Media-Induced Sexual Harassment: The Routes from Sexually Objectifying Media to Sexual Harassment

Media that sexually objectify women by portraying them in ways that emphasize physical beauty and sexual readiness as well as reduce them to decorative and sexual objects have been traditionally identified by scholars as a powerful cultural risk factor encouraging sexual harassment and sexual violence. In the present article we review the existing empirical evidence linking sexually objectifying media and sexual harassment of women to the overarching and integrative Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework. This framework offers a coherent scheme for explaining the effects of sexually objectifying media on three target groups directly involved in sexual harassment—perpetrators, victims, and bystanders—and it postulates three cognitive and emotional mechanisms through which sexually objectifying media lead to sexual harassment: dehumanization, disruption of emphatic resonance, and a shift in gender norms. The evidence reviewed on the basis of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework shows that sexually objectifying media converge in normalizing harassing behaviors and can be a causal risk factor for increasing engagement in sexual harassment, heightening victims’ acceptance of sexual harassment and discouraging bystander intervention. We discuss implications of these arguments for effectively preventing negative effects of exposure to sexually objectifying media and for education programs aimed at critical media-consumption.

Seasonal variation in sexual readiness in a facultatively sexual freshwater cnidarian with diapausing eggs

Facultative sexuality combines clonal propagation with sexual reproduction within a single life cycle. Clonal propagation enables quick population growth and the occupancy of favorable habitats. Sex, on the other hand, results in the production of offspring that are more likely to survive adverse conditions (such as the resting eggs of many freshwater invertebrates). In seasonal environments, the timing of sex is often triggered by environmental cues signaling the onset of winter (e.g. temperature drop or changes in photoperiod). Organisms switching to sex to produce resting eggs under these conditions face a trade-off: responding too early to an environmental cue increases the chances of missing out in clonal propagation, while having a delayed response to deteriorating conditions entails the risk of parental mortality before sexual reproduction could be completed. To mitigate these risks, increased sensitivity towards environmental cues with the onset of the winter might be an adaptive strategy. To test this hypothesis, we investigated sexual propensity and time to gonadogenesis in clonal strains derived from spring- and autumn-collected polyps of Hydra oligactis, a facultatively sexual freshwater cnidarian where sex only occurs prior to the onset of winter. We show that autumn-collected individuals and their asexual offspring have a higher propensity for sex and require less time for gonad development compared to strains established from spring-collected individuals that were kept under similar conditions in the laboratory. To see if the above results can be explained by phenotypic plasticity in sexual readiness, we exposed cold-adapted lab strains to different lengths of warm periods. We found that sexual propensity increases with warm exposure. Our results suggest that reciprocal cold and warm periods are required for sex induction in H. oligactis, which would ensure proper timing of sex in this species. Increased sensitivity to environmental deterioration might help maximize fitness in environments that have both a predictable (seasonal) and an unpredictable component.