Dehumanizing representations of women: the shaping of hostile sexist attitudes through animalistic metaphors

Tipler, Caroline; Ruscher, Janet B.

doi:10.1080/09589236.2017.1411790

Cited by 44 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…As in Disney films, associations with animals draw on "primal fears" that heighten the dangers animals can pose (Bell 1995, p. 117). This assertion is supported by a study of how animals have links to gender: Women described as predatory (versus prey-like) were more apt to be perceived as unfeminine (Tipler and Ruscher 2019). This finding is also consistent with research showing that men are more likely to identify with animals that are predators rather than prey (Robinson et al 2017).…”

Section: Ehsupporting

confidence: 74%

Bad Witches: Gender and the Downfall of Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos and Disney’s Maleficent

Dundes

Buitelaar

Streiff³

2019

Social Sciences

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Female villains, both fictional and real, are subject to unconscious gender bias when part of their iniquity involves the disruption of male authority. Disney’s most popular animated villain, Maleficent, from Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Elizabeth Holmes of the now-disgraced blood testing startup, Theranos, reveled in their power, deviating from idealized feminine propriety. An analysis of scenes featuring Maleficent, the “mistress of all evil”, and coverage of Elizabeth Holmes, once the first self-made female billionaire, illustrate how powerful women with hubris are censured beyond their misdeeds. Elizabeth Holmes’ adoption of a deep voice and other masculine characteristics parallels Maleficent’s demeanor and appearance that signal female usurpation of traditional male power. Both antagonists also engage in finger pricking that penetrates the skin and draws blood, acts associated with symbolic male potency. The purported ability to bewitch, in conjunction with the adoption of patterns associated with male dominance, suggest that Maleficent and Elizabeth Holmes wield power over men and wield the power of men. Discomfort with the way in which magical powers were allegedly employed by these women echo historical fears of witches accused of appropriating male power. Furthermore, powerful women who encroach on male authority but ultimately fail to upend the gender hierarchy trigger schadenfreude beyond that expected from their wrongdoings. In the end, the stories of Maleficent and Elizabeth Holmes celebrate the downfall of women who brazenly embrace power, without showing women how to challenge the gender hierarchy.

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Section: Ehsupporting

confidence: 74%

Bad Witches: Gender and the Downfall of Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos and Disney’s Maleficent

Dundes

Buitelaar

Streiff³

2019

Social Sciences

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“…Assuming a medium effect size for the hypothesised interaction of microaggressions x minority status on global life satisfaction, and using the following parameters -effect size (f) = .30, α = .05, power = .80 -it was found that 90 participants would be sufficient for adequate power. These power calculations were based on assumptions used in a large volume of research across a variety of disciplines, including social psychology, that reached the similar conclusions concerning the number of participants required to find the hypothesised interaction effect (see, e.g., Dowd et al, 2014;Gothe & McAuley, 2016;Hadjichristidis, Geipel, & Surian, 2017;Mackillop, Goldenson, Kirkpatrick, & Leventhal, 2018;Tipler & Ruscher, 2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing Hypersensitive Responses: Ethnic Minorities Are Not More Sensitive to Microaggressions, They Just Experience Them More Frequently

West

2019

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

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Racial microaggressions have attracted significant empirical attention and have been associated with profound negative effects. However, some argue against the importance of microaggressions arguing that (some) responses to microaggressions merely reflect “hypersensitivity” to trivial events among certain ethnic minority individuals. Three studies tested this hypersensitivity hypothesis. In two cross-sectional studies with dissimilar samples ( N1 = 130, N2 = 264), ethnic minorities reported experiencing more microaggressions than ethnic majorities did, and microaggressions predicted less life satisfaction. However, contrary to the hypersensitivity hypothesis, minority identity did not moderate this relationship. In a randomized, controlled experiment ( N3 = 114), White and ethnic minority participants reported their positive and negative affect before and after recalling either a microaggression or a control event. Recalling microaggressions reduced positive affect and increased negative affect, but this was also not moderated by minority identity. Implications for the hypersensitivity hypothesis, and microaggressions research, are discussed.

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“…Across gender, animal metaphors are associated with dehumanization (Haslam, Loughnan, & Sun, 2011) and social exclusion (Andrighetto, Riva, Gabbiadini, & Volpato, 2016), signifying a base and immoral nature, that lacks agency and rationality (Haslam, 2006). When women are animalized they are invariably positioned as creatures of emotion, nature and desire, and inferior to men (Tipler & Ruscher, 2019), with pig and whale metaphors, in particular, signifying depravity (Haslam et al., 2011). Such dehumanization is also associated with the objectification of the female body (Morris, Goldenberg, & Boyd, 2018), and thus self-positioning as animalistic serves to both denigrate the reproductive body and reinforce women’s self-objectification during the premenstrual phase of the cycle.…”

Section: Inhabiting the Abject Premenstrual Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

“I feel fat and ugly and hate myself”: Self-objectification through negative constructions of premenstrual embodiment

Ussher

Perz

2020

Feminism & Psychology

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The body is central to women’s construction of premenstrual change as premenstrual syndrome (PMS), and to experiences of premenstrual distress. Embodied change, such as bloating or breast tenderness, can act as a marker of PMS. Within biomedical models, PMS is located within the body. Women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies is also reported to be higher in the premenstrual phase of the cycle. What is absent from this analysis is the meaning and experience of embodied change, in the context of broader constructions of femininity and embodiment. In this paper, we adopt a feminist material-discursive theoretical framework to examine the role of premenstrual embodiment in women’s premenstrual distress, drawing on open-ended survey responses and interviews with 83 women who self-diagnose as “PMS sufferers”. We theorize premenstrual body hatred as subjectification, wherein women take up cultural discourse associated with idealized femininity and the stigmatization of the fat body, resulting in self-objectification, distress and dehumanization. However, women can resist negative cultural constructions of premenstrual embodiment. We describe the impact of psychological therapy which increases awareness of emotional and embodied change, resulting in greater acceptance of the premenstrual body and self-care, serving to reduce premenstrual distress and self-objectification.

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Dehumanizing representations of women: the shaping of hostile sexist attitudes through animalistic metaphors

Cited by 44 publications

References 39 publications

Bad Witches: Gender and the Downfall of Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos and Disney’s Maleficent

Bad Witches: Gender and the Downfall of Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos and Disney’s Maleficent

Testing Hypersensitive Responses: Ethnic Minorities Are Not More Sensitive to Microaggressions, They Just Experience Them More Frequently

“I feel fat and ugly and hate myself”: Self-objectification through negative constructions of premenstrual embodiment

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