Portrait of a lady : attitudes toward women in men's lifestyle magazines

This study measures the attitudes men and women form toward women from a sample of feature articles and interviews in four men's lifestyle magazines (Maxim, Stuff Esquire and GQ) from the years 2002-2004. Attitudes were measured with a 15-item semantic differential analysis. Across all four magazines, attitudes toward the women were positive, active, and impotent. A MANCOVA tested the hypotheses that attitudes would vary by magazine title, gender, and sexism scores as measured by the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI). Magazine title was the only significant main effect, showing that women featured in Stuff magazine received the most negative ratings on all three semantic differential scales. Gender and ASI score did not significantly affect individual attitudes.Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance ServicesThesis (M.A.