Does Rolling Stone sexually objectify and under-represent women on it's cover?
Introduction
“Sex sells” in this hypersexualized society. We are constantly surrounded by sexual images, sexual innuendoes, and sexual activity that objectify women in advertisements, television, and books. Charles Clymer, a social equality advocate, suggests that “[l]inguistically, ‘woman’ is not another word for sex, of course, but culturally, the two couldn't be more intertwined.” In 2011 Erin Hatton and Mary Nell Trautner, assistant professors of sociology at SUNY Buffalo, measured the degree of sexualization of both men and women on covers of Rolling Stone from 1967-2009. They created a 0-23 point system with 11 variables (including nudity, clothing, pose etc) to measure the level of sexualization on each cover (Sep. 2011 260-265). They found that the sexualization of women overall has increased while men tend to remain non-sexualized. In fact, women on the covers in the 2000s were five times more likely to be sexualized to any degree than nonsexualized (Hatton and Trautner Dec. 2011). I extend Hatton and Trautner’s study here to see if this trend has still continued during the previous 5 years (2010-2014).
Background
In this society a woman has merely been defined for her body. In a 2013 Huffington Post blog, Clymer claims that almost every aspect of a woman's life is defined on the basis of the message that her body portrays:
This isn’t the only form of objectification however. Women are also objectified in language, cartoons, stories, and movies. In language, objects of possession such as boats, cars and bikes are regarded as “she” (Goh-Mah). This use of “she” further emphasizes the point that women are merely viewed as objects. Due to this view of women simply as objects they are represented less frequently as well. A study by Janice McCabe that tested gender representation in over 5,000 children’s books from the 20th century showed that “males are represented more frequently than females in titles and as central characters. For instance, on average, 36.5% of books each year include a male in the title compared to 17.5% that include a female.” Even when these characters are considered to be gender neutral (e.g. animals), they are referred to as male when parents read to their children (207). “This pattern is consistent in children's TV shows, where only a third of lead characters are girls” (Goh-Mah). This also seems to be the case with movies, “the vast majority of films produced tell the stories of men, with women cast as girlfriends, wives, or mothers, or in other periphery roles. In a typical year, only about 12-15% of top grossing Hollywood films are women-centric, focusing on women and their stories.” (Goh-Mah). This under-repesentation and sexulization of women creates a serious problem for the women involved and their audiences. People simply begin to perceive women as sexual objects and not as individuals.
The Hatton and Trautner Experiment
In 2009, Hatton and Trautner created a study to measure frequency and sexualization of men and women on covers of Rolling Stone magazine. They analyzed 1,006 covers (726 men and 280 women- very low representation of women here in general) from the years 1967-2009 based on 11 variables and a 0-23 point system. The variables were 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). Sexualization was framed into three different catrgories; nonsexualized, sexualized, and hypersexualized. Once each cover was given its designated points it was then placed into a category. Non-sexualized images ranged from 0-4 points, sexualized images ranged from 5-9 points, and hypersexualized images ranged from 10 points and above.
From this study Hatton and Trautner concluded that by the 2000s 83% of men were nonsexualized while 17 % were either sexualized or hypersexualized. On the other hand 17% of women were nonsexualized, while 83% were either sexualized or hypersexualized. Looking at the graph across the four decades it was concluded that the sexualizaton of women increased rapidly. In contrast men remained non-sexualized for the majority of the time and were hardly ever sexualized. Women increased in sexualization so rapidly that by the 2000s 60% of women were hypersexualized.
Methods
Copying the methods created by Hatton and Trautner, I analyzed every cover from 2010-2014 to continue their original study. I used the same 11 variables (clothing/nudity, touch, pose, mouth, breast/chest, genitals, buttocks exposure, text, head vs. body, sex act, and sexual role play) and point system (0-23) created by Hatton and Trautner to evaluate the covers. Some covers that contained only text or cartoons were discarded. Following Hatton and Trautner, for group photo covers, I identified the central figure (either male or female) so it could be classified as male or female. In certain scenarios both the male and female were the central figures so the cover had to be run through the test twice, once from the perspective of the female and another from the perspective of the male. Only celebrities appearing on the covers were considered as central figures any random extras in the shot were not included in the study. The study is about how Rolling Stone chooses to portray influential artists so all eyes will be on them, not so much on the random extras that are part of the cover. How celebrities are portrayed on such a large platform not only sends a message to the audience but also shapes the culture within this specific industry. The following are a few examples of how this test was carried out through different covers.
Results: Under-Representation
Through the years 2010-2014 the covers feature very few women. There were a total of 113 covers that were put through this test (covers that had both a man and a woman as central figures were counted twice). There were a total of 87 covers (77%) with males as central figures and only 26 covers (23%) with females as central figures. Each year Rolling Stone releases 24 issues of their magazine. From 2010-2014 very few issues included women in general. In 2014, 7 women were on the covers which is a highest throughout the 5 years. This result echoes Hatton and Trautner’s findings. In the decades that they tested 72.16% of the covers featured men while only 27.83% of the covers featured women. Although my sample was only 5 years the gap of representation between men and women has gotten even worse than when the original study was conducted.
Results: Sexualization by Category
Looking at the chart and Figure 2 (Figure 2 copies the format of the graph in the original study), we can conclude that the majority of men were not sexualized That would mean that most of the covers would have just been head shots. The majority of women were sexualized, or even worse, hypersexualized. There was only a small percentage of the covers featuring women that remained non sexualized, in fact during 2010 and 2013 there weren’t any covers of women that were non sexualized, so every women featured on a cover was objectified in some way.
So throughout these 5 years men have become less and less sexualized. The women however were in a much higher range for the sexualized category, their covers started at 33% almost double that of the men and ended at around 28%. The hypersexualized category is where the most disparity can be seen. The covers featuring men remained under 15% for all of the years with three years being at 0%. For three years any covers featuring men were not hypersexualized. In contrast 66.66% of the covers featuring women were hypersexualized. As the level of sexualization increases the percentage of men in each level decreases (81.60% → 13.51% → 4.89%). The opposite trend however occurs for women, as the level of sexualization increases the percentage of women in each category increases as well (20.57% → 39.05% → 40.38%).
Results: Sexualization by Point Score
Rolling Stone’s sexualization of women as opposed to men can be seen even more clearly when looking at the point scores between men and women rather than at just the categories of sexualization. On a 0-23 point system the average amount of points for male covers was 4 points and under, meaning that on average, covers with men would be be portrayed in a non sexualized manner. The average points for women throughout the years were always higher than that of the men (with the lowest being around 4.4 and the highest around 12.17). Looking at the disparities between men and women we can conclude that women are always more prone to sexual objectification on the cover of Rolling Stone. On average they always scored higher than men which in turn caused more of their covers to be sexualized, or even worse, hypersexualized.
In all I examined 87 covers of men. From those covers 81.6% were non sexualized, 13.8% covers were sexualized and only 4.6% were hyper-sexualized. Men are definitely represented more frequently and as individuals as opposed to sexual objects. Out of the total 113 covers only 23% represented females as central figures , so there is obviously very low female representation. From those 26 covers only 26.92% were non sexualized, 34.62% were sexualized and 38.46% were hyper sexualized . With very little representation and the majority of the covers being hypersexualized, again it can be seen that women are definitely more prone to sexual objectification on the cover of Rolling Stone. These results match up to the ones found in the original study. Hatton and Trautner also concluded that the majority of covers featuring men were nonsexualized while the covers featuring women were more likely to be sexualized or hypersexualized. In this study the majority of men also remain non sexualized with only a very small percentage being sexualized/hypersexualized and the majority of women are sexualized/hypersexualized with only a small percent remaing nonsexualized.
Results: Other Observations
Out of the 4 hypersexualized covers of men, 1 contained a man who was openly gay (Neil Patrick Harris) and 1 more contained a man who was thought to be bisexual (Russell Brand). There were only about 4 men in total who were either gay or bisexual and of them 2 were represented in a hypersexualized manner (this was checked by googling every man’s sexuality). In Hatton and Trautner’s study, a cover of Adam Lambert, an openly gay man, scored the highest (13 points) compared to all the other covers of men that they examined. They stated that “it is not surprising that he is the most intensely sexualized man on the cover of Rolling Stone, since popular media portrayals of gay men often over-emphasize their sexuality” (269). So maybe gay/bisexual men are also more prone to be sexually objectified, of course more data is needed to support this claim but this was just an observation from the overall study.
Conclusion
The data from the Hatton and Trautner study was deeply disturbing. In this study I had hoped to see improvement in the way that women were being represented. Sadly third wave feminism has yet to have it’s impact on Rolling Stone. In fact women were represented even less in the past 5 years than in the four decades that Hatton and Trautner studied. The gap of sexulization between men and women was even worse in the recent years. Women were even more sexualized in the past 5 years than in the 40 that were examined in the original study. Sexual objectification of women is a serious issue, not just in Rolling Stone but in other forms of media as well. This objectification sends across a message that women aren’t really human beings, rather that they are just sexual objects to be owned whenever it seems necessary. Rolling Stone Magazine is a huge platform for celebrities to be noticed and to promote their careers. When such a huge platform chooses to portray women in this manner it not only affects the culture of how women are viewed in our society but also the culture in this specific industry. This study suggests that sexual objectification of women in this industry remains as robust as ever and that we as a society need to make a change. Without active intervention this sexual objectification of women will most likely continue. The question that remains however is will this continuous sexual objectification by Rolling Stone magazine ever stop ?
Works Cited
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>.
Fairchild, Emily, McCabe et al. "Gender in twentieth-century children's books: Patterns of disparity in titles and central characters."Gender & Society 25.2 (2011): 197-226. Academic OneFile. Web. 18 Jan. 2015.
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>.
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/wp-content/uploads/Hatton_Trautner_Sexuality_and_Culture.pdf>
_____."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/>.
Rolling Stone."Archive." April 28 2011 Adele Cover. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2014 <http://archive.rollingstone.com/Desktop>.
_____. "Archive." January 17 2013 Jimmy Kimmel Cover. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2014 <http://archive.rollingstone.com/Desktop>.
_____."Archive." August 5 2010 Leonardo DiCaprio Cover. N.p., n.d. Web.19 Jan. 2014 <http://archive.rollingstone.com/Desktop>.
_____."Archive." October 10 2013 Miley Cyrus Cover. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2014 <http://archive.rollingstone.com/Desktop>.
_____."Archive." May 22 2014 Neil Patrick Harris Cover. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2014 <http://archive.rollingstone.com/Desktop>.
_____."Archive." October 25 2012 Taylor Swift Cover. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2014 <http://archive.rollingstone.com/Desktop>.
Leonardo DiCaprio scored a 0 on all 11 variables. He is not shown revealing anything, nor do his pose and mouth imply anything sexual and he is given a head shot. There is nothing blatantly sexual about this cover. Even the text seems harmless as it only states “Hanging With Leo” One would think that because DiCaprio is regarded as a sex symbol that his cover would have been a little more sexually objectifying but it is not. He is simply portrayed as a star with a “not so carefree life” This puts DiCaprio in the nonsexualized category. DiCaprio was not the only man who received a 0 for an overall score. In fact 21 out of 87 men received a final score of 0 score mainly due to the fact that they posed for head shots.
Adele only scored a 1 for the category mouth and that is only because her mouth is very slightly parted. She is given a headshot so the audience can view Adele for Adele and not a sexualized object. Even her text which states “The Triumph of Adele” is something that is very powerful and unusual for a woman to have on the cover of Rolling Stone. She was one of the very few women (along with Melissa McCarthy and Whitney Houston) to receive a score this low. No woman however got a 0.
Kimmel scores: 2 points for nudity due to his slight butt exposure; 2 more points for pose because he is bent over which implies something sexually suggestive; 2 points in the category buttocks exposure because that clearly is the central focus of this cover; and 1 final point because this is a body shot. With a total of 7 points he lands in the sexualized category. Kimmel along with 11 (out of 87) other males in this study made it into the sexualized category.
The first thing that the audience might notice while viewing this picture are Swift’s legs, already an implication that this cover wants people to focus more on her body than Swift herself. Her arms and legs actually cover up the part of her body covered in clothing so we see more skin than clothing. She scores: 2 points for revealing clothing, due to her barely covered legs; 2 more points for touch as she is seen touching her face and the area between her legs; 1 point for her pose (a sitting pose with heavy emphasis on legs is seen as sexual); 1 point for slight genitial exposure (even though her legs cover the area and she is wearing shorts, the photograph still puts the central focus on that area of her body); and a final point for the fact that this is a body shot making her overall score a 7. Her cover goes into the sexualized category.
Harris Starts off with getting the full 5 points for clothing/nudity. He also scores: 1 more point for touch, though it is just casual touch; 4 points for full exposure of his chest and almost full exposure of his gentials (covered by the hat); 1 point for text that reads “How he met himself”; and, 1 final point for this being a body shot. With a grand total of 12 points he makes it into the hypersexualized category. Harris along with Justin Bieber and Russell Brand are the only men to be hypersexualized (along with a group shot of men and women from True Blood which is counted for both men and women as they are both the central figures).
Cyrus’ starts off by getting 5 points for clothing/nudity as she is topless. She also scores: 2 points for touch as she is holding her breasts in a way that make them more prominent rather than just covering them (the heavy chains around her neck also make her chest the focal point of this picture) also she is seen licking herself; 1 point for pose as she is leaning at the edge of a pool (again making her chest look more prominent); 2 points for mouth because her tongue is out; 2 more points for breast exposure; and 1 more point because this is a body shot making Cyrus’ overall score 13 which puts her in the hypersexualized category. She is clearly not being viewed as a successful musician but rather as a sexual object.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
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). 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.
Adele (Non Sexualized Female 1pt)
Jimmy Kimmel (Sexualized Male 7pts)
Miley Cyrus (Hyper-sexualized Female 13 pts)
Taylor Swift (Sexualized Female 7pts)
Neil Patrick Harris (Hyper-sexualized Male 12pts)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Non Sexualized Male 0pts)
