Pre-pubescent girls' evaluations of female images in Hong Kong media

Abstract

Interviews with pre-pubescent girls in Hong Kong explored their satisfaction with the images of females presented in the media. Sixteen girls aged 10 to 12 were asked to take images from media that are about "what girls or women should be or should not be; and what girls or women should do or should not do". They were asked who created the images they collected and whether they were satisfied with the content.Most of these young girls were able to identify some of the individuals and the institutions involved in the creation of female images. They identified promoting sales, beautifying, reflection, and questionable motives as the intentions behind creating the images as they were. The girls were dissatisfied with female images in the media.They found them too sexy, too passive, or too artificial and expressed a preference for images of girls or women that are active, natural, and healthy. Pre-pubescent girls' evaluations of gender images in the media

What do adolescent girls learn about gender roles from advertising images?

“…Some participants used beauty and slimming ads to illustrate what they perceived as inappropriate or undesirable gender roles. The critical reading and dissatisfaction with female images that are too thin or too near perfection are similar to the findings previously reported among pre-adolescents girls in Hong Kong (Chan, 2011a). Similar to what was reported in Chan's 2011 study, the adolescent girls in this study showed approval of female images in advertisements that they considered natural looking and as wearing clothes that were not too sexy, even though the approved images displayed light make-up.…”

“…Qualitative studies have examined what types of media images attract the attention of pre‐adolescent girls in Hong Kong and how they perceived the images presented (Chan, 2011a; Chan, 2011b; Chan et al , 2011). Pre‐adolescent girls' perceived gender roles were shown to combine traditional and contemporary female role stereotypes.…”

“…They find them unrealistic and too ideal. If they were the media producers, they say they would like to create female images that are more active, natural and healthy (Chan, 2011a). Pre‐adolescent girls learn gender roles in part from celebrities portraying females as brave, courteous, self‐confident, expressive of their feelings, well educated and achieving career goals.…”

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness”: expectancies associated with tween makeup ownership

“…The socialization of children into active, participating consumers is inevitable and necessary given the economic system (Preston, 2004; 364) yet there is still great debate around the impact of advertising and marketing to children (Nairn and Fine, 2008). Research continues to increase in many areas related to children and consumption, including research around the pursuit of beauty (Scelzo and Lerman, 2009;Northup and Liebler, 2010;Chan, 2012;McGladrey, 2014), with the impact that media has on this pursuit becoming an important research area (Jung and Peterson, 2007). Authors such as Tiggemann, Slater and Sharpe have been instrumental in researching the impact that media has on body image perceptions of women (Tiggemann, 2004;Sharp, Tiggemann and Mattiske, 2015) and adolescent girls (Slater et al, 2012;Tiggemann and Slater, 2013).…”