Watching Aggressive, Attractive, Female Protagonists Shapes Gender Roles for Women Among Male and Female Undergraduate Viewers

Abstract

The impact of exposure to media representations of aggressive, attractive, female protagonists on audiences’ gender role expectations for women was explored through a laboratory experiment with 122 undergraduates from a large university on the west coast of the United States. Participants viewed a segment of a major Hollywood motion picture that featured a female protagonist who was either highly attractive or less attractive and either highly aggressive or not aggressive. Viewing clips featuring a female protagonist who was both aggressive and stereotypically attractive led to greater endorsement of stereotypically feminine and stereotypically masculine gender role expectations for women. The effect on endorsement of stereotypically masculine expectations was partially mediated by the perception that the protagonist was a good role model for women. Although women endorsed both feminine and masculine gender role expectations for women more strongly than men, the effects of exposure to aggressive, attractive, female protagonists were similar for both male and female participants. Results are discussed in terms of gender stereotype activation and superwoman expectations for women.

Is it funny because it's not true? Chinese people's perceptions of aggressive female characters in Asian comedies

“…This research echoes that of Taylor and Setters (2011) as well as Calvert, Kondla, et al (2001), who found that participants tended to hold stereotypically feminine and stereotypically masculine expectations for women. It seemed that while participants observed the aggressiveness shown in the clip of video, the gender stereotypes they hold also played a major role in how they made meaning from the characters.…”

“…For most of these participants, being pretty seemed to serve as an essential condition for being aggressive. Again, the results echo the findings of Taylor & Setters (2011) and Calvert, Kondla, et al (2001) that participants tended to prefer the female characters, if aggressive, to be feminine at the same time.…”

“…Put simply, college-age women who wished they were more like the action characters also tended to reported greater aggressive tendencies. Taylor and Setters (2011) noted that both the attractiveness and the aggressiveness of an aggressive female protagonist affected college students' expectations for women. They found that participants tended to hold more stereotypically feminine and stereotypically masculine expectations for women after being shown video clips featuring a woman who was aggressive and stereotypically attractive.…”

“…This could be due in part to differences in the type of content participants were shown. Pingree (1978) and Morgan (1982) were examining the influence of less-stereotypical images of women, while Taylor and Setters (2011) showed women with stereotypically feminine and masculine traits. The findings of Taylor and Setters (2011) are consistent with those of Calvert, Kondla, et al (2001), who argued that both men and women were more likely to like the female hero Xena from Xena:…”

Sex, Power, and Women: Female Viewers’ Perceptions of Popular Music Video Themes

“…However, there has been comparatively little research into the effects of sexual content type on body dissatisfaction or sex schemas. Taylor and Setters [15] found that women watching highly attractive, highly aggressive female film protagonists endorsed both more stereotypically masculine and feminine gender roles for women relative to women watching less attractive and/or less aggressive female protagonists, provided that they also perceived the character as being worthy of emulation. The authors suggest that this is due to spreading activation, whereby the priming of one component of a schema activates the other components.…”