright information

© 2015 Deborah L. Tolman, Christin P. Bowman and Jennifer F. Chmielewski

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Tolman, D.L., Bowman, C.P., Chmielewski, J.F. (2015). Anchoring Sexualization: Contextualizing and Explicating the Contribution of Psychological Research on the Sexualization of Girls in the US and Beyond. In: Renold, E., Ringrose, J., Egan, R.D. (eds) Children, Sexuality and Sexualization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137353399_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation