Beth Granter

“Shag Types: Because women are easier to understand if you stereotype them”
(Maxim, 2006: 142).

The commodification of women under prostitution or marriage has been widespread in many societies and cultures for centuries. Second wave feminist calls for the sexual liberation of women in the 1970s might appear to be forgetting mainstream media’s representation of women as ‘things’. Such is the case in the February 2006 issue of Maxim magazine, where “things and girls” are deemed to deserve to share the same category listing on the contents page. Repeated explicit objectification of women enforces chauvinistic attitudes to the extent that concepts of women as ‘things’ purely existing in order to receive the male gaze and for the consumption and ownership by men are not challenged.

The whole essay is available here: How do mainstream ‘lads’ magazines’ represent women and construct concepts of femininity? [PDF]