How do media portrayals shape societal gender norms and individual aspirations? Santoniccolo et al. (2023) synthesize the literature on gender stereotyping, objectification, and sexualization across media contexts, highlighting their role in fostering gender-based hostility and obstaculizing women’s public and professional ambition.
Despite legislative advances and broader progress in civil rights, restrictive gender-based characterizations remain widespread across contemporary media landscapes. Synthesizing scientific evidence on how media shapes cultural environments, the authors demonstrate that stereotyping representations actively reinforce rigid gender role norms and bias. For men, continuous exposure to these portrayals fosters sexist attitudes, harassment, and violence; for women, it acts as a structural deterrent that represses career-oriented goals and professional ambitions.
Simultaneously, objectifying and sexualized representations encourage the internalization of narrow cultural appearance standards, promote the acceptance of sexist dynamics, and increase tolerance of abuse and body shame. These portrayals carry severe collateral impacts on physical and mental health, correlating with eating disorder symptomatology, intensified body surveillance, and diminished quality of life related to body image. The review concludes by emphasizing that while the harmful societal and psychological effects of these representations are evident, further empirical research is needed to delineate the specific pathways through which these harms affect diverse populations.
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Santoniccolo, F., Trombetta, T., Paradiso, M. N., & Rollè, L. (2023). Gender and Media Representations: A Review of the Literature on Gender Stereotypes, Objectification and Sexualization. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(10), 5770. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20105770