Women in Control? Political Ideology Shapes Consumers' Responses to Sexualized Advertising
(A2023-114534)

AUTHORS

Mario Pandelaere, Virginia Tech; Gwarlann De Kerviler, IESEG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT LEM-CNRS (UMR 9221); Shilpa Madan, Virginia Tech

ABSTRACT

Despite dramatic changes to women’s positions in society, advertising campaigns portraying women as sexualized objects of desire are still prevalent (Vezich et al., 2017). Ongoing debates about whether sexualized imagery is a means to exert control over men or whether it leads to male domination have offered divergent perspectives (Bue and Harrison 2019; Fetterolf and Rudman 2017). In this research, we identify a new mechanisms and we verify it with three studies presenting converging evidence that consumers’ political orientation shapes the extent to which sexualized women are perceived in control in sexualized advertisements, and this drives their responses to these ads. We test the underlying role of perceived control across different samples, operationalizations of political control, multiple ads, and varied approaches. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.