Sexualizing Sarah Palin

Abstract

Using Sarah Palin's candidacy for the vicepresidency, Heflick and Goldenberg (2011) empirically link female sexual objectification with the negative perceptions and poor performances of female candidates. We argue that the authors undersell the importance of their findings, especially considering shifts in the content and ubiquitousness of mass media. Advances in communication technologies have enabled a new era of objectification, marked by an increasing presence and acceptance of sexual objectification in media, greater pornographic content in mainstream media, and greater acceptance of pornography in U.S. society more broadly. In the years since U.S. scholars began critiquing sexual objectification, its normalization and degree of penetration into our daily lives have increased, largely due to a proliferation of marketing and entertainment media images enabled by the Internet and other communication technology. Given this new era of objectification, we conclude that the phenomenon identified by Heflick and Goldenberg is more likely to influence the success of female politicians now than it was in the 1970s (when the sexual objectification of women was first problematized) and that it may also help explain the recent stagnation in U.S. progress towards gender equity in political representation.

Reply to Comments on “Sarah Palin, a Nation Object(ifie)s”

“…In closing, we are thankful for the thought-provoking comments by Budesheim (2011) and Heldman and Wade (2011). They have aided our own understanding of objectification and provided many useful areas for future research (not all of which we were able to address in this reply).They have also offered additional clues towards understanding how the objectification of Sarah Palin may have impacted the 2008 U.S. presidential election.…”

“…We are grateful for the comments provided by Budesheim (2011) and by Heldman and Wade (2011) in response to our commentary (Heflick and Goldenberg 2010) on the objectification of, and its possible role in the objection to, Sarah Palin in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. We have divided our response into three main sections.…”

Visual Political Communication: The Impact of Facial Cues from Social Constituencies to Personal Pocketbooks

“…Importantly, negative news coverage regarding candidates' physical appearance resulted in less favorable candidate evaluations (Hayes, Lawless, & Baitinger, ). In some cases, women candidates received more media coverage focused on their appearance and personality characteristics overall (Heflick & Goldenberg, , ; Heldman, Carroll, & Olson, ; Heldman & Wade, ). Moreover, voters' levels of media exposure combined with their political sophistication can influence the extent to which appearance‐based cues impact their candidate evaluations.…”

Face Value: Facial Appearance and Assessments of Politicians

“…Content analyses have shown that negative news coverage of candidates' appearance led to less favorable candidate evaluations (Hayes, Lawless, & Baitinger, 2014). This can be especially consequential for female candidates, who tend to receive more media coverage focused on their appearance compared to male candidates (Heflick & Goldenberg, 2009, 2011Heldman, Carroll, & Olson, 2005;Heldman & Wade, 2011). Additional research should examine how media coverage of the appearance of female and male candidates may exacerbate voters' reliance on appearance-based cues in their impression-formation process and ultimately in their candidate support.…”