Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women in Video Games

[ruby sparks]

I'm happy I could help to bust a myth.

No prob. Just note that I am not going to, as you might say, 'swing the other way' just yet or on the basis of two studies and/or some brief googling. I don't think that would be warranted. I have my rational skepticism standards you know. Lol. Plus, I have seen a few documentaries suggesting it's far from rosy in the garden in the porn industry. So I'll keep an open mind, but don't mind admitting that it seems to be the case that nowadays, many porn actors, at least in certain countries or circumstances, are at least as happy with their job as most people. And that's good.

It's also double standards regarding this. When it comes to sex workers (porn performers and prostitutes) we demand that they love every second of their working day. Otherwise they're exploited victims. In the world in general it's precious few people who love their jobs. For a lot of people your job is something they suffer through just to be able to enjoy their weekends. I remember having a job as a salesman, selling kitchen wear. That job was truly soul-destroying. Sometimes life isn't fun. It usually isn't for anyone.

Agreed.

Since two years I live in Copenhagen. In Denmark prostitution is legalised. It's extremely normalised in this society. As a result women who work as prostitutes can be open about it, with very little stigma. I've ended up at parties here talking to women who work as prostitutes and are comfortable chatting about it. It turns out that they're normal people with the same kind of worries and issues as people in general. What a shocker!

Yes.

Prostitution may be a slightly different thing though (even if there's overlap). That said, when I was googling for stuff on porn actors, I came across (pun intended) a newspaper report of a small study (on sex workers) done in Leeds, UK:

The majority of sex workers enjoy their job - why should we find that surprising?
https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...-should-we-find-that-surprising-10083175.html

I am happy to have an open mind and to have incorrect assumptions of mine corrected, but I admit I am a bit wary, lest I gloss over or under-appreciate certain issues, such as coercion (very evident in one of the documentaries I referred to above, about a UK woman going to USA to get into porn films), trafficking, drug addiction and so on. Also, it's fine and valid that you tend to cite Denmark/Scandinavia, but the situations may differ, in a variety of ways, from country to country.

What the scene in Denmark and perhaps a few other places suggests is that once the societal stigma declines, many of the issues decline along with that, probably because societal attitudes are a big part of the problem. I'm not going to guess what proportion.

There's just so many liberal myths about sex work all geared toward seeing them all as victims in need of saving. As there are myths on the other side about all sex workers being happy.

Sure. I like busting myths. Even my own if necessary.

I keep thinking this detour away from the OP deserves its own thread, but I am a bit busy today to start one. Apologies to anyone who feels annoyed that I'm disrupting a thread.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I am happy to have an open mind and to have incorrect assumptions of mine corrected, but I admit I am a bit wary, lest I gloss over or under-appreciate certain issues, such as coercion (very evident in one of the documentaries I referred to above, about a UK woman going to USA to get into porn films), trafficking, drug addiction and other issues. Also, it's fine and valid that you tend to cite Denmark/Scandinavia, but the situations may differ from country to country.

I think welfare is a factor. In Scandinavia nobody needs to work. You can manage your life just fine mostly living off welfare. It's not a great life. But it makes people pretty fearless in the jobs market. The worst case scenario... getting fired. Isn't that bad. Nobody here would have a job that makes them unhappy. It's just not worth it.

Denmark also gives free heroin in heroin addicts. So there's nobody forced into prostitution because of an addiction either.

 

[ruby sparks]

I am happy to have an open mind and to have incorrect assumptions of mine corrected, but I admit I am a bit wary, lest I gloss over or under-appreciate certain issues, such as coercion (very evident in one of the documentaries I referred to above, about a UK woman going to USA to get into porn films), trafficking, drug addiction and other issues. Also, it's fine and valid that you tend to cite Denmark/Scandinavia, but the situations may differ from country to country.

I think welfare is a factor. In Scandinavia nobody needs to work. You can manage your life just fine mostly living off welfare. It's not a great life. But it makes people pretty fearless in the jobs market. The worst case scenario... getting fired. Isn't that bad. Nobody here would have a job that makes them unhappy. It's just not worth it.

Denmark also gives free heroin in heroin addicts. So there's nobody forced into prostitution because of an addiction either.

Cool.

Though, for balance, from the wiki page on Prostitution in Denmark:

"A 2009 study by TAMPEP estimated that migrant workers make up 65% of all prostitutes in Denmark. However, the most recent report from the Servicestyrelsen agency states that about half of the sex workers in Denmark are migrants. The largest group, about 900, come from Thailand and, typically, these workers hold a residence permit or Danish citizenship. The migrant workers are entitled to a wide range of social and health benefits, but are not always aware that such services exist for them. The next largest group, totaling about 1,000, are from European Union (EU) countries in Central and Eastern Europe, but tend to commute between Denmark and their homeland; such individuals are therefore not entitled to receive assistance from Danish social services. The third largest sex worker migrant group, from Africa (especially Nigeria), numbers around 300 and a number of the African migrants commute between other Schengen Area countries and Denmark. (A similar situation exists in Norway.)[12]

A number of women from all three migrant groups may be victims of human trafficking, the actual proportion is unknown, with no reliable figures detailing the number of trafficked persons currently available for analysis. In 2008 the police met with 431 women suspected of association with trafficking and 72 were confirmed to be victims. According to Copenhagen police, women are recruited in their native countries, transported to Denmark, and then forced into prostitution"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Denmark#Migration_and_human_trafficking

I'm not saying Denmark is not tackling such issues at least as well as or better than most countries, but there being issues and the tackling of them are slightly separate items, the latter acknowledging the former exists in the first instance.

Once again, I know this is arguably off-topic. I am going away on annual hols in a day or two and probably won't be at the forum, which is another reason I am not starting a new thread. Perhaps you could? It's interesting, imo.

And indeed there is an aspect of it which relates to feminism, there being a variety of responses to porn and prostitution from different strands of feminism. One might even say that certain ('traditional'? 'mainstream'?) strands of feminism deal in 'tropes' in an informal way, when they might, for example, see women sex workers as 'damsels in distress'. See how neatly I segued in the general direction of the OP. Lol.

'Damsels' is not a great word, imo, probably chosen for the 'DID' alliteration and to hint at the alleged historical/sexist baggage. 'Women' would be much better, or 'females', obviously. Don't start me on FRF (female rescue fantasies). I went through all that years ago with my Freudian therapist.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I am happy to have an open mind and to have incorrect assumptions of mine corrected, but I admit I am a bit wary, lest I gloss over or under-appreciate certain issues, such as coercion (very evident in one of the documentaries I referred to above, about a UK woman going to USA to get into porn films), trafficking, drug addiction and other issues. Also, it's fine and valid that you tend to cite Denmark/Scandinavia, but the situations may differ from country to country.

I think welfare is a factor. In Scandinavia nobody needs to work. You can manage your life just fine mostly living off welfare. It's not a great life. But it makes people pretty fearless in the jobs market. The worst case scenario... getting fired. Isn't that bad. Nobody here would have a job that makes them unhappy. It's just not worth it.

Denmark also gives free heroin in heroin addicts. So there's nobody forced into prostitution because of an addiction either.

Cool.

Though, for balance, from the wiki page on Prostitution in Denmark:

"A 2009 study by TAMPEP estimated that migrant workers make up 65% of all prostitutes in Denmark. However, the most recent report from the Servicestyrelsen agency states that about half of the sex workers in Denmark are migrants. The largest group, about 900, come from Thailand and, typically, these workers hold a residence permit or Danish citizenship. The migrant workers are entitled to a wide range of social and health benefits, but are not always aware that such services exist for them. The next largest group, totaling about 1,000, are from European Union (EU) countries in Central and Eastern Europe, but tend to commute between Denmark and their homeland; such individuals are therefore not entitled to receive assistance from Danish social services. The third largest sex worker migrant group, from Africa (especially Nigeria), numbers around 300 and a number of the African migrants commute between other Schengen Area countries and Denmark. (A similar situation exists in Norway.)[12]

A number of women from all three migrant groups may be victims of human trafficking, the actual proportion is unknown, with no reliable figures detailing the number of trafficked persons currently available for analysis. In 2008 the police met with 431 women suspected of association with trafficking and 72 were confirmed to be victims. According to Copenhagen police, women are recruited in their native countries, transported to Denmark, and then forced into prostitution"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Denmark#Migration_and_human_trafficking

I'm not saying Denmark is not tackling such issues at least as well as or better than most countries, but there being issues and the tackling of them are slightly separate items, the latter acknowledging the former exists in the first instance.

Once again, I know this is arguably off-topic. I am going away on annual hols in a day or two and probably won't be at the forum, which is another reason I am not starting a new thread. Perhaps you could? It's interesting, imo.

And indeed there is an aspect of it which relates to feminism, there being a variety of responses to porn and prostitution from different strands of feminism. One might even say that certain ('traditional'? 'mainstream'?) strands of feminism deal in 'tropes' in an informal way, when they might, for example, see women sex workers as 'damsels in distress'. See how neatly I segued in the general direction of the OP. Lol.

'Damsels' is not a great word, imo, probably chosen for the 'DID' alliteration and to hint at the alleged historical/sexist baggage. 'Women' would be much better, or 'females', obviously. Don't start me on FRF (female rescue fantasies). I went through all that years ago with my Freudian therapist.

I was only talking about EU citizens working as prostitutes in Denmark. I know the story is quite different for non-EU citizens.

One thing I wonder about is if legalized prostitution makes it easier to combat trafficking. I think it should because there's no disincentive for prostitues to talk to cops. But I'd like to see numbers on it.

Or perhaps a mod would make a new thread of our derail which turned interesting

 

[Arctish]

Hold on to your butts

... sh*t just got real!

The fourth installment of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, Women as Background Decoration, is up next and it's a doozy. This is probably the most controversial installment in the entire series. It's the one that talks about the gameplay in Hitman:Absolution, the issue Terrell has been wanting to discuss and something that gets a lot of attention from Sarkeesian critics. It's also extremely

NSFW

so please be mindful of that when you click on the link.

I am linking to the video through Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency website for a couple of reasons. Not only is the transcript handy (click on 'read the full article'), Sarkeesian also provides links to the materials and studies she cites.

So without further ado, let's all take a look at

Women as Background Decoration (Part 1)

 

[ruby sparks]

As I have said, (a) I don't know enough about gaming in general and (b) I'm off on hols tomorrow.

I had a very quick skim through that video, arctish. I found myself agreeing, pretty much, with almost everything. Plus, none of the games make me want to get into gaming and certainly not play many of the icky and cliche male roles, which in their own way as just as boringly stereotyped as the female roles.

What I don't know is context. How many females with 'questionable' or 'weak' roles are there, as an overall percentage of games, for example? What's the overall pattern? Does Anita cherry pick, in other words?

The critique on Damsels in Distress that you posted earlier and which I read did make the point that there were many games with 'strong' female characters too.

Rather than one 'side' emphasising this or that and another 'side' countering, where would one go, do you think, for a balanced and broad analysis?

 

[Arctish]

As I have said, (a) I don't know enough about gaming in general and (b) I'm off on hols tomorrow.

I had a very quick skim through that video, arctish. I found myself agreeing, pretty much, with almost everything. Plus, none of the games make me want to get into gaming and certainly not play many of the icky and cliche male roles, which in their own way as just as boringly stereotyped as the female roles.

What I don't know is context. How many females with 'questionable' or 'weak' roles are there, as an overall percentage of games, for example? What's the overall pattern? Does Anita cherry pick, in other words?

I don't know the overall percentage but even if I did that wouldn't tell us how heavily they're promoted or how widely they're embraced in popular culture. I don't think there's many narrative games that rival the popularity of Grand Theft Auto or Assassin's Creed that don't utilize the Females as Background Characters trope.

ETA: I've been playing computer games for more than 20 years. I regularly play CounterStrike and World of Warships. I've played Ultima Online, StarCraft, Diablo, Dungeon Siege, and similar games. Some of them employ a lot of tropes, especially games in the sword-and-sorcery genre, but the ones I play don't treat females as disposable sex objects. There's a lot of variety out there, so don't write off the whole gaming experience just because Grand Theft Auto rewards players for being sexist a-holes.

The critique on Damsels in Distress that you posted earlier and which I read did make the point that there were many games with 'strong' female characters too.

Rather than one 'side' emphasising this or that and another 'side' countering, where would one go, do you think, for a balanced and broad analysis?

I'm trying to find a good, reliable source for articles like that. Gaming websites like Polygon and Kotaku are a good place to start but I'd like to branch out farther and get an even broader perspective.

Have fun on your holidays. See you in a couple of weeks.

 

[Arctish]

I've watched the Women as Background Decoration installment a couple of times and read the transcript. I've also re-watched a couple of videos criticizing Sarkeesian's claims in it. Before posting my thoughts I'd like to quote this part of Terrell's post from several days ago that addresses what I think is the primary point of contention, her characterization of part of the gameplay in Hitman:Absolution.

It's been mentioned upthread about why she's a controversial figure. It's even been discussed here in other threads.

Examples include things like her review of hitman absolution where she claims that it's encouraged to kill the women in the game, when they're not the target. You're supposed to sneak by them, the objective is to take out your target without being caught. Unlike she claims they're not background decoration, they're people who can notice you. (you don't want to attract attention)



Criticism of her about hitman absolution starts at about 2:34 into the video. It shows her footage, followed by why she's wrong. If you look at the top left you can see the point deduction for killing the strippers.

For those like me who can only see a black rectangle where the video link to Thunderf00t's video should be, here's another link.

I think this criticism boils down to Sarkeesian's use of the footage from one specific game while making a broader point. When she plays that Hitman:Absolution clip she's talking about dehumanization caused by objectification and how it inevitably leads to the concept of disposability:

In order to understand how this works, let’s take a moment to examine how video game systems operate as playgrounds for player engagement. Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious, but bear with me. Game developers set up a series of rules and then within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do, and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibilities within the gamespace.

So in many of the titles we’ve been discussing, the game makers have set up a series of possible scenarios involving vulnerable, eroticized female characters. Players are then invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play-through.
The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon, because they were designed, constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters.

It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.

In-game consequences for these violations are trivial at best and rarely lead to any sort of “fail state” or “game over”. Sometimes areas may go on high-alert for a few minutes during which players have to lay low or hide before the game and its characters “forget” that you just murdered a sexualized woman in cold blood.

And right before makes ^this^ point, she says:

I should note that this kind of misogynistic behavior isn’t always mandatory; often it’s player-directed, but it is always implicitly encouraged.

However, I do agree that it looks like she's saying the Hitman:Absolution game encourages players to kill the strippers when in fact all it does is allow it. I think one could legitimately make the case that it enables or panders to players who want to act out that kind of dehumanizing fantasy, but it doesn't actively encourage it, not like the game that gives you a special achievement trophy called Dastardly for tying a female NPC to the railroad tracks and watching her die.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I think this criticism boils down to Sarkeesian's use of the footage from one specific game while making a broader point. When she plays that Hitman:Absolution clip she's talking about dehumanization caused by objectification and how it inevitably leads to the concept of disposability:

And right before makes ^this^ point, she says:

I should note that this kind of misogynistic behavior isn’t always mandatory; often it’s player-directed, but it is always implicitly encouraged.

The effect video violence has on viewers has been tested. There's zero effect. Same for violence in computer games. There's zero evidence that killing people in a game has any effect on the players violent tendencies. Or will affect their values.The evidence supports that viewers/players are perfectly able to separate fantasy and reality.

The difference between violence and misogyny is that the non-effect on violence is easily measured. Misogyny is a more vague target.

We have no reason to believe that sexism in games lead to sexism in society. Sarkesian just assumes that connection is obvious. It's exactly the same logic behind all moral panics in history. It's dumb.

Her analysis is exceedingly shallow.

 

[Arctish]

I think this criticism boils down to Sarkeesian's use of the footage from one specific game while making a broader point. When she plays that Hitman:Absolution clip she's talking about dehumanization caused by objectification and how it inevitably leads to the concept of disposability:

And right before makes ^this^ point, she says:

I should note that this kind of misogynistic behavior isn’t always mandatory; often it’s player-directed, but it is always implicitly encouraged.

The effect video violence has on viewers has been tested. There's zero effect. Same for violence in computer games. There's zero evidence that killing people in a game has any effect on the players violent tendencies. Or will affect their values.The evidence supports that viewers/players are perfectly able to separate fantasy and reality.

The difference between violence and misogyny is that the non-effect on violence is easily measured. Misogyny is a more vague target.

We have no reason to believe that sexism in games lead to sexism in society. Sarkesian just assumes that connection is obvious. It's exactly the same logic behind all moral panics in history. It's dumb.

Her analysis is exceedingly shallow.

These are just 3 of the articles Sarkeesian cites in this installment. She has provided links to all of them on her Feminist Frequency webpage:

Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others:

Abstract

Philosophers have argued that when people are objectified they are treated as if they lack the mental states and moral status associated with personhood. These aspects of objectification have been neglected by psychologists. This research investigates the role of depersonalization in objectification. In Study 1, objectified women were attributed less mind and were accorded lesser moral status than non‐objectified women. In Study 2, we replicated this effect with male and female targets and extended it to include perceptions of competence and pain attribution. Further, we explored whether target and perceiver gender qualify depersonalization. Overall, this research indicates that when people are objectified they are denied personhood.

The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects:

Abstract

The hypothesis that temporary and chronic construct accessibility effects may independently influence cognitive and behavioral reactions was examined. Male subjects blocked on the Likelihood to Sexually Harass (LSH) scale (Pryor, 1987) were randomly assigned to priming condition (control vs facilitation of the category, women as sexual objects). On a lexical decision task, as predicted, primed subjects responded faster to sexist words than did control subjects. In addition, they were slower to recognize nonsexist words pertaining to women than were controls. All subjects subsequently interviewed a female confederate job applicant under high or low power conditions. The power manipulation, the priming manipulation, and the individual difference measure proved to be associated with subjects′ (1) stereotyped information acquisition during the interview and (2) sexualized behavior during the interview. In addition, both the priming manipulation and the dispositional measure were associated with sex-typed evaluations of the confederate. The findings are supportive of an additive versus an interactive model, whereby either chronic or temporary construct accessibility may be sufficient to produce sex discriminatory behavior.

The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars

Abstract

Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersexualized representations of women, but the effects of embodying these representations remains understudied. The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that embodiment may lead to shifts in self-perception both online and offline based on the avatar’s features or behaviors. A 2 × 2 experiment, the first of its kind, examined how self-perception and attitudes changed after women (N = 86) entered a fully immersive virtual environment and embodied sexualized or nonsexualized avatars which featured either the participant’s face or the face of an unknown other. Findings supported the Proteus effect. Participants who wore sexualized avatars internalized the avatar’s appearance and self-objectified, reporting more body-related thoughts than those wearing nonsexualized avatars. Participants who saw their own faces, particularly on sexualized avatars, expressed more rape myth acceptance than those in other conditions. Implications for both online and offline consequences of using sexualized avatars are discussed.

Her analysis in each 25 minute video might be exceedingly shallow but she supports her arguments with published research.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The effect video violence has on viewers has been tested. There's zero effect. Same for violence in computer games. There's zero evidence that killing people in a game has any effect on the players violent tendencies. Or will affect their values.The evidence supports that viewers/players are perfectly able to separate fantasy and reality.

The difference between violence and misogyny is that the non-effect on violence is easily measured. Misogyny is a more vague target.

We have no reason to believe that sexism in games lead to sexism in society. Sarkesian just assumes that connection is obvious. It's exactly the same logic behind all moral panics in history. It's dumb.

Her analysis is exceedingly shallow.

These are just 3 of the articles Sarkeesian cites in this installment. She has provided links to all of them on her Feminist Frequency webpage:

Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others:

Abstract

Philosophers have argued that when people are objectified they are treated as if they lack the mental states and moral status associated with personhood. These aspects of objectification have been neglected by psychologists. This research investigates the role of depersonalization in objectification. In Study 1, objectified women were attributed less mind and were accorded lesser moral status than non‐objectified women. In Study 2, we replicated this effect with male and female targets and extended it to include perceptions of competence and pain attribution. Further, we explored whether target and perceiver gender qualify depersonalization. Overall, this research indicates that when people are objectified they are denied personhood.

The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects:

Abstract

The hypothesis that temporary and chronic construct accessibility effects may independently influence cognitive and behavioral reactions was examined. Male subjects blocked on the Likelihood to Sexually Harass (LSH) scale (Pryor, 1987) were randomly assigned to priming condition (control vs facilitation of the category, women as sexual objects). On a lexical decision task, as predicted, primed subjects responded faster to sexist words than did control subjects. In addition, they were slower to recognize nonsexist words pertaining to women than were controls. All subjects subsequently interviewed a female confederate job applicant under high or low power conditions. The power manipulation, the priming manipulation, and the individual difference measure proved to be associated with subjects′ (1) stereotyped information acquisition during the interview and (2) sexualized behavior during the interview. In addition, both the priming manipulation and the dispositional measure were associated with sex-typed evaluations of the confederate. The findings are supportive of an additive versus an interactive model, whereby either chronic or temporary construct accessibility may be sufficient to produce sex discriminatory behavior.

The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars

Abstract

Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersexualized representations of women, but the effects of embodying these representations remains understudied. The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that embodiment may lead to shifts in self-perception both online and offline based on the avatar’s features or behaviors. A 2 × 2 experiment, the first of its kind, examined how self-perception and attitudes changed after women (N = 86) entered a fully immersive virtual environment and embodied sexualized or nonsexualized avatars which featured either the participant’s face or the face of an unknown other. Findings supported the Proteus effect. Participants who wore sexualized avatars internalized the avatar’s appearance and self-objectified, reporting more body-related thoughts than those wearing nonsexualized avatars. Participants who saw their own faces, particularly on sexualized avatars, expressed more rape myth acceptance than those in other conditions. Implications for both online and offline consequences of using sexualized avatars are discussed.

Her analysis in each 25 minute video might be exceedingly shallow but she supports her arguments with published research.

How isn't this just a scientific fig leaf? These videos are easily digestible popcorn for the masses. So why are the studies linked behind a paywall? Since they're not accessible for the public, they're not clearly not referenced for us to get a better understanding.

I also react to the abstracts of these studies. The first one... waffly. The abstract tells me nothing of what kind of study they've done. Is it perhaps qualitative? Looks like it? Are there any actual test subjects? Who knows? Who gives a shit about what philosophers think? Why is that in the abstract? 42 citations. Mmmm. So not the greatest study. Looks like something cranked out by researchers as a side project. No researcher who actually gave a shit would write an abstract like that. Just my two cents.

Second one: This looks like just anchoring? It's a well known psychological effect. By skillfully using certain wordswe can effectively manipulate the listener temporarily. Salesmen use these techniques all the time. Same with stage hypnotists. But the effect doesn't last. It's over in minutes. So there's nothing to worry about, right?

Third one: I'd like to see this study because it sounds like... bullshit. What are they measuring? How do they measure it? I'd love to see how that experiment was designed. Red flag "the first study of it's kind". That's not what you want to see in a study. How is it different? The proteus effect has been studied before. So it's not that. Ok, fine. So it's an experimental study. 86 women were studied? Was there a control? What was the difference between the control and the subjects. The proteus effect creates a warped self image that is adjusted back to normal over time, or after reality fails to acknowledge your warped self image. So I don't understand why this would be at all relevant to 1) the study and 2) Anita Sarkesian.

If these are the best studies she could find she's got nothing. I'm sorry... but for the claims she's making these studies are pathetic. Too small and irrelevant to matter. These are the kinds of studies you make in order to establish if a bigger study is required.

Here's the most recent study on violent videogames not leading to violence.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180116131317.htm

And here's the study if you care. Freely available.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875952117300113?via=ihub

My favourite of these studies on video games is that they found that surgeons who play FPS games are better surgeons.

 

[Juma]

These are just 3 of the articles Sarkeesian cites in this installment. She has provided links to all of them on her Feminist Frequency webpage:

Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others:



The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects:

Abstract

The hypothesis that temporary and chronic construct accessibility effects may independently influence cognitive and behavioral reactions was examined. Male subjects blocked on the Likelihood to Sexually Harass (LSH) scale (Pryor, 1987) were randomly assigned to priming condition (control vs facilitation of the category, women as sexual objects). On a lexical decision task, as predicted, primed subjects responded faster to sexist words than did control subjects. In addition, they were slower to recognize nonsexist words pertaining to women than were controls. All subjects subsequently interviewed a female confederate job applicant under high or low power conditions. The power manipulation, the priming manipulation, and the individual difference measure proved to be associated with subjects′ (1) stereotyped information acquisition during the interview and (2) sexualized behavior during the interview. In addition, both the priming manipulation and the dispositional measure were associated with sex-typed evaluations of the confederate. The findings are supportive of an additive versus an interactive model, whereby either chronic or temporary construct accessibility may be sufficient to produce sex discriminatory behavior.

The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars

Abstract

Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersexualized representations of women, but the effects of embodying these representations remains understudied. The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that embodiment may lead to shifts in self-perception both online and offline based on the avatar’s features or behaviors. A 2 × 2 experiment, the first of its kind, examined how self-perception and attitudes changed after women (N = 86) entered a fully immersive virtual environment and embodied sexualized or nonsexualized avatars which featured either the participant’s face or the face of an unknown other. Findings supported the Proteus effect. Participants who wore sexualized avatars internalized the avatar’s appearance and self-objectified, reporting more body-related thoughts than those wearing nonsexualized avatars. Participants who saw their own faces, particularly on sexualized avatars, expressed more rape myth acceptance than those in other conditions. Implications for both online and offline consequences of using sexualized avatars are discussed.

Her analysis in each 25 minute video might be exceedingly shallow but she supports her arguments with published research.

How isn't this just a scientific fig leaf? These videos are easily digestible popcorn for the masses. So why are the studies linked behind a paywall? Since they're not accessible for the public, they're not referenced for us to get a better understanding.

I also react to the abstracts of these studies. The first one... waffly. Who gives a shit about what philosophers think? Why is that in the abstract? 42 citations. Mmmm. So not the greatest study. Looks like something cranked out by researchers as a side project. No researcher who actually gave a shit would write an abstract like that. Just my two cents.

Second one: This looks like just anchoring? It's a well known psychological effect. By skillfully using certain wordswe can effectively manipulate the listener temporarily. Salesmen use these techniques all the time. Same with stage hypnotists. But the effect doesn't last. It's over in minutes. So there's nothing to worry about, right?

third one: I'd like to see this study because it sounds like... bullshit. What are they measuring? How do they measure it? I'd love to see how that experiment was designed. Red flag "the first study of it's kind". That's not what you want to see in a study. How is it different? The proteus effect has been studied before. So it's not that. Ok, fine. So it's an experimental study. 86 women were studied? Was there a control? What was the difference between the control and the subjects. The proteus effect creates a warped self image that is adjusted back to normal over time, or after reality fails to acknowledge your warped self image. So I don't understand why this would be at all relevant to 1) the study and 2) Anita Sarkesian.

Here's the most recent study on violent videogames not leading to violence.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180116131317.htm

And here's the study if you care. Freely available.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875952117300113?via=ihub

My favourite of these studies on video games is that they found that surgeons who play FPS games are better surgeons.

To be fair: that study was not designed to see if you became more violent due to violent games. It was designed to see wether more REALISTIC games led to higher agression levels.

 

[DrZoidberg]

These are just 3 of the articles Sarkeesian cites in this installment. She has provided links to all of them on her Feminist Frequency webpage:

Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others:



The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects:



The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars

Abstract

Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersexualized representations of women, but the effects of embodying these representations remains understudied. The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that embodiment may lead to shifts in self-perception both online and offline based on the avatar’s features or behaviors. A 2 × 2 experiment, the first of its kind, examined how self-perception and attitudes changed after women (N = 86) entered a fully immersive virtual environment and embodied sexualized or nonsexualized avatars which featured either the participant’s face or the face of an unknown other. Findings supported the Proteus effect. Participants who wore sexualized avatars internalized the avatar’s appearance and self-objectified, reporting more body-related thoughts than those wearing nonsexualized avatars. Participants who saw their own faces, particularly on sexualized avatars, expressed more rape myth acceptance than those in other conditions. Implications for both online and offline consequences of using sexualized avatars are discussed.

Her analysis in each 25 minute video might be exceedingly shallow but she supports her arguments with published research.

How isn't this just a scientific fig leaf? These videos are easily digestible popcorn for the masses. So why are the studies linked behind a paywall? Since they're not accessible for the public, they're not referenced for us to get a better understanding.

I also react to the abstracts of these studies. The first one... waffly. Who gives a shit about what philosophers think? Why is that in the abstract? 42 citations. Mmmm. So not the greatest study. Looks like something cranked out by researchers as a side project. No researcher who actually gave a shit would write an abstract like that. Just my two cents.

Second one: This looks like just anchoring? It's a well known psychological effect. By skillfully using certain wordswe can effectively manipulate the listener temporarily. Salesmen use these techniques all the time. Same with stage hypnotists. But the effect doesn't last. It's over in minutes. So there's nothing to worry about, right?

third one: I'd like to see this study because it sounds like... bullshit. What are they measuring? How do they measure it? I'd love to see how that experiment was designed. Red flag "the first study of it's kind". That's not what you want to see in a study. How is it different? The proteus effect has been studied before. So it's not that. Ok, fine. So it's an experimental study. 86 women were studied? Was there a control? What was the difference between the control and the subjects. The proteus effect creates a warped self image that is adjusted back to normal over time, or after reality fails to acknowledge your warped self image. So I don't understand why this would be at all relevant to 1) the study and 2) Anita Sarkesian.

Here's the most recent study on violent videogames not leading to violence.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180116131317.htm

And here's the study if you care. Freely available.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875952117300113?via=ihub

My favourite of these studies on video games is that they found that surgeons who play FPS games are better surgeons.

To be fair: that study was not designed to see if you became more violent due to violent games. It was designed to see wether more REALISTIC games led to higher agression levels.

How about this one:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/soej.12139

Today the connection between violent videogames and violence has been well studied. If anything video games are opium for the masses. It makes people boring and sedated. Simply because the time they spend on-line is time they can't spend causing trouble.

 

[DrZoidberg]

There's a very common misconception about human psychology that humans, like parrots, blindly copy whatever it they read or see. As if reading Mein Kampf will increase the chances of you becoming a Nazi. Or reading the Bible will increase the chances of you becoming Christian. It just doesn't work that way. It's dumb.

The same faulty logic is behind shielding children from "harmful" ideas. I remember how we in the 70'ies weren't allowed to play with war toys. Because not being exposed to it will somehow create peace on Earth. If you are a child anything... even nothing at all... can be picked up and used as a gun. The idea that playing war games is about training ourselves to murder is also just as dumb. It's just competition. Something children like to do. It's only a war simulation in name only.

Context matters.

Have you ever wondered why the women in romantic comedies are super sexy and good looking? Are they also intended for the "straight male gaze"? Since most men need to be threatened with a gun to watch these... probably not. So women probably also want to look at (and have) hot female bodies in videogames. Then why does Sarkesian keep harping on about the straight male gaze?

I don't think the hyper feminine bodies in video games are created for the straight male gaze. I think they're created for the human gaze. She makes zero effort to address this or explain it. The hyper femininity or hyper masculinity is perhaps used to signal that it's a fictional world?

It's also dumb how she assumes that all bizarre clearly non-humans are gendered as men. Why is she making that assumption? It's as if she requires a woman to be stereotypically female in order to qualify as a woman, which I'm sure she'd complain about if her imagination could stretch that far.

This brings up another problem with Anita Sarkesian. She doesn't interact with those who criticise her. She exists in a feminist bubble (of her particular strain of feminism) that ignore what anybody else has to say on it.

This is a wider critique of gender studies in general. There's no other university field of study, where you have to agree with the conclusion before you start the inquiry. Which would be fine is all they did was deconstructive litterally analysis. Which is what it was initially. But now it's been allowed to swell beyond and is treated as a field on par with any other research in psychology. It's not. It's just not. Self-serving bias much?

Thanks for creating this thread. If it hadn't been for it I wouldn't have taken the time to analyze what she's really saying. It's a shambles.

I don't think she's judged as harshly by on-line critics as she deserves. Based on the lack of substance she deserves even more critique.

I wonder if she's got a teflon mind, and any criticism is simply brushed off as sexism? So she'll always, in her own mind, but in the right. Perhaps that's why she finds it meaningles to debate this?

 

[Arctish]

These are just 3 of the articles Sarkeesian cites in this installment. She has provided links to all of them on her Feminist Frequency webpage:

Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others:



The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects:

Abstract

The hypothesis that temporary and chronic construct accessibility effects may independently influence cognitive and behavioral reactions was examined. Male subjects blocked on the Likelihood to Sexually Harass (LSH) scale (Pryor, 1987) were randomly assigned to priming condition (control vs facilitation of the category, women as sexual objects). On a lexical decision task, as predicted, primed subjects responded faster to sexist words than did control subjects. In addition, they were slower to recognize nonsexist words pertaining to women than were controls. All subjects subsequently interviewed a female confederate job applicant under high or low power conditions. The power manipulation, the priming manipulation, and the individual difference measure proved to be associated with subjects′ (1) stereotyped information acquisition during the interview and (2) sexualized behavior during the interview. In addition, both the priming manipulation and the dispositional measure were associated with sex-typed evaluations of the confederate. The findings are supportive of an additive versus an interactive model, whereby either chronic or temporary construct accessibility may be sufficient to produce sex discriminatory behavior.

The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars

Abstract

Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersexualized representations of women, but the effects of embodying these representations remains understudied. The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that embodiment may lead to shifts in self-perception both online and offline based on the avatar’s features or behaviors. A 2 × 2 experiment, the first of its kind, examined how self-perception and attitudes changed after women (N = 86) entered a fully immersive virtual environment and embodied sexualized or nonsexualized avatars which featured either the participant’s face or the face of an unknown other. Findings supported the Proteus effect. Participants who wore sexualized avatars internalized the avatar’s appearance and self-objectified, reporting more body-related thoughts than those wearing nonsexualized avatars. Participants who saw their own faces, particularly on sexualized avatars, expressed more rape myth acceptance than those in other conditions. Implications for both online and offline consequences of using sexualized avatars are discussed.

Her analysis in each 25 minute video might be exceedingly shallow but she supports her arguments with published research.

How isn't this just a scientific fig leaf? These videos are easily digestible popcorn for the masses. So why are the studies linked behind a paywall? Since they're not accessible for the public, they're not clearly not referenced for us to get a better understanding.

I also react to the abstracts of these studies. The first one... waffly. The abstract tells me nothing of what kind of study they've done. Is it perhaps qualitative? Looks like it? Are there any actual test subjects? Who knows? Who gives a shit about what philosophers think? Why is that in the abstract? 42 citations. Mmmm. So not the greatest study. Looks like something cranked out by researchers as a side project. No researcher who actually gave a shit would write an abstract like that. Just my two cents.

Second one: This looks like just anchoring? It's a well known psychological effect. By skillfully using certain wordswe can effectively manipulate the listener temporarily. Salesmen use these techniques all the time. Same with stage hypnotists. But the effect doesn't last. It's over in minutes. So there's nothing to worry about, right?

Third one: I'd like to see this study because it sounds like... bullshit. What are they measuring? How do they measure it? I'd love to see how that experiment was designed. Red flag "the first study of it's kind". That's not what you want to see in a study. How is it different? The proteus effect has been studied before. So it's not that. Ok, fine. So it's an experimental study. 86 women were studied? Was there a control? What was the difference between the control and the subjects. The proteus effect creates a warped self image that is adjusted back to normal over time, or after reality fails to acknowledge your warped self image. So I don't understand why this would be at all relevant to 1) the study and 2) Anita Sarkesian.

If these are the best studies she could find she's got nothing. I'm sorry... but for the claims she's making these studies are pathetic. Too small and irrelevant to matter. These are the kinds of studies you make in order to establish if a bigger study is required.

Here's the most recent study on violent videogames not leading to violence.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180116131317.htm

And here's the study if you care. Freely available.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875952117300113?via=ihub

My favourite of these studies on video games is that they found that surgeons who play FPS games are better surgeons.

It's interesting that you feel free to criticize research papers you haven't read, to question a methodology you aren't certain was employed, and to ask if this was all Anita Sarkeesian had to back up her claims when she listed far more than that on her webpage, a fact I have pointed out to you more than once.

Also, it's interesting that in a series focusing on the representations of female characters in video games you jumped over to talking about violence. Yes, there was some discussion of violence against female NPCs in this latest installment. But the 3 part Damsels in Distress wasn't about that, and this one discusses it as part of the examination of tropes that depict Women as Background Decoration.

It's not about the violence, although that is a troubling aspect. Sarkeesian is focused on how the female NPCs are presented and meant to be used in-game, and how these representations in video games reinforce harmful stereotypes in our society. She isn't saying that killing strippers in Hitman:Absolution will lead one to killing them IRL.

 

[Arctish]

There's a very common misconception about human psychology that humans, like parrots, blindly copy whatever it they read or see. As if reading Mein Kampf will increase the chances of you becoming a Nazi. Or reading the Bible will increase the chances of you becoming Christian. It just doesn't work that way. It's dumb.

The same faulty logic is behind shielding children from "harmful" ideas. I remember how we in the 70'ies weren't allowed to play with war toys. Because not being exposed to it will somehow create peace on Earth. If you are a child anything... even nothing at all... can be picked up and used as a gun. The idea that playing war games is about training ourselves to murder is also just as dumb. It's just competition. Something children like to do. It's only a war simulation in name only.

Context matters.

Part of that context is culture.

Did you ever watch The Birth of a Nation? I realize you're not from the US and perhaps don't know KKK mythology. Even so, do you think some audience members might have had their prejudices reinforced?

Have you ever wondered why the women in romantic comedies are super sexy and good looking? Are they also intended for the "straight male gaze"? Since most men need to be threatened with a gun to watch these... probably not. So women probably also want to look at (and have) hot female bodies in videogames. Then why does Sarkesian keep harping on about the straight male gaze?

I don't think the hyper feminine bodies in video games are created for the straight male gaze. I think they're created for the human gaze. She makes zero effort to address this or explain it. The hyper femininity or hyper masculinity is perhaps used to signal that it's a fictional world?

It's also dumb how she assumes that all bizarre clearly non-humans are gendered as men. Why is she making that assumption? It's as if she requires a woman to be stereotypically female in order to qualify as a woman, which I'm sure she'd complain about if her imagination could stretch that far.

IIRC she talks about all that in a later installment. Let's have this discussion after we watch it.

This brings up another problem with Anita Sarkesian. She doesn't interact with those who criticise her. She exists in a feminist bubble (of her particular strain of feminism) that ignore what anybody else has to say on it.

She does interact with critics. But she doesn't allow her You Tube or Feminist Frequency pages to be overrun with trolls and hate speech.

Sarkeesian regularly appears at forums and moderated discussions to talk about her work and answer questions. But for some reason, by not allowing death threats, rape threats, and verbal abuse to dominate the discourse, she's accused of not wanting to talk at all.

It's like the guys who threaten to rape, mutilate, and kill her think they're the injured party when they can't post their threats on her webpages, and other guys think "Hey, you're right. She isn't letting you express how much you want to skull f**k her! That's censorship! OMG what a BITCH!!"

This is a wider critique of gender studies in general. There's no other university field of study, where you have to agree with the conclusion before you start the inquiry.

Is that a real rule or did you make it up yourself?

Which would be fine is all they did was deconstructive litterally analysis. Which is what it was initially. But now it's been allowed to swell beyond and is treated as a field on par with any other research in psychology. It's not. It's just not. Self-serving bias much?

Thanks for creating this thread. If it hadn't been for it I wouldn't have taken the time to analyze what she's really saying. It's a shambles.

I don't think she's judged as harshly by on-line critics as she deserves. Based on the lack of substance she deserves even more critique.

I wonder if she's got a teflon mind, and any criticism is simply brushed off as sexism? So she'll always, in her own mind, but in the right. Perhaps that's why she finds it meaningles to debate this?

You said her work was undeserving of the attention it gets. Then you said she deserved all the dislike and criticism she got. You felt that hate was too strong a word for it even though you know about the death threats, rape threats, the Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian game, and similar expressions of enmity. You suggested reading the work of other feminists instead of watching Sarkeesian's series. You used the word boring to describe it. Now you're saying she deserves to be judged even more harshly while maintaining her work is exceedingly shallow.

It's very confusing. Like you're saying she deserves to be hated for doing a poor job of highlighting sexism in video games but implying she deserves to be hated for even mentioning it.

Anyway, I'm going to be watching the next installment in the series, Women as Background Decoration Part 2. Once again I've linked to the video via Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency page so you can read the transcript and check out the links she provides. And once again this video is extremely

NSFW

so please keep that in mind if you decide to watch it.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It's interesting that you feel free to criticize research papers you haven't read, to question a methodology you aren't certain was employed, and to ask if this was all Anita Sarkeesian had to back up her claims when she listed far more than that on her webpage, a fact I have pointed out to you more than once.

I can't read them. Which is a problem... for Anita Sarkesian's credibility. I did the best I could.

Feminism and feminist issues interest me. I actually give a shit. I've read all the feminist classics. I'm a progressive liberal. I'm on the same side as Sarkesian. I've also done my best to read studies on the subject. I'm still not impressed by her.

My grandmother was a radical feminist on the baricades back in the 60'ies (and was cool as fuck). I was raised with this. She taught me well.

Also, it's interesting that in a series focusing on the representations of female characters in video games you jumped over to talking about violence. Yes, there was some discussion of violence against female NPCs in this latest installment. But the 3 part Damsels in Distress wasn't about that, and this one discusses it as part of the larger examination of Women as Background Characters.

I didn't say she talked about violence. I took up violence in video-games as an example of something where the whole culture agreed that it was a connection (for over 50 years) and then it was all wrong. First it was rock'n'roll, then video violence and now videogames. I think Anita Sarkesian is part of the same moral "majority" indignant moralism. Yes, it's just old fashioned moralism. That's why I brought the video game violence up. We have been wrong about so many things, regarding how culture influences us, this is just another one of those.

There's no reason to think that the games has the impact on our culture that she says it does. I thought she was largely correct just a few days ago. I've switched positions completely. There's almost zero substance to what she says.

BTW, after rock'n'roll came to the world reports of domestic violence increased dramatically. But it wasn't rock'n'roll. It was veterans coming back from WW2 with post traumatic stress disorder. They got no help, and were simply told to just "pull themselves together". Sometimes they ended up in jail, which only made things worse. It wasn't until the late 70'ies that we figured out what the real problem was.

Things are rarely as simple as they seem. I think Sarkesian's chain of causation is shallow and simplistic. I don't buy it.

In Ancient Greece, they were inundated with stories of the gods. In Athens their main diety was the goddess of war, Athena. She was the goddess of wisdom, and cunning and martial power. So a very proactive and powerful symbol. In one of the most misogynistic societies ever to have existed on Earth. With Sarkesians logic ancient Greece should have been a paradise for women.

Sarkeesian is focused on how the female NPCs are presented and meant to be used in-game, and how these representations in video games reinforce harmful stereotypes in our society. She isn't saying that killing a stripper in Hitman:Absolution will lead young men to killing them IRL.

At this point I'll need to see some serious research to back this up. Because I think Sarkesian is just talking out of her arse. I suspect her brain is so warped at this point that everything looks sexist to her. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

How about this theory? We have a taboo in western culture about violence against women. Taboos cause stress and we often use fiction, our imagination and playing in order to release that stress. So violence against women in fiction might just as well be an affirmation of that taboo in the real world. Without serious studies to back it up, it means nothing.

 

[bigfield]

Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others

Sci-Hub:
https://sci-hub.tw/https/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.755

The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects

Sci-Hub:
https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103185710220

The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars

Sci-Hub:
https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321200369X

Stanford:
http://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2013/fox-chb-sexualized-virtual-selves.pdf

 

[DrZoidberg]

Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others

Sci-Hub link for that article: https://sci-hub.tw/https/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.755

Well, done. Thanks for the link. It turned out to be a solid study. But that study just supports that men and women are inately psychologically different. Not that culture (games or otherwise) has influenced us. So still no support for Sarkesians argument. I've seen a study where men think women with big tits are more stupid than women with small tits, because when they speak to the big tittied women, they have trouble concentrating on what the woman is saying. Is that because of culture or biology? Claiming that this is learned behaviour would be bizarre. Just think of the evolutionary pressure that put the tits there to begin with. An essentially useless and dysfunctional piece of biology. Big tits offer zero advantage to the female other than it makes men happy to look at and squeeze. There's zero relation between ability to produce milk and the size of the breast. It's essentially peacock feathers.

In all dimorphic species there's typically one gender that selects the other. And that means colourful displays from one of them. Usually it's females selecting males. But nature is weird and bizarre, and there's all manner of combinations. The important thing is that females and males select eachother based on different scales. It would be absurd to think humanity would be exempt from this. So it makes perfect sense that women are primarily picked for beauty and men for ability to gain status in the tribe. It would make no sense if men and women would select eachother based on the same selection criteria. That would violate all known patterns in nature. That study seems to verify that. So Sarkesians point is what? I don't get it. I don't understand why she used that study, or why she thinks it's relevant?

 

[bigfield]

Objectification leads to depersonalization: The denial of mind and moral concern to objectified others

Sci-Hub:
https://sci-hub.tw/https/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.755

Referring to the traditional definition of objectification as a focus on the body, the female targets varied according to the attention they drew to the body. This was manipulated by varying the amount of skin the target displayed and the face-ism bias. Face-ism is a measure of facial prominence in the visual representation of a person, calculated as the ratio of space occupied by the face over the space occupied by the body in the entire figure. Previous research has shown that images of men tend to include proportionally more face relative to body compared with images of women (Archer, Iritani, Kimes, & Barrios, 1983; Schwarz & Kurz, 1989). This emphasis on the face and de-emphasis on the body has been shown to affect perceptions of the target, with high face-ism indices leading to greater attribution of competence, assertiveness, and intelligence (Archer et al., 1983; Matthews, 2007; Schwarz & Kurz, 1989). In sum, we hypothesize that objectified women will be depersonalized compared to non-objectified women in terms of lesser attribution of mind and moral status.

The basic idea that the visibility of a person's face affects one's perception of that person seems quite reasonable, since the human face is an important means of non-verbal communication and recognition.