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Article Excerpt
The critical commentary on the Report of the APA (American Psychological Association) Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (APA, 2007), as formulated by Lerum and Dworkin in this issue of the Journal of Sex Research, is a commentary after my heart. I wholeheartedly agree with their viewpoint that the APA report is definitely a most important work, but at the same time at odds with feminist criticism of the double standard and the fight for women's right to be sexual. Clearly, and Lerum and Dworkin do not hesitate to credit this, the APA task force makes an overwhelmingly strong point for the dangers of the sexualization of women and girls and the self-objectification connected to it. The APA report presents evidence showing the negative impact of sexualization on girls' self-esteem; sexual autonomy; cognitive abilities; emotional well-being and psychological health; and sports-, school-, and professional achievements and ambitions. However, the discussion of the evidence summarized in the APA report is noteworthy in that it is one-sided, selective, overly simplifying, generalizing, and negatively toned. While their train thunders on in only one direction, and one direction only, the reader cannot help but feel that an area as complex as sexuality asks for more sophistication, nuance, and depth. Like Lerum and Dworkin, I strongly feel that criticizing sexualization without also looking at the sexual health and rights of women and girls is a step backward for women and girls, as well as for feminism. In this short commentary, I underline some of Lerum and Dworkin's points and make some additional remarks.
Sexualization?--What Sexualization?
Lerum and Dworkin rightfully argue that the APA (2007) task force (implicitly) generalizes all sexualized media images to portray feminine submissiveness and to promote harmful (i.e., thin) beauty ideals. However, media imagery of women or girls is not as uniform as that. As Lerum and Dworkin maintain, plenty of images show strong, empowered, and muscular body ideals, nowadays maybe even more so than before. Sexualized media content encompasses a diverse body of imagery, and much of it...
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