Five Feminist Challenges to Mainstream Psychology

Five Feminist Challenges to Mainstream Psychology • 1- Psychology is a poor science: it has mismeasured women. • 2- The problem is not women, but women’s internalization of oppression. • 3- We can gain a different perspective by listening to women’s voices.

4- We should displace the question of sex differences. • 5- We should reconstruct the question of sex differences.

Principles of Feminist Research (Worell and Etaugh, 1994). • 1 - Challenging the Traditional Scientific Method. • a) Correcting the bias in the research process. • b) Expanding samples beyond White middle class participants. • c) Acknowledging the legitimacy of both quantitative and qualitative methods.

2-Focusing on the experiences of women. • a) Examining diverse categories of women. • b) Investigating topics relevant to women’s lives. • c) Attending to women’s strengths as well as their concerns.

3-Considering gender imbalances in power. • a) recognizing that women’s subordinate status is arising out of a power imbalance, not deficiency. • b) attempting to empower women.

4- Recognizing gender as an important category for investigation. • a) Understanding that a persons gender can influence expectations about and responses to that person

5- Recognizing the importance of language. • Changing language to be inclusive of women. • Understanding that language can both influence thought and be influenced by thought.

6- Promoting Social Change • creating a science that benefits women. • Guiding action that will lead to justice for women.

Gender: refers to psychological characteristics and social categories that are created by human culture. (e.g. Gender roles). • Sex refers only to the physiological characteristics related to reproduction (i.e. Sex chromosomes or sex organs).

Karraker et al., 1995 1 2 BG 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Strong Weak 1 2 3 4 5 B 6 G7 8 9 Large Featured Fine Featured 1 2 3 B 4 5 G 6 7 8 9 Hardy Delicate 1 2 B 3 4 5 6 7 8 G 9 Masculine Feminine **Average ratings for newborn girls and boys on four dimensions.B = boy G= girl

Theories of Gender Development • 1- Social Learning Theory • children are rewarded for gender appropriate behavior and they are punished for gender inappropriate behavior; • and children watch and imitate the behavior of the gender of other people of their own gender.

Cognitive Developmental Approach • focuses on thoughts. • children are active thinkers who seek information from their environment and try to make sense of this information and organize it in a coherent fashion. • Acquire gender schemas which teach gender appropriate behavior

Interaction Theory • local biology (Margaret Lock) • “… this notion derives from a perspective on human embodiment grounded in the ‘lived body’, a body that is ‘simultaneously a physical and symbolic artifact’, both naturally and culturally produced. The position taken by Lock also acknowledges the plasticity of human biology, particularly at the level of physiology and chemistry, and its interdependence with culture” (Stoppard, 1997, p. 27).

What Shapes Gender Typing? • Parents • Peers • School • Media including TV and Cartoons • Clothing • Toys • Books

Sexualization of Girls http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.html

Sexualization Occurs when: • a person’s value comes only from their sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics; • a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly-defined) with being sexy; • a person is sexually objectified, that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than a person with the capacity for independent action and decision-making; and/or • sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.

Gregory Smith (1985) • attractive girls more likely to receive prosocial treatment • less attractive girls more likely to be hit, pushed and kicked. • no correlation between attractiveness and prosocial treatment for the boys • Lesson: physical attractiveness is important for females and pretty girls and women will receive better treatment. • Boys learn that physical attractiveness is not really relevant to their lives.

Cultivation Theory • Cultivation theory: exposure to consistent themes over time leads viewers to adopt a particular perspective of the world, one that coincides with the images they have been viewing. • what young women believe about themselves and how they feel in the present moment was shaped by how they were treated and what they were exposed to when they were girls.

Rosa Brooks • “First, we darted into Abercrombie & Fitch, joining a gaggle of preteens checking out the T-shirts. Perhaps a slinky pink number that coyly declared "The Rumors Are True"? Or maybe the masculine gray one emblazoned with "Something About You Attracts Me — I Wish I Could Put My Finger On It"? Well, no thanks. We headed toward Limited Too, where we found thong-like underwear sized for 7-year-old girls. My 4-year-old was entranced: "Mommy, those underpants have no walls!"We soldiered on, through Old Navy (where the toddler section carries clothes that make 2-year-olds look like Britney Spears), through Toys R Us (where ads for the scantily clad Bratz Babyz dolls, with their bottles and their painted toenails, boast that these "Babyz already know how to flaunt it, and they're keepin' it real in the crib!"), and past the Disney Store (where little girls can covet seashell bikinis like those worn by the Little Mermaid and glittery halter tops like those worn by Princess Jasmine in the surprisingly broad-minded sultanate of Agrabah).

By the time we made it to CVS Pharmacy, I thought we were out of the woods. Wrong. Those bare-midriffed Disney princesses are everywhere — even, it turns out, on diapers sized for people weighing 18 to 34 pounds. • In our hyper-commercialized consumerist society, there's virtually no escaping the relentless sexualization of younger and younger children. My 26-month-old daughter didn't emerge from the womb clamoring for a seashell bikini like Princess Ariel's — but now that she's savvy enough to notice who's prancing around on her pull-ups, she wants in on the bikini thing. And my 4-year-old wasn't born demanding lip gloss and nail polish, but when a little girl at nursery school showed up with her Hello Kitty makeup kit, she was hooked.

In a culture in which the sexualization of childhood is big business — mainstream mega-corporations such as Disney earn billions by marketing sexy products to children too young to understand their significance — is it any wonder that pedophiles feel emboldened to claim that they shouldn't be ostracized for wanting sex with children? On an Internet bulletin board, one self-avowed "girl lover" offered a critique of this week's New York Times series on pedophilia: "They fail, of course, to mention the hypocrisy of Hollywood selling little girls to millions of people in a highly sexualized way."

Sexualization of Girls • Television: • verbal sexual messages involved sexually objectifying comments on women • leering, ogling, staring, and catcalling at female characters. • deprecating words were used to describe women (e.g., broad, bimbo, dumbass chick, toots, fox, babe, blondie). • comments focused on women’s bodies or body parts, especially breasts; referred to as jugs, boobs, knockers, hooters, cookware, and canned goods. • men or adolescent boys leering at women or girls.

Music Videos: • Women are presented in provocative and revealing clothing, are objectified, and typically serve as decorative objects that dance and pose and do not play any instruments. • displayed in ways that emphasize their bodies, body parts, facial features, and sexual readiness.

Music Lyrics • "So blow me bitch I don't rock for cancer I rock for the cash and the topless dancers" (Kid Rock, "f*ck off," 1998). • “Dontcha wish your girlfriend were hot like me?” (Pussycat Dolls, 2005). • “That’s the way you like to f***…rough sex make it hurt, in the garden all in the dirt” (Ludacris, 2000). • “I tell the hos all the time, Bitch get in my car” (50 Cent, 2005 ). • “Ho shake your ass” (Ying Yang Twins, 2003).

Magazines and Advertising • Presenting oneself as sexually desirable and thereby gaining the attention of men is the focal goal for women. • Girls and young women are repeatedly encouraged to look and dress in specific ways to look sexy for men and to use certain products in order to be more attractive to and desired by males.

girls depicted as sexual objects or counterparts to adult versions; girls appear with sexualized adult women and are posed in matching clothing or seductive poses. • “trickle up” and a “trickle down” framework on girls and women (Cook & Kaiser, 2004); the distinction between women and girls may become blurred. • young girls are “adultified” and adult women are “youthified.” • Ie. magazines CosmoGirl and ElleGirl in 2001 and Teen Vogue in 2003.

The trickle-down or “youthification” includes sexual portrayals of adult women as young girls in advertising • ie. wearing schoolgirl clothing and licking lollipops or popsicles or wearing scaled up versions of children’s clothing styles like baby-doll dresses and tops, knee socks, and Mary Janes, all marketed as adult women’s wear. • Merskin (2004) concludes, “The message from advertisers and the mass media to girls (as eventual women) is they should always be sexually available, always have sex on their minds, be willing to be dominated and even sexually aggressed against, and they will be gazed on as sexual objects” (p. 120).

Other evidence of sexualization: • Dolls • Clothes • Cosmetics

Parents Sexualization of Girls • convey their support for cultural messages, either subtly or overtly • parents’ gender schemas have a significant effect on children’s gender self-concepts and gender-related attitudes toward others (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2002). • parents, peers, and the media all support a “culture of dieting” for girls (Levine, Smolak, & Hayden, 1994; Nichter, 2000). • Example: Beauty Pagents

Consequences of Sexualization • self-objectification fragments consciousness. • Chronic attention to physical appearance leaves fewer cognitive resources available for other mental and physical activities.

Body Dissatisfaction and Appearance Anxiety • Sexualization and objectification undermine confidence in and comfort with one’s own body, leading to a host of negative emotional consequences, such as shame, anxiety, and even self-disgust. • leads to increased feelings of shame about one’s body (e.g., Fredrickson et al., 1998; McKinley, 1998, 1999; Tiggemann & Slater, 2001). • appearance anxiety: checking and adjusting one’s appearance.

Mental Health • sexualization is associated with three most common mental health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression or depressed mood. • For individual women, findings across several studies indicate associations between exposure to female beauty ideals and disordered eating attitudes and symptoms, such that greater exposure to thin-ideal media has been associated with higher levels of dieting, exercising, and disordered eating symptomatology (e.g., Abramson & Valene, 1991; Harrison, 2000; Hofschire & Greenberg, 2001; Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994; Thomsen, Weber, & Brown, 2002).

Physical Health • link between body dissatisfaction and the onset of cigarette smoking among adolescent girls (e.g., Stice & Shaw, 2003).

Summary • “First, there is evidence that girls exposed to sexualizing and objectifying media are more likely to experience body dissatisfaction, depression, and lower self-esteem; • Self-objectification has been shown to diminish cognitive ability and to cause shame. This cognitive diminishment, as well as the belief that physical appearance rather than academic or extracurricular achievement is the best path to power and acceptance, may influence girls’ achievement levels and opportunities later in life. • Girls’ sexual development may also be affected as they are exposed to models of passivity and studies indicate that the media may influence perceptions of one’s own virginity or first sexual experience. • Interpersonally, girls’ relationships with other girls are affected, as such relationships can become policing grounds where girls support or reject other girls for reasons having to do with conformity to a narrow beauty ideal that involves a sexualized presentation or competition for boys’ attention. • Girls’ relationships with boys and men are affected in that exposure to sexualizing and objectifying media has been shown to relate to girls' and boys’ views on dating, the sexual harassment of girls by boys, and attitudes toward sexual violence.”

What are beauty pageants about? What does it say about what the culture values? • What messages do beauty pageants send to girls ? Why don’t boys participate in beauty pageants? • Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why or why not? “Popular media sends the message to girls and young women that sexuality is power and that in turn you can buy this power by dressing provocatively and purchasing the necessary items such as clothes, make up and the ‘right’ toys” • Do you think the sexualization of girls is harmless? Empowering? Neutral? Why or why not? • Why is the Little Miss Sunshine clip ironic?

Five Feminist Challenges to Mainstream Psychology