Source 1
Trautner, Mary N., and Erin Hatton. "Gender, Sexualization and Rolling Stone." Sociological Images RSS. W. W. Norton & Company, 30 Dec. 2011. Web. 31 Oct. 2014. <http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/12/30/gender-sexualization-and-rolling-stone/>.
Summary:
This article provided graphs of when images of men and women were sexualized, non sexualized, or hyper sexualized on covers of Rolling Stone. The level of sexualization was based on a point system from 1-23 and a number of variables gave each cover a certain amount of points. By the 2000s, 61% of women were hypersexualized, and another 22% were sexualized.
Quotes:
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“We don’t think it’s just the idea that “sex sells.” If that were true, we’d see many more images of women on Rolling Stone’s covers (only 30% of covers feature images of women) and we’d also see more sexualized and hypersexualized images of men”
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“In order to analyze these 1000+ images of men and women, we developed a “scale of sexualization.” This scale was composed of 11 different variables to measure different aspects of sexualization.”
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“So, in the last decade, if you were to pick up a copy of Rolling Stone that featured a woman on its cover, you would most likely see her portrayed in a sexualized manner, since fully 83% of women were either sexualized or hypersexualized in the 2000s.”
Analysis:
This article is what initially led me to follow Trautner and Hatton’s study. It was very helpful in summarizing their paper and presented presented the results nicely. The article also pointed out how this increased sexulization of women has lead to a decisive narrowing or homogenization of media representations of women. Something else it pointed out was that is sex sells, then shouldn't men be objectified as well ? This was a very interesting claim and it opened my eyes to what really sells in media, not sex but rather objectification.
Source 2
Hatton, Erin, and Mary Nell Trautner. "Equal Opportunity Objectification? The Sexualization of Men and Women on the Cover of Rolling Stone." Sexuality & Culture 15.3 (2011): 256-78. Web. <http://seejane.org/wpcontent/uploads/Hatton_Trautner_Sexuality_and_Culture.pdf>
Summary:
This is the actual study that Trautner and Hatton did but more in depth. It is the original paper. This paper goes in depth with the specifics of their analysis (how many covers were used, specific variables and more emphasis on the point system). There were 11 variables tested for each cover, clothing and nudity (0-5 pts), touch (0-3 pts), pose (0-2 pts), mouth (0-2 pts), breasts/chest; gentials; buttocks exposure (0-2 points each), text that refers to the central figure (0-2 pts), head vs. body shot (0-1 point), sex act (0-1 point), and sexual role play (0-1 point). Once each cover was put through the test it would score between 0 and 23 and be put into a level of sexualization (nonsexualized, sexualized or hypersexualized).
Quotes:
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“Goffman (1979) found that women were often shown in advertisements to be covering their mouths or sucking on their finger as part of what he called ‘‘licensed withdrawal’’—a lack of presence and, therefore, power.”
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“In our examination of Rolling Stone cover images, however, we found the text describing an image to be an important element of its sexualization. We coded only the text on the magazine cover that was directly related to the cover image.”
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“These findings speak clearly to debates about the sexualization of men in popular media. While sexualized images of men have increased, men are still dramatically less likely to be sexualized than women. This difference is further highlighted by looking at the numerical frequency of such images: In the 2000s, there were 28 sexualized images of men (17% of male images) but 57 sexualized images of women (83% of female images), and there were 136 nonsexualized images of men (83% of male images) but only 12 nonsexualized images of women (17% of female images)”
Analysis:
This paper really helped me evaluate Hatton and Trautner’s study so that I could perform it myself on covers from 2010-2014. I got a sense of how they would judge certain variable by their in depth explanations of each variable. The covers that they analyzed also gave me a sense of how I could analyze my own. If at any point I was unsure of something I could easily go back and check, there seemed to be an answer for everything. Soon this system that they created of judging covers became really easy to use and I was able to look at a cover for about a minute and have it’s overall score ready.
Source 3
Goh-Mah, Joy. "The Objectification of Women - It Goes Much Further Than Sexy Pictures." The Huffington Post UK. N.p., 6 Sept. 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/joy-goh-mah/objectification-women-sexy-pictures_b_3403251.html>.
Summary:
In this article Goh-Mah expressed that the sexual objectification we generally think of is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other ways in which women are objectified as opposed to men that have become a part of our everyday lives. She makes a point about pronouns and how everything people refer to (like a dog) is simply a “he” but suddenly when objects such as boats, cars, bikes and ships are represented, they alway seem to be a she. She states that this is only because these objects are the possession of men so its nothing for women to get excited about. The example of how women are represented in movies or in general as somebody's girlfriends (supporting roles), somebody's mother, somebody’s daughter, or somebody’s sister support the fact that people fail to see the idea that women are first and foremost a “somebody”.
Quotes:
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“A study by Janice McCabe showed that male characters in children's books far outnumber female ones, and that even when characters (eg. animals) are gender-neutral, they are often referred to as male when parents read them to their kids.”
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"This pattern is consistent in children's TV shows, where only a third of lead characters are girls. The Smurfette Principle, where only one female character is present in an entire cast of male ones, still holds true for many TV shows, with 'female' seemingly a characteristic of its own"
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"In a typical year, only about 12-15% of top grossing Hollywood films are women-centric, focusing on women and their stories."
Analysis:
I really liked this article, though it was heavily biased, I found the examples of sexual objectification that were given to be really useful. Personally I didn’t realize that there were so many way (aside from a woman’s body) that women could be objectified . It happens in speech, books, cartoons, even in our general grammar. There was also a point made about how when a woman is the victim of sexual harassment or rape that the comments that follow are generally more friendly to the male than the female ("Oh, he must have been provoked to have done that," "He was a nice man who just snapped," "He must have been confused by her signals," "Maybe he's been falsely accused, how terrible to have to go to jail for that." )
Source 4
Clymer, Charles. "'Woman' Should Not Be Another Word for Sex." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 May 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-clymer/woman-should-not-be-another-word-for-sex_b_3307013.html>.
Summary:
This article discussed how every aspect of a woman's life is centered around how she is supposed to sexually impact men (both negatively and positively). From Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy to how girls are dressing in private school so that boys aren’t distracted by them, every aspect is dictated by how it will make the other gender feel.
Quotes:
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“Breast cancer awareness? We have a "Save the Ta-Tas" campaign for that. Clothing? Women should wear just enough to fit society's standard of sexual attraction and appearance, but not so much that they "attract" rapists (according to very uninformed "authorities" on rape and sexual assault). Food? Diets. More diets. And more diets. Television. Radio. Print ads. Facebook. Everywhere: How to get or keep that sexy body for any number of reasons related to a woman's personal and professional life.
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"Actress/Singer/Reporter/Entertainer? Be as beautiful as possible, and please -- oh, please -- don't be overweight or over a certain age. Military? One of the primary arguments of the last few years was that women can't be in combat roles because they will "distract" men “Nudity? Breasts are very, very bad, and women should feel bad for having them. Please cover up when you're in public, regardless of whether or not you're breastfeeding or simply trying to enjoy the beach in the way your male counterparts do.”
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“Were you raped or sexually assaulted or harassed? If you're a woman, you must have done something wrong: drank too much, flirted too much, wore too little, breathed the same air as your rapist, etc. The credibility of your claim is based on your rapist's can't-help-himself-sexual-animal actions.”
Analysis:
I really think that this article honed in on one of the reasons that women are sexually objectified. It simply could be because it affects the other gender in a positive way. The fact that this article was written by a man was even more surprising, it sort of proves that everyone really does see this happening. That this is not just some women backed feminist movement but rather something that points out an injustice in society overall.
Source 5
Flood, Alison. "Study Finds Huge Gender Imbalance in Children's Literature." The Guardian. N.p., 06 May 2011. Web. 15 Nov. 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2011%2Fmay%2F06%2Fgender-imbalance-children-s-literature>.
Summary:
This article was about how females are infrequently represented in childrens books and that when they are represented, they are portrayed as stereotypical out-of-date women. The point is that this infrequent representation starts young. Young children are taught what it is to be boy or girl and when they see that mostly boys are the ones going on adventures or being the heros, it puts a certain image within their minds. Some writers suggest that parents should read their children the old stories but mix in newser ones that show the modern day position of women so that they are not misrepresented.
Quotes:
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“From The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the Cat in the Hat, Peter Rabbit to Babar, children's books are dominated by male central characters, new research has found, with the gender disparity sending children a message that "women and girls occupy a less important role in society than men or boys".
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“Looking at almost 6,000 children's books published between 1900 and 2000, the study, led by Janice McCabe, a professor of sociology at Florida State University, found that males are central characters in 57% of children's books published each year, with just 31% having female central characters.”
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"Boys are far more gender-specific," he said. "I guess the challenge is to write books for boys that have female characters in, that the boys will relate to. It's a sad fact that books written for boys do tend to fall rapidly into the old stereotypes”
Analysis:
This was a very interesting article that made me realize that infrequent representation can have dire consequences later on. Maybe this is the reason that females are frequently represented in other forms popular media. I used this as an example in my background research to show how objectification and oppression in media arises and one form is infrequent representation. One may think that this has trickled down to children’s books but it is actually the other way around. I think that its because as a society we have grown up on these stories and representations that we carry them into our lives.
Source 6
"Archive." Rolling Stone. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2014. <http://archive.rollingstone.com/Desktop>.
Summary:
This archive was the basis for my entire project. Every cover that I used came from here. By having access to all the issues of Rolling Stone since it’s release I was not only able to see the covers from the years I studied but every other year as well. Looking throughout the decades was pretty helpful because I could see how sexualization slowly started to increase as more and more women were starting to appear on Rolling Stone.