The Rise of Recreational Burlesque: Bumping and Grinding Towards Empowerment

Regehr, Kaitlyn

doi:10.1007/s12119-011-9113-2

Cited by 15 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Evidence suggestive of a positive covariation between beautification and agency derives from some feminist scholarship, which argues that self-sexualization elevates agency by allowing women to transgress stereotypically chaste expressions of female sexuality [17]. Consistent with this notion, some women report that self-sexualizing makes them feel assertive and selfefficacious, as well as strong, independent, and powerful [4,[18][19][20]. Enhancing one's attractiveness through cosmetics also offers considerable social and economic benefits to women, including higher tips at work and perceptions of increased intelligence [21,22].…”

Section: Beautification Effects On Women's Agencymentioning

confidence: 95%

In the context of romantic attraction, beautification can increase assertiveness in women

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Can beautification empower women to act assertively? Some women report that beautification is an agentic and assertive act, whereas others find beautification to be oppressive and disempowering. To disentangle these effects, in the context of romantic attraction we conducted the first experimental tests of beautification-on psychological and behavioral assertiveness. Experiment 1 (N = 145) utilized a between-subjects design in which women used their own clothing, make-up, and accessories to adjust their appearance as they normally would for a "hot date" (beautification condition) or a casual day at home with friends (control condition). We measured implicit, explicit, and behavioral assertiveness, as well as positive affect and sexual motivation. Experiment 2 (N = 40) sought to conceptually replicate Experiment 1 using a within-subject design and different measures of assertiveness. Women completed measures of explicit assertiveness and assertive behavioral intentions in three domains, in whatever clothing they were wearing that day then again after extensively beautifying their appearance. In Experiment 1, we found that women demonstrated higher psychological assertiveness after beautifying their appearance, and that high sexual motivation mediated the effect of beautification on assertive behavior. All effects were independent of positive affect. Experiment 2 partially replicated Experiment 1. These experiments provide novel insight into the effects of women's appearance-enhancing behaviors on assertiveness by providing evidence that beautification may positively affect assertiveness in women under some circumstances.

show abstract

Section: Beautification Effects On Women's Agencymentioning

confidence: 95%

In the context of romantic attraction, beautification can increase assertiveness in women

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Empowerment and Dance Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies of the use of dance as an empowerment intervention have focused on adolescents (Cappel, 1995;Duberg et al, 2016;Kotin et al, 2013) and adult women (Leseho & Maxwell, 2010;Moe, 2014;Regehr, 2012). These interventions have linked increases in empowerment to improvements in mental health functioning for individuals with mild to moderate mental illness (Duberg et al, 2016;Leseho & Maxwell, 2010;Regehr, 2012). Dance interventions have also resulted in decreased internalized sexism (Cappel, 1995;Moe, 2014;Regehr, 2012), classism (Cappel, 1995;Kotin et al, 2013), racism (Cappel, 1995;Kotin et al, 2013) and ageism (Moe, 2014).…”

Section: Empowerment and Dance Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mixed Methods Evaluation of a Movement and Mindfulness Empowerment Workshop for Adults with Serious Mental Illness

Clarkson-Hendrix

Peters

2021

ASW

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For seriously mentally ill adults, empowerment is critical to maximizing participation in major life activities. Although studies have identified interventions that have positively impacted empowerment, these interventions may not be applicable or amenable to all adults with serious mental illness. More interventions with other approaches are needed. Therefore, this study evaluated the initial implementation of a movement- and mindfulness-based workshop intervention. Quantitative data were used to examine differences in empowerment before and after the workshop, and qualitative data were used to explore participants’ perceptions of the reasons for empowerment differences. Ten participants completed the intervention, and nine of the ten participants also completed follow-up interviews. Quantitative data were collected via pre- and post-intervention surveys. Qualitative data were collected through follow-up interviews with the participants. Surveys revealed perceptions of optimism and control over the future increased between pre- and post-intervention. Interviews uncovered that increases in optimism and control over the future may have been related to workshop accomplishments and reduced helplessness outside of workshop sessions. Future research would benefit from the creation of a training manual along with a validated system to monitor intervention fidelity.

show abstract

“…This vision has materialised into the figure of the sexually agentic, adventurous woman who is unafraid to flaunt her sexuality (Gill, 2003), whether it be through wearing revealing clothing (Duits & VanZoonen, 2006), learning to pole dance (Donaghue, Kurz, & Whitehead, 2011), displaying a "perfomative shamelessness" in social media profiles (Dobson, 2014), or engaging in "raunchy" public displays of sexually suggestive behaviour (Levy, 2005). Confidence and empowerment are central tenets of sexualised culture, and have become common buzzwords in marketing products such as pole dancing lessons (see Donaghue, et al, 2011) and lingerie (Amy-Chinn, 2006), as well as in some women's positive accounts of their experiences with them (e.g., Holland & Atwood, 2009;Regehr, 2012;Whitehead & Kurz, 2009). Yet despite the focus on confidence and empowerment as key gains to be had from such forms of self-sexualisation, the precise nature of the "empowerment" on offer is often not explicitly articulated.…”

Section: Self-sexualisation As Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The confidence trick: Competing constructions of confidence and self-esteem in young Australian women's discussions of the sexualisation of culture

Thompson

Donaghue

2014

Women's Studies International Forum

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent years, an explicitly sexualised style of femininity has become more visible in Western media and societies, accompanied by the idea that women can freely choose to self-sexualise to signify their empowerment. In addition to these celebratory interpretations, self-sexualisation among young women has been subject to more patronising readings; in particular, the view that women are duped into engaging in thinly disguised sexual self-exploitation, to which they are made vulnerable by low self-esteem. This paper presents a discursive analysis of multi-session focus groups with seventeen Australian undergraduate women, in which they discussed their own and other young women's engagements with sexualised culture. Participants saw sexualised self-presentations as a legitimate choice for women to make, citing enjoyment and heightened confidence as the main benefits to be had. However, they also put forward the view that seeking sexualised male attention is often motivated by low self-esteem, in which case such behaviour would not lead to lasting boosts to confidence, but rather would engage women in a downward spiral of objectification and decreasing self esteem. These competing constructions of the role of sexualised attention in both promoting and threatening confidence and self-esteem for young women highlight how young women's engagement in sexualised culture is simultaneously open to empowering and disempowering readings. In the long-running U.S. television comedy show Arrested Development, the video series Girls Gone Wild is the subject of a recurring parody in the form of a series entitled Girls With Low Self-Esteem. The parody is achieved simply by the retitling of the series; no explanations are needed in order for the audience to "get the joke". This neatly captures a paradox presented by the sexualisation of culture: on the one hand engaging in a raunchy, overtly sexualised form of selfpresentation is offered as a means of increasing confidence and feeling empowered by "wildly" transgressing conventional boundaries that restrict feminine sexuality, while on the other, engagement in these practices can often result in patronising and pathologising judgements concerning the allegedly low self-esteem of women who seek male attention in this way.The phrase "sexualisation of culture" has come to stand in for a set of related phenomena in western cultures involving a marked (re)sexualisation of young women's bodies in the media and society more broadly. These phenomena include the dramatic increase in the prevalence of sexually explicit images in the media (see Hatton & Trautner, 2012), the mainstreaming of pornography, and changes in sexual mores (Attwood, 2006;McNair, 2002;Yost & McCarthy, 2012). Within this broad context there has been a great deal of interest in what has become known as "self-sexualisation" --the adoption of an overtly sexual style of self-presentation (particularly among young women), features of which include the wearing of revealing clothing to go clubbing, sexually suggesti...

show abstract

The Rise of Recreational Burlesque: Bumping and Grinding Towards Empowerment

Cited by 15 publications

References 25 publications

In the context of romantic attraction, beautification can increase assertiveness in women

In the context of romantic attraction, beautification can increase assertiveness in women

Mixed Methods Evaluation of a Movement and Mindfulness Empowerment Workshop for Adults with Serious Mental Illness

The confidence trick: Competing constructions of confidence and self-esteem in young Australian women's discussions of the sexualisation of culture

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About