Can Pretty Pictures be Harmful?: Depression, Body Esteem, and Career Aspirations

Today’s media is saturated with sexualized images of women. Women in revealing clothing and suggestive poses are used to sell items as diverse as perfume to cars. This issue has been widely studied, with sexualized content having been found in advertisements, television shows, movies, music videos, video games, and even children’s toys. The effect of such content has likewise been researched widely. Objectification of women in such a manner has been related to lowered self-esteem and body esteem (Groesz et al., 2002; Turner et al., 1997), higher levels of depression (Durkin & Paxton, 2002; Mills et al., 2002; Rivadeneyra et al., 2007), and even decreased cognitive resources (Frederickson et al., 1998). This media portrayal of women also severely limits women’s conceptualizations of themselves as anything more than a sexualized being. Results indicated that attractive images of women influenced future career perceptions