Technische Universität Dresden
Hauptseminar: Reality Perception Through the Mass Media –
How the Media Shape what we Think and we Think Others Think
Semester: 6./Wintersemester 2005/2006

Sexism in the Media and their Effects

by: Susanne Backe

OVERVIEW

1. INTRODUCTION  3

1.1 GOALS OF THIS WORK  4
1.2 SEX AND SEXISM  4

2. RESEARCH TRADITIONS  4

2.1 THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT  5
2.2 FINDINGS ON CULTIVATION AND BIAS  7

3. GENDER-ROLE STEREOTYPING/GENDER BIAS IN THE MEDIA  7

4. SEXUAL CONTENT IN THE MASS MEDIA  12

5. EFFECTS/IMPACT OF SEXISM IN THE MEDIA  14

5.1 SEXUAL SOCIALIZATION  15
5.2 CULTIVATION EFFECTS  16
5.3 WHAT DO PEOPLE CAN KNOW ABOUT SEXUAL ISSUES?  18
5.4 THE EFFECTS OF INTERNET ON SEXUALITY  19

6. PORNOGRAPHY  20

6.1 DEFINITION: PORNOGRAPHY  20
6.2 SEX RESEARCH AND PORNOGRAPHY  21

6.2.1 Feminist Influence on Research on Pornography  21
6.2.2 Pornography Commissions  22

6.3 WATCHING PORNOGRAPHY: EFFECTS  23

6.3.1 Sexual Excitement  23
6.3.2 Influence on values, attitudes and behavior  24
6.3.3 Pornography and Personality  25

6.4 SEXUAL VIOLENCE  26

6.4.1 Slasher Films 27
6.4.2 Sexual Violence – does it differ across media?  27

6.5 PORNOGRAPHY AND THE WORLD WIDE WEB  28

7. CONCLUSION  29

8. DISCUSSION  30

9. LITERATURE  31

1. Introduction

The discussion about sexuality and the relationship between the sexes is as old as world itself. But since the days of modern mass media the debate on the presentation of gender, gender bias and sexual explicit content in the mass media as well as the effects they can have on one’s mind has become a field of significant concern. Due to the fact that our society is a media and consumer society, mass media is omnipresent in our daily lives and has become the main source for nearly every kind of information and entertainment. Especially television “cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other prime sources” Gerbner et al., 1986, p.18). Mass media provide us with materials “out of which we forge our very identities,” among them our idea “of what it means to be male or female” or the idea of how we define our sexuality. Thus, mass media have become the main source in teaching us “how to be men and women”, how to behave in society, “to dress, look, and consume […] and how to conform to the dominant system of norms, values, practices and institutions” (Kellner, 1995, p.5). Already in 1922, Walter Lippmann was talking about “about the world as known was the world as it was. And that individual trust in pictures in their heads because “in the individual person the limited messages from outside, formed into a pattern of stereotypes, are identified with his own interests as he feels and conceives them.”¹ Everybody who reads a magazine, watches television or goes to the movies realizes that sex is omnipresent across all media. The messages about sex and sexual issues transmitted to the people can have positive or negative themes and they raise questions about the effects they can have on the behaviours and attitudes of the recipients. Especially for young persons, the media are an important source of information about sexual issues, but sexual messages can also have a negative impact on their mind. In comparison to research on the impact of violence in the media, research on the impact of sexual portrayals and sexual content is little. A strange fact, especially by reason of the discussions risen by political or religious groups, who often stated critical opinions about sexual content in the entertainment media.

1.1 Goals of this work

The discussion about sex and sexism in the media, research on sexism and the effects and impact which sexual messages can have on one’s mind will be the focus of this work. It is important to distinguish three main fields of research of sexism in the mass media. One great field of concern is research on genderstereotyping and gender-bias in the media. The second great area of research is focusing on the effects that (verbal or visual) sexism in the media can have on one’s mind. The third field at least focuses on more explicit media contents such as erotica or even pornography. This work in the following is structured on these three areas of research.

1.2 Sex and Sexism

One the one hand there is sex, which is a “biologically-given facet of human nature. Sexual behaviour and sexual sensations are common all over our lives. They have the potential for positive as well as negative physical and psychological consequences. Sex can strengthen our most intimate personal relationships but can also become violent, coercive or distorted and can both, lead to life-disrupting and life-threatening outcomes as well as to the enhancement of psychological and physical health (Kaiser Family Foundation, 1998, p.5). On the other hand, sexism is defined as „attitudes of behaviour based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles“ or „discrimination or devaluation based on a person’s sex“ and can refer to three subtly different beliefs or attitudes: (1) that one sex is superior to the other, (2) that men and women are very different and that this should be strongly reflected in society, language, the right to have sex, and the law, and (3) can also refer to simply hatred of women or hatred of men.² The word sexism was modelled after the word racism, and came into usage during the 1960s.³

2. Research Traditions

The discussion about the influence of the media came up closely after the introduction of communication technologies. The issue of the harmful and degrading effects of sexism in the print media erupted well before the twentieth century. The banning of sexual literature happened also in countries in which freedom of the press is constitutionally guaranteed (e.g. in the United States) and although print is centuries old, researchers are still concerned with the novel ways in which sex shows up in print (Steven & Handel, 2001)⁴. Movies are the form of media that have produces most concern. At the beginning of the twentieth century, critics against the depiction of sexism in the media were massive, especially from those who worried about the demoralizing influences, especially on children, that movies could have on one’s mind. Alice Miller Mitchell’s Children and Movies (1929) was one of the first scientific efforts which came up through the discussion of the influence of sexism in the media. However, due to the fact that the presence of body nudity and sex in major motion pictures has risen dramatically, there is still concern focusing on the sexual content of movies. The US government was even concerned with obscenity on the radio, although there was and is little data on its impact. A lot more attention focused on television, and with the upcoming of this medium, a new wave of criticism came up which “was generated by those most threatened by innovation, that is, the existing traditional power elite of family, church, education and government.”⁵ The portrayal of sexuality as well as the effects caused by sexuality on television is a great field of concern since decades – “although sexuality on television is rarely explicit in comparison to what is available on the Internet” (Steven & Handel, 2001) – I will focus on both, the effects on television and the internet in a later part of this work.

2.1 The Women’s Movement

[...]

1 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/Lippman/CH01.html

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism

3 Harper, Karen: Sexism in the Media, Oakland LMV, Jan, 2005

4 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2372/is_4_38/ai_84866946

5 comm2.fsu.edu/faculty/comm/Sapolsky/ sexinmed/Readings/MassMediaSexSocialization.DOC