Conceptualizations of Female Empowerment and Enjoyment of Sexualized Characters in Reality Television

Abstract

This study explores how young women's definitions of empowerment relate to their reception of The Girls Next Door, a popular reality show that documents the life and fun times of Hugh Hefner's three sexy, live-in girlfriends. Specifically, we examine whether young women's general attraction to reality television relates to their endorsement of different views of women and empowerment, how these endorsements relate to the women's own sexual permissiveness, and finally how these views relate to perceptions of The Girls Next Door. Results suggest that reality television preferences relate to greater endorsement of sexual empowerment and traditional feminine roles. However, sexual permissiveness is elevated only when sexual empowerment is endorsed, and perceptions of the show appear to be most positive only when sexual permissiveness is elevated.

A Snooki effect? An exploration of the surveillance subgenre of reality TV and viewers’ beliefs about the “real” real world.

“…Furthermore, this study joins a growing list of research projects demonstrating a correlation between watching reality TV and viewers' beliefs and attitudes (Cato & Carpentier, 2010;Ferris et al, 2007;Nabi, 2009;Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2011). To our knowledge, however, there is limited experimental research testing the effects of reality TV on audiences.…”

Gender roles on social networking sites: investigating reciprocal relationships between Dutch adolescents’ hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity and sexy online self-presentations

“…Given recent findings on the role of reality TV viewing for sexy self-presentation , we ran additional analyses in which we also controlled for adolescents' reality TV viewing, and in particular docusoaps such as MTV's Jersey shore. Reality TV is a television genre that is characterized by highly hypergendered content and typically portrays characters in a sexualized way (e.g., Cato & Carpentier, 2010;Chrisler, Bacher, Bangali, Campagna, & McKeigue, 2012). Controlling for this type of media use did not change the findings in a significant way and we decided to not include it in the model for parsimony reasons.…”

Performing Beauty: Femininity Ideology, Neoliberalism and Aesthetic Labor Among Young Women in Mexico

“…Dominant contemporary popular culture messages suggest that women's power comes from sexuality, requiring them to consume products into making their lives pleasurable through self-monitoring, feeling sexy and looking good (Cato & Dillman Carpentier, 2010). Sexiness, then becomes a neoliberal consumer good through discourses of autonomy and liberation, asking individuals to believe that female sexuality is accepted and that it celebrates agency and empowerment (Evans & Riley, 2015).…”