Anchoring Sexualization: Contextualizing and Explicating the Contribution of Psychological Research on the Sexualization of Girls in the US and Beyond

Deborah L. Tolman, Christin P. Bowman and Jennifer F. Chmielewski. Children, Sexuality and Sexualization

In the US, psychological researchers have been at the forefront of establishing and contributing to a public discourse on sexualization that holds responsible the media and corporations for using sexualization for profit. A growing body of knowledge produced by psychologists asks a particular set of research questions: What are the negative effects of sexualization on girls and women? How can we understand girls’ and women’s ‘participation’ in sexualization practices while maintaining the perspective that external forces are ultimately responsible and should therefore be called out and redressed? In the US public discourse, sexualization is understood as perhaps an unfortunately simplistic word for two distinct phenomena: (1) the sexualization of culture, which is an intensified presence and infusion of often uncalled-for sexuality into products, media and norms; and (2) the sexualization of individuals, meaning both the process and the effects of living within this sexualized context particularly on girls and women. This includes how girls navigate these pervasive representations of women and girls as sexual objects and introduces the psychological phenomena of self-sexualization and overt resistance to sexualization and being sexualized. Consistent with much of mainstream psychology, the behaviour of girls and women in relation to sexualization is studied with the assumption that this process is a response to the cultural omnipresence of sexualized imagery… Llegir