Sexist advertising: do women care? Research into women's attitudes toward sexual objectification in advertising and its effect on general purchase intentions and company image.

PAUL E. KETELAAR, SUZANNE VAN HEMMEN & DOESCHKA ANSCHOTZ Sexist advertising: do women care? Research into women's attitudes toward sexual objectification in advertising and its effect on general purchase intentions and company image. This study investigated women's attitudes toward sexually objectified advertising and replicated the study of Zimmerman & Dahlberg (2008). An online survey among 250 female students shows that they do not find sexually objectified advertising in general to be particularly offensive. Moreover, sexually objectifying advertising does not seem to harm the company image nor general purchase intentions. However, when looking at ads with varying degrees of sexual objectification, we found that ads with high levels of sexual objectification were perceived as unethical and offensive, which translated into a negative attitude toward the ad. We were not able to confirm Zimmerman & Dahlberg's assertion that the emergence of postfeminism relates to the more favorable attitudes of women toward sexual objectification.