Are Contemporary Media Images Which Seem to Display Women as Sexually Empowered Actually Harmful to Women?

Abstract

There has been a shift in the depiction of women in advertising from objectifying representations of women as passive sex objects to agentic sexual representations where the women appear powerful and in control (Gill, 2007a, 2008), and there is substantial evidence that these representations have a negative impact on women’s body image. However, to our knowledge, this study is the first experimental research that aims to compare passively objectifying and more recent sexually agentic representations. British undergraduate women (N ¼ 122) participated in an experiment in which they were randomly assigned to view sexually passive, sexually agentic, or control print advertisements. Exposure to both types of representations of women, compared to viewing control images, was associated with increased weight dissatisfaction. The sexually agentic representations were singularly associated with increased state self-objectification. Media exposure research tends to focus on the models (e.g., their thinness) shown in advertising and pay little attention to the framing of the image. Our results highlight the powerful impact different framings can have on women’s body image concerns as well as suggest that recent shifts in advertising may be particularly problematic because contemporary images increased both weight concern and selfobjectification. Therefore, these images may have a more powerful impact on psychological well-being and disordered eating behaviors than traditional images.