Sexualized images of women

Despite women outnumbering men at all levels of higher education , there are fewer women in faculty positions, they occupy lower status positions , and earn less money than men. A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology suggest there might be yet another factor contributing to pushing women out of academia and possibly other career paths : Sexualized professional climates. Interestingly, this was the exact image the researchers had once seen associated with a real-life conference mixer in their field! Social gatherings of professors and students at professional conferences are a key component of the academic career path. If students, women in particular, perceive these events as unwelcoming, this could significantly impact their career choices.

Between and there was relatively little change in how women were represented in advertising, and in the last nine months progress has still been slow. Earlier in the year at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, the duo presented data focused on gender representation in ads between and Men were four times as likely to appear in ads as women and received seven times more speaking time than women. Women were usually portrayed in their 20s in ads, while men were in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

In another example of academic research proving something we already know, psychologists from Melbourne University and Sydney University recently ran an experiment showing men are more likely to become aggressive towards women who reject them if the women are sexually objectified. Sexual desire and sexual objectification are two very different things. Desire is a feeling someone has for a specific person, they are humanised more, not less, by being desired.

A study by University at Buffalo sociologists has found that the portrayal of women in the popular media over the last several decades has become increasingly sexualized, even "pornified. These findings may be cause for concern, the researchers say, because previous research has found sexualized images of women to have far-reaching negative consequences for both men and women. The Sexualization of Men and Women on the Cover of Rolling Stone," which examines the covers of Rolling Stone magazine from to to measure changes in the sexualization of men and women in popular media over time.