Sexualization,Youthification,and Adultification: A Content Analysis of Images of Girls and Women in Popular Magazines

Abstract

The present study examines the “adultification” of girls and “youthification” of women in popular magazines, in which girls are “dressed up” to look like women, and women are “dressed down” to look like girls. The analysis includes a total of 540 advertising and editorial images from women’s, men’s, and teen girls’ U.S. magazines. Results show that adultification is more prevalent than youthification, that youthification is equally prevalent in men’s and women’s magazines, that girls who are adultified are more likely to be provocatively dressed and exhibit sexy facial expressions, and that advertising and editorial images are equally likely to feature adultification and youthification.

Keywords

adolescents sexualization magazines content analysis youthification adultification

There is considerable research that documents the ubiquitous practice of sexualization and sexual objectification of women’s bodies in U.S. media culture (e.g., Aubrey & Frisby, 2011; Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Kilbourne & Jhally, 2000; Ward, 2016). However, little is known about how sexualization interacts with age. According to the American Psychological Association (APA; 2007) Task Force on the Sexualization of Women and Girls, “adultification” occurs when girls are “dressed up” to look like women, and the other side of the spectrum is “youthification,” in which women are “dressed down” to look like girls. These two types of depictions can be conceptualized as part of the same system of messages known as age compression, a practice in which women and girls in various media are compressed to an age in which they are most valued for their sexual function.

In the present study, our purpose was to not only document adultification and youthification, but also examine these processes as they relate to sexual objectification. Assessing the extent of youthification and adultification in a sector of U.S. media is best achieved via content analysis; this method involves quantifying these constructs, and usefully promotes an understanding of the scope of this cultural problem. While much feminist literature has critiqued the content analysis approach as simplistic research that yields obvious results (Walters, 1995), we contend that now more than ever (given the popular perception that gender equity has been achieved), it is important to assess the scope of issues related to gender and sexuality in our U.S. culture. Thus, the present study is a content analysis of adultification and youthification in U.S. magazines—one important source of appearance standards and sexual imagery.

Sexualization: Conceptualization, Debates, and Critiques

The APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Women and Girls defined sexualization as occurring when either

(a) a person’s value only comes from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics, (b) a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy, (c) a person is sexually objectified—that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making, (d) sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person. (APA, 2007, p. 2)

The fourth criterion of the APA definition of sexualization is especially relevant to the idea of adultification; girls below 18 years who appear in magazines in sexualized ways can be interpreted as having sexuality inappropriately imposed upon them.

The APA (2007) Task Force report centers on media contributions to sexualization. Media are regarded as one important source of information for girls especially, and many scholars argue that media exposure has an impact on girls’ and young women’s sexual socialization (e.g., Epstein & Ward, 2008; Ward, 2003) and appearance standards (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008; Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2012). We chose to focus on U.S. magazines for three main reasons. First, they are popular among and marketed toward both adolescents and adults. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (2011), popular magazines like Cosmopolitan have regular circulations of over 3 million. Second, research has long indicated that magazines are especially pernicious purveyors of unrealistic appearance ideals, especially for girls and women (e.g., Grabe et al., 2008; Hawkins, Richards, Granley, & Stein, 2004). Third, magazines are a particularly important source of advice about appearance and sexuality for girls (Steele & Brown, 1995).

The APA Task Force (APA, 2007) summarized the sexualization of girls from a theoretical, research-oriented, and clinical psychological perspective. While this report has sparked much research documenting the sexualization of girls in U.S. media and investigating the impact of this sexualization (e.g., Graff, Murnen, & Krause, 2013; McKenney & Bigler, 2016; Slater & Tiggemann, 2016; Tolman, Bowman, & Chmielewski, 2015), the report has also generated debate and critique. For example, Lerum and Dworkin (2009) argued that the report interferes with contemporary feminist goals such as “facilitating sexual agency and pleasure, sexual rights, and sexual health for girls and women” (p. 253), and it contributes to a larger discourse that serves to paint girls as passive beings who lack sexual agency yet blames these girls for their deviance (Egan, 2013).

While acknowledging these critiques, we take inspiration from Durham (2008), who argued that media sexualization both exploits and limits girls’ and women’s sexual expression and agency. Durham documents a turn from an older and curvaceous ideal body type (e.g., Marilyn Monroe) to young and with a boyish body type. When young girls are posed as sexual objects of the adult gaze, these depictions “do nothing to foster a healthy, balanced understanding of sex as a normal part of human life that is best experienced in adulthood” (p. 119). Thus, in line with Durham’s argument, we see adultification and youthification to be potentially problematic depictions of women and girls, especially to the extent that is imbued with sexuality. An investigation of age compression as it relates to sexualization is critical in beginning to develop an understanding of media may work to define girls’ and women’s sexuality in limited terms.

In the present study, we examine whether sexual objectification exists in tandem with adultification and youthification. Mediated sexual objectification “occurs whenever a person’s body, body parts, or sexual functions are separated out from his or her person, reduced to the status of mere instruments, or regarded as if they were capable of representing him or her” (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997, p. 175). We utilized this definition of sexual objectification to articulate different indicators of sexual objectification. First, an obvious way in which sexual objectification can be conveyed is through body exposure, as in the case of a person who is revealing a lot of skin or body parts (Aubrey et al., 2009). Second, in correspondence with the notion that women are valued for their ability to use their bodies to be sexually alluring, we examined staging techniques that women exhibit to appear sexually alluring: wearing provocative attire, displaying overtly sexual expressions (e.g., a smoldering look of desire, licking one’s lips), and sexual connotation (e.g., touching oneself suggestively, legs parted suggestively).

Age Compression: Youthification and Adultification in Magazines

Although the APA (2007) coined the terms adultification and youthification, it is important to note that scholars have studied similar concepts, such as infantilization (Goffman, 1979; Kilbourne, 1979) and juvenation (Hartley, 1998). Infantilization occurs in advertising when women are portrayed as childish, playful, and immature (Goffman, 1979). Juvenation is the creative journalistic practice of communicating with readership through the medium of youthfulness; there are various strategies that media use to represent and construct girlhood (Hartley, 1998). While other scholars have discussed similar concepts using various terms, the terms adultification and youthification are conceptually useful because they neatly capture the two sides of age compression. Furthermore, they are distinct from the previously mentioned concepts because they do not necessarily denote sexualization; for example, it is possible for girls to wear adult-like clothing (e.g., a business suit) without being sexualized.

The marketing practice known as age compression involves dual strategies. First, it involves marketing adult products at young children to encourage consumption (Lamb & Brown, 2006). To build brand loyalty as early as possible, youth marketers take advantage of children’s natural developmental urge to be older and more mature than they actually are by targeting kids with adult-appropriate appeals and products (Schor, 2004). One of the consequences of age compression is that kids are bombarded with adult content and messages that carry specific ideas not about childhood, but about what it means to be an adult. Young girls, even as young as 4 to 6 years old, receive messages about how to be sexy and attractive, and they appear in imagery complete with the trappings of woman adulthood, such as mature clothing, jewelry, and makeup (O’Donohue, Gold, & McKay, 1997). As Durham (2008) pointed out, “clothing and makeup aren’t problematic. It’s the corollary assumption—that youth is sexy, that little girls are sexy, and that because of that they can be seen as having the same sexual awareness as adults—that’s of real concern” (p. 126).

The second strategy of age compression is the youthification of adult women. In this practice, adult women are portrayed as young girls, often wearing schoolgirl clothing and licking lollipops or popsicles or wearing versions of children’s clothing styles like baby-doll dresses and tops, knee socks, and Mary Jane shoes (Kilbourne, 1999). This practice capitalizes on the pressure adult women feel to be younger than their actual age. In the marketing practices of both adultification and youthification, there is a push for both young girls and adult women to be “compressed” to an age where they are valued mostly for their sexiness.

Research documenting and testing the effects of adultification and youthification specifically in the media is scant. Most relevant to the current study, Graff et al. (2013) documented the change in the number of sexualizing characteristics and childlike characteristics in images of girls in two teen girls’ magazines (Seventeen and Girls’ Life). Results showed an increase in sexualizing characteristics across time in both magazines, and a decrease in the number of childlike characteristics in Girls’ Life. Similarly, Goodin, Van Denburg, Murnen, and Smolak (2011) examined clothing featured on websites of popular clothing stores in the United States, and they found that 69% of clothing items had only childlike characteristics, 4% had only sexualizing characteristics, and 25.4% had both sexualizing and childlike characteristics. They argue that the co-occurrence of sexualizing and childlike characteristics in the clothing makes the sexualization in girls’ clothing more covert and complicated, and that the young girls who the clothing is being marketed to are unlikely to understand the full implications and possible disadvantages of wearing sexy clothing. Finally, a study by Machia and Lamb (2009) examined the effects of magazine advertisements portraying adult women as “sexy little girls.” Results showed that participants viewing both sexy adult women and sexy young girls lead to greater acceptance of child sexual abuse myths. The study suggests that the APA’s (2007) suspicions are correct: that blurring the lines between girls and women affects attitudes about child sexual abuse.

The Present Study

In the present study, three genres of magazines were investigated for the presence of adultification and youthification: teen girls’ magazines, women’s lifestyle magazines, and men’s lifestyle magazines. These genres were chosen because we surmised there would be an appropriate amount of variance to test our research questions. In addition, it is also useful to consider how each magazine also constructs the ideal body. For teen magazines, we sampled issues from Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and Girls’ Life. Previous studies have identified the ideal body in Seventeen magazines to be thin and toned (Hsu, 2013) and also increasingly more sexualized over time, particularly with regard to featuring teen girls in low-cut tops and tight-fitting clothing (Graff et al., 2013). Teen Vogue brands itself as the fashion and beauty guide for teen girls and also presents the ideal teen body as sexually feminine (Hawley, 2009). Girls’ Life, originally founded to be less fashion and celebrity focused than the other teen girls’ magazines, it too has become more sexualized in its portrayals of female bodies, particularly with regard to featuring girls in high heels, low-cut and tight-fitting clothing (Graff et al., 2013).

Because women’s lifestyle and men’s lifestyle magazines are targeted to adult readers, they provided images of adult women that were used to document youthification. For women’s lifestyle magazines, we analyzed Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and Elle. Cosmopolitan prominently features sexual advice for women, but also includes imagery of women and men in highly sexualized ways, implying that women are always interested in sex (Walker, 2015). Both Vogue and Elle magazines are focused on women’s fashion trends, and as such, the ideal female form in these magazines perpetuate the ultrathin ideal (Wasylkiw, Emms, Meruse, & Poirier, 2009).

For men’s lifestyle magazines, we investigated Maxim, Playboy, and GQ. In Maxim and Playboy, women are portrayed primarily as sexual objects (Baker, 2005; Krassas, Blauwkamp, & Wesselink, 2003; Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008); Maxim contains overtly sexual content and imagery about desirable sexual practices and sexual attractiveness, in addition to a fashion and grooming section for how men should look (Krassas et al., 2003; Taylor, 2005). Clearly, Playboy similarly features highly sexualized imagery of women, including nude imagery, and in addressing the male audience, it promotes the idea that the ideal woman is concerned with sexually attracting and satisfying men (Krassas, Blauwkamp, & Wesselink, 2001). GQ has arguably the most conservative and “classic” depictions of body ideals for women. The majority of women in GQ are fully dressed, and only a minority is shown in revealing clothing (Ricciardelli, Clow, & White, 2010).

Our first goal of the present study was to document the amount of “adultification” of girls below 18 years in teen girls’ magazines and the “youthification” of women above 18 years that is present in popular women’s and men’s U.S. magazines.

RQ1a: How frequently does adultification of girls occur in teen girls’ magazines?

RQ1b: How frequently does youthification of women occur in women’s lifestyle and men’s lifestyle magazines?

A related goal to RQ1a and RQ1b was to assess which of these—adultification or youthification—was more prevalent in magazines. Documenting the comparative amount of adultification and youthification of women and girls allows us to elucidate which side of the age compression spectrum is more frequent and thus potentially more worthy of investigation.

RQ1c: Is adultification or youthification more prevalent in magazines?

Based on previous research showing differences in the amount of sexualization contained in women’s lifestyle and men’s lifestyle magazines (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008), we also compared the prevalence of adultification between these genres. We only examined the difference between women’s lifestyle and men’s lifestyle magazines because these two subsamples contained instances of youthification, whereas teen magazines contained examples of adultification.

RQ2: Is youthification more prevalent in women’s lifestyle or men’s lifestyle magazines?

Another comparison that we investigated was that between imagery in advertising and imagery connected to the editorial content of magazines. That is, we not only analyzed the imagery used in advertising, as many previous content analyses have done (e.g., Baker, 2005; Lindner, 2004), we also sampled editorial imagery in magazines to examine whether the level of adultification and youthification differed between the two. In the magazine industry, “complementary copy” can be described as the case when editorial content follows or “complements” the interests of the advertisers. Kilbourne (1999) posits “in women’s and teen magazines it is virtually impossible to tell the fashion layouts from the ads. Indeed, they exist to support each other” (p. 141). The similarities and differences between advertising and editorial images have been largely ignored in previous research, yet it is imperative that we investigate the claims made by prior scholars so that we document and subsequently theorize about these similarities and differences in the future.

RQ3: How does the amount of youthification and adultification compare in editorial versus advertising images?

Based on objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), we examined whether girls who are adultified and women who are youthified are also sexually objectified (as defined by body exposure, provocative dress, sexy expression, and sexual connotation).

RQ4a: Are images of girls who are sexually objectified likely to also exhibit more elements of adultification compared with images of girls that are not sexually objectified?

RQ4b: Are images of women who are sexually objectified likely to also exhibit more elements of youthification compared with images of women that are not sexually objectified?

Method

Sample and Unit of Analysis

The sample includes three subsamples of U.S. magazines: teen girls’, women’s lifestyle magazines, and men’s lifestyle magazines. One third of the images that were analyzed came from each subsample. To compile the sample, the Audit Bureau of Circulations list of the top 200 magazines in terms of circulations was consulted (Audit Bureau of Circulations, 2011). We chose three magazines of each of the subsamples based on the highest circulation figures in each category. The list included three magazines that were geared toward female adolescents: Seventeen (circulation: 2.02 million), Teen Vogue (1.02 million), and Girl’s Life (350,000).¹

To compile relatively equivalent magazines for the adult women and adult men markets, “lifestyle” magazines were sampled; these are magazines that speak to audiences about their responsibilities in maintaining their physical appearance and bodies, through exercise, fashion, and grooming (Tan, Shaw, Cheng, & Kim, 2013). In lifestyle magazines, these topics are simultaneously packaged, in comparison with fitness magazines that focus primarily on exercise (e.g., Men’s Health), or beauty magazines (e.g., Glamour) that primarily focus on grooming. Thus, in examination of the Audit Bureau of Circulations list of 2011, we chose the three highest-circulating magazines that we surmised most closely adhered to the definition of lifestyle magazines. For women’s lifestyle magazine, we chose Cosmopolitan (3.04 million), Vogue (1.26 million), and Elle (1.15 million),² and for men’s lifestyle magazines, we chose Maxim (2.51 million), Playboy (1.52 million), and GQ (980,000).³ Previous research has examined these teen, women’s, and men’s mainstream/popular magazines, and they have used similar inclusion criteria (e.g., Graff et al., 2013; Reichert & Carpenter, 2004; Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008).

For this study, the unit of analysis is women above 18 years or girls below 18 years in an editorial or advertising image. We sampled 180 images from each of the three types of magazines under investigation (teen, women’s, and men’s). This was more than needed based on an a priori power analysis (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007).

The sampling strategy was to generate a randomly selected list (an online generator was used) of issues of each of the titles of all issues published over the 2-year sampling period of 2011-2012. The first four issues on the generated list were attained from a public library or ordered online. The sample included 15 units from each magazine; one-half were advertising images and one-half were editorial images (the first magazine on the generated list was selected for seven advertising images and eight editorial images, and then this ratio switched for the next magazine on the list). The lead author assessed how many editorial and advertising images of women or girls each magazine contained. Each woman or girl was considered separately; if an image contained a group of women, each woman was considered to be a unique potential unit. Thus, the sample included focal and background images of women and girls. The average number of images for each magazine was divided by seven or eight, and the resulting number dictated what images were selected for the sample (i.e., on average, Seventeen contained about 60 editorial images and 25 advertising images of girls, so every eighth editorial image and every third advertising image of a girl was selected to be a unit in the final sample). This meticulous approach was taken to ensure that images would be selected from each part of the magazine rather than all from one part of the magazine (i.e., images from the beginning of a magazine may be different in nature from those toward the end). Finally, no duplicates were included in this sample.

Recording Instrument Creation Procedures

Because no previous coding instruments (to the authors’ knowledge) were available prior to data collection, coding schemes were created for adultification and youthification. This process is described here in detail.

First, preliminary assessments of the three magazine subsamples showed that teen magazines did not contain any instances of youthification, and men’s and women’s magazines showed negligible instances of adultification. Thus, it was decided that units in teen magazines would be coded for adultification, and units in men’s and women’s magazines would be coded for youthification. The constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was utilized to create the coding scheme for the adultification and youthification variables. The conceptual definition of adultification and youthification (APA, 2007) served as the theoretical basis for inquiry, and an initial list of categories was generated. Then, the lead author looked through teen girls’, women’s lifestyle, and men’s lifestyle magazines not included in the main sample to see whether these initial categories existed; these categories were modified within the course of this preliminary analysis as new categories emerged inductively, as Miles and Huberman (1994) recommend. This preliminary analysis yielded four main ways that girls were adultified and that women were youthified, resulting in four possible categories for coding.

For units in teen magazines, coders were asked to indicate whether the person was clearly above 18 years; there were no cases of this. Coders indicated whether the girl was adultified (exhibiting the trappings of adult women) in the following ways: hairstyle, clothing, jewelry, and heavy makeup. For example, for hairstyle, coders indicated whether it was an “up-do,” a teased hairstyle, or any other intricate-looking adult hairstyle. For clothing, coders assessed whether the clothing looked like it was designed for an adult woman, such as business professional attire (e.g., suit, high heels) or a mature dress. For makeup, coders assessed whether the makeup was heavy and adult-like, such as red lipstick, dark smoky eye shadow, and thick eye-liner. Finally, for jewelry, coders assessed whether it was adult-like, such as diamonds and chunky jewelry. These were the four main ways that adultification was exhibited in the present sample, and this adultification serves to associate girls with grown women.

For units in adult magazines, coders indicated whether the person was clearly below 18 years; there were no cases of this. Coders indicated whether the women were youthified (exhibiting the trappings of childhood) in the four following ways: hairstyle, clothing, props, and pose. Coders assessed whether each indicator of youthification appeared in the image of the woman. For example, for hairstyle, coders indicated whether woman made to look like a child in terms of hairstyle (e.g., pig tails, hair bows). For clothing, coders assessed whether the clothing looked like it was designed for a girl, including knee high socks, Mary Jane shoes, or clothing embellished with girlish bows. The examples given for hairstyle and clothing are based on prior content analytic research that has examined childlike characteristics of clothing (Goodin et al., 2011), and sexualizing and childlike characteristics in magazines (Graff et al., 2013). Coders also assessed whether props appeared that conveyed youth, such as suckers, popsicles, candy, dolls, or jungle-gym toys (e.g., a swing or teeter-totter). Finally, coders assessed whether the woman exhibited a childlike pose, such as sitting with her legs crossed, swinging legs, or posed in other childlike positions. The number of ways that a woman or girl was adultified or youthified was later summed prior to data analysis, with the possible range being 0 (no adultification/youthification) to 4 (full adultification/youthification).

For both teen and adult magazines (women’s and men’s lifestyle), four indicators of sexual objectification were also coded: sexy facial expression, provocative clothing, sexual connotation (a sexual activity strongly implied), and body exposure. Finally, coders indicated the racial category that the woman/girl appeared to belong to.

See Table 1 for variable definitions and coded categories.

Table 1.

Coded Variables and Reliability.

Variable	Alpha	Definition	Categories
Adultification variables
Hairstyle	.81	A mature/adult hairstyle (e.g., an “up-do,” teased and “sexy,” or a very intricate mature look)	Yes, no, cannot code
Clothing	.81	Clothing that a woman would wear (i.e., a mature dress or outfit, high heels, business suit)	Yes, no, cannot code
Heavy makeup	1.0	Adult makeup (i.e., red lipstick, dark/smoky eye shadow, thick eye-liner)	Yes, no, cannot code
Jewelry	.81	Adult jewelry (i.e., diamonds, mature jewelry/chunky adult-like jewelry)	Yes, no, cannot code
Youthification variables
Hairstyle	1.0	A hairstyle that a young girl would have (i.e., pig tails, bows in hair, barrettes in hair)	Yes, no, cannot code
Clothing	1.0	Clothing that a young girl would have (i.e., teddies, knee high socks, Mary Jane shoes, bows on clothing)	Yes, no, cannot code
Props	1.0	Childlike props (i.e., suckers, popsicles, candy, dolls, swings, jungle-gym setting)	Yes, no, cannot code
Pose	1.0	Childlike pose (i.e., sitting cross-legged, sitting in chair and swinging legs, sucking thumb)	Yes, no, cannot code
Sexual objectification variables
Provocative dress	.86 teen, .87 adult	Revealing or sexually suggestive clothing; it may reveal contours of the body, undergarments may be visible, or clothing may be worn out of context (e.g., swimsuit)	Yes, no, cannot code
Sexy expression	.73 teen, .82 adult	A look of desire; a smoldering look in eyes; an intense deliberate stare; a “playful” sexual expression; parted lips; biting, sucking, or licking lips	Yes, no, cannot code
Sexual connotation	1.0 teen; .82 adult	Image connotes sexual activity (i.e., object in mouth, touching self suggestively, legs parted, phallic object present, passionate kiss)	Yes, no
Body exposure	.90 teen; .85 adult	Indication of which body parts are mostly naked/unclothed (shoulders, stomach, legs, butt, back, cleavage/breast tissue exposed)	Yes, no
Demographic characteristic variable
Race	.89	The race of the woman/girl	White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Biracial, Cannot code

Coder Training and Reliability Analysis

Coding and coder training occurred at two time periods. First, a graduate student and the lead researcher underwent rigorous training to employ the coding system for the teen magazine subsample. It took approximately 12 hr for coding training. The coders practiced on several images before coding the reliability sample; this allowed the researchers to assess issues with the codebook that needed to be clarified before assessing reliability. After training and modifications to the codebook were completed, the reliability sample (N = 18), which was equivalent to 10% of the final subsample (based on the recommendation of Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2005), was coded independently by each coder. Krippendorff’s alpha (Krippendorff, 1980) was used to assess intercoder reliability. As displayed in Table 1, all variables achieved acceptable intercoder reliability.

The second time period of coder training (and coding the adult magazine main subsamples) involved two graduate students and the lead researcher. These coders underwent rigorous training to employ the coding system for the adult magazine (including men’s and women’s magazines) subsample. After training was completed, the reliability sample (n = 40), which was equivalent to just over 10% of the final adult men’s and women’s magazines subsample, was coded independently by each coder. As displayed in Table 1, all variables attained acceptable alpha coefficients.

Once acceptable reliability was achieved, coding for the final sample commenced. Each of the coders coded one third of the final sample, and all coding was completed in 3½ weeks. Coders were only assigned coding for the subsamples that they were trained on (one coder only received training on the adult magazines codebook, so she only coded units in that subsample).

Results

In total, 540 images were analyzed; 180 from women’s adult magazines (Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Vogue), 180 from men’s adult magazines (GQ, Maxim, and Playboy), and 180 from teen girl magazines (Teen Vogue, Girl’s Life, and Seventeen). Half of the images (270) were editorial, and half (270) were advertisements. Of the women (N = 360) in adult magazines, 80.3% (n = 289) were White, 8.9% (n = 32) were multiracial, 6.9% (n = 25) were Black, 1.9% (n = 7) were Asian, 0.8% (n = 3) were Hispanic/Latina, and 1.1% (n = 4) could not be coded. Of the girls (N = 180) in teen magazines, 82.2% (n = 148) were White, 7.8% (n = 14) were multiracial, 6.7% (n = 12) were Black, 1.7% (n = 3) were Hispanic/Latina, and 1.7% (n = 3) were Asian. As compared with the population, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau Report (Humes, Jones, & Ramirez, 2011), White women and girls were overrepresented, Black women and girls were underrepresented, Asian women were overrepresented and Asian girls were underrepresented, and Hispanic/Latina women were grossly underrepresented. Statistically, there are not enough units to run analyses comparing the way that women and girls from different racial/ethnic categories were portrayed. Thus, analyses included women and girls from all racial/ethnic categories.

Research Question 1

To address RQ1a, assessing the amount of adultification of girls, we found that the majority of images of girls (84.4%, n = 152) included at least one indicator of adultification. Specifically, 15.6% (n = 28) had no indicators of adultification, 21.1% (n = 38) had one indicator, 18.3% (n = 33) had two indicators, 30.6% (n = 55) had three indicators, and 14.4% (n = 26) had four indicators. In addition, the four indicators of adultification were summed to create an adultification index. The index ranged from 0 (no adultification) to 4 (full adultification). Across the 180 images of girls coded, the average level of adultification was 2.06 (SD = 1.3). Girls were mostly adultified in the following ways: hairstyle (60%), clothing (57.8%), makeup (52.2%), and jewelry (37.2%).

For an example of an image with indicators of adultification, see Figure 1. In this editorial image published in Teen Vogue, a girl poses for the camera, exhibiting all four indicators of adultification. Her see-through shirt/bra top and leather glovelettes, heavy makeup, jewelry, and her teased/curled hair convey adult womanhood. The image also features two elements of sexual objectification: provocative dress (the see-through lace-shirt with black lace bra and leather glovelettes) and sexy expression (parted lips and a look of desire).

Figure 1.

Example images of adultification and youthification.

To address RQ1b, assessing the amount of youthification of women, we found that only 12.2% (n = 44) of the images included at least one indicator of youthification. Specifically, 87.8% (n = 316) had no indicators of youthification, 10.1% (n = 36) had one indicator, 1.8% (n = 6) had two indicators, 0.6% (n = 2) had three indicators, and no images had all four indicators. In addition, the four indicators of youthification were summed to create a youthification index. Of the 360 images of women coded, the average level of youthification was 0.15 (SD = 0.44). Women were youthified through the following means: clothing (6.6%), props (3.3%), pose (3.0%), and hairstyle (1.9%).

For an example of youthification, see Figure 1. In the editorial image from Maxim, the adult woman in the center of the image exhibited two indicators of youthification. Wearing a varsity letter sweater conveys the idea that she is school-age, and the prop that they are using, silly string, also conveys youth in that this is a toy with which children would play. At the same time, the photo also contains elements of sexual objectification. In the photo, the woman’s abdomen, shoulders, cleavage, and thighs are exposed. In addition, the silly string squirting near her mouth, and some smeared on her temple and in her hair, is connotative of male ejaculation.

For RQ1c, examining whether adultification or youthification is more prevalent, a paired samples t test revealed that adultification (M = 2.06, SD = 1.30) is statistically significantly more common than youthification (M = 0.15, SD = 0.44); t(538) = 24.88, p < .001.

Research Question 2

RQ2 examined differences in youthification between women’s lifestyle and men’s lifestyle magazines. An independent samples t test revealed that youthification is not significantly more prevalent in men’s magazines (M = 0.17, SD = 0.47) as compared with women’s magazines (M = 0.13, SD = 0.41); t(358) = −0.70, p = .18.

Research Question 3

RQ3 examined whether youthification and adultification differed between editorial and advertising images. An independent samples t test revealed that adultification was not significantly more prevalent in advertising images (M = 2.12, SD = 1.29) than in editorial images (M = 2.02, SD = 1.34) in teen magazines, t(178) = 0.27, p = .60. Similarly, youthification was not significantly more prevalent in advertising images (M = 0.17, SD = 0.050) as compared with editorial images (M = 0.13, SD = 0.39) in adult magazines, t(335) = 0.82, p = .09.

Research Question 4

For RQ4a, we examined the co-occurrence of adultification with other indicators of sexual objectification. Because adultification was indexed as a continuous variable, but three of the four indicators of sexual objectification were categorical, we ran independent samples t tests to determine whether the presence (versus the absence) of each indicator of sexual objectification was associated with higher scores on adultification. Because body exposure was also an indexed continuous variable, we ran a zero-order correlation between the two variables.

Results revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in the amount of adultification as a function of provocative dress, t(61.77) = 4.20, p < .001. Photos with women who wore provocative dress were scored higher on the 0 to 4 adultification index (M = 2.90, SD = 0.97), compared with images without provocative dress (M = 2.01, SD = 1.35). Similarly, photos of women with a sexy expression were also scored higher on the adultification index (M = 2.89, SD = 1.02) than photos of women without a sexy expression, M = 1.99, SD = 1.31, t(177) = 2.82, p = .005. However, there was not a statistically significant difference between photos with sexual connotation versus those without, t(178) = 1.82, p = .07. The correlation between body exposure and adultification was also not statistically significant, r = .05, p = .58.

For RQ4b, we examined the co-occurrence of youthification with indicators of sexualization, again by examining independent samples t tests for the three categorical variables, a zero-order correlation between the body exposure index and the youthification index. The results revealed that there were no differences between photos with the indicators of sexual objectification versus those photos without: provocative dress, t(295) = −0.14, p = .89; sexy expression, t(327) = −0.78, p = .44; and sexual connotation, t(290.94) = −1.65, p = .10. Finally, the correlation between body exposure and youthification was not statistically significant, r = 0.00, p = .99.

Discussion

This analysis examined adultification of girls in U.S. teen magazines, youthification of women in U.S. women’s lifestyle and men’s lifestyle magazines, and the relationship between adultification and youthification and sexual objectification of these girls and women. The results revealed that adultification is significantly more prevalent than youthification. On a scale of one to four, on average, girls were adultified at just over two indicators per image, and more than three out of four girls contained at least some indicator of adultification. This suggests that adultification is a commonplace technique in magazines that are targeted to teen girls. Girls were typically adultified through hairstyle, clothing, and makeup. For example, many images featured girls with teased/curled hair (similar to Beyoncé or the Kardashian sisters), obvious use of makeup, and high heels.

In contrast, in the adult magazines, women were rarely youthified. This is a departure from the early work by Goffman (1979) and Kilbourne (1979, 1999), who both found that women were infantilized in advertising images. In our sample of advertising and editorial images in men’s and women’s lifestyle magazines, women’s sexual objectification is not tied to being portrayed as childlike. Thus, while it is culturally normative for women to be sexually objectified in all types of contexts, the results imply that it is not the norm for adult women to be portrayed as sexy young playthings in mainstream magazines. For girls, it is common to impose sexuality on them by making them appear older, but in contrast, youthification might be more of a fetishistic way of presenting women. In other words, a woman can be sexualized without youthification, but perhaps it is more difficult to sexualize a girl without adultification. Thus, adultification seems to be more prevalent than youthification, at least in this sample of images. In addition, youthification is not significantly more prevalent in women’s lifestyle magazines compared with men’s lifestyle magazines. Perhaps this is because typically in men’s magazines there is much discussion about having sex with women and how to improve men’s sexual experiences with women by getting what they want (Taylor, 2005). In this context, it does not make sense to show women as girls because they need to be sexually viable candidates for men. This would be particularly true in magazines such as Maxim and Playboy that rely on overt sexual imagery. In women’s lifestyle magazines, it also makes sense that there is little youthification because, although there is typically an emphasis on looking more youthful in general, there is no clear reason why the more fetishistic style of youthified adult women would appear in a magazine intended for female readers. This is particularly true of Vogue and Elle, with their emphasis on high fashion, the women in featured in these magazines would correspond to current fashion trends, which, during the sampled period, were not youthified. However, if the sample were taken during the 1990s, when baby-doll dresses were trendy, we would likely have observed more youthification. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that current popular trends in not only fashion, but also in exercise, and grooming, likely influence trends in youthification and adultification.

The amount of adultification and youthification did not differ between editorial images and advertising images. Whereas previous research has focused primarily on sexual objectification in advertising (e.g., Baker, 2005; Kilbourne, 1979; Lindner, 2004; Reichert & Carpenter, 2004), the results of the present study suggest that adultification and youthification are just as likely to occur in both contexts. Moreover, this finding supports the notion that editorial content appears to complement the advertising content of the magazine as Scott and Steinem (2003) would suggest. With our results in mind, future research should begin to incorporate the study of editorial images, as they may be quite similar to advertising images. More research is needed to further investigate editorial images in magazine to determine the similarities to advertising images, as well as the differences between them, in terms of sexualized content.

According to Durham (2008), it is not that adultification on its own is problematic, it is the extent to which these adultified characteristics are imbued with sexuality that is of real concern. On this measure, there was a significant relationship between adultification and sexual objectification in two of the four cases tested (provocative dress and sexy expression). Specifically, girls who were provocatively dressed were more likely to be adultified. Those who were provocatively dressed were also coded as wearing adult-like clothing, which was one of the four indicators of adultification. Examples of clothing worn by girls who exhibited adultification and provocative dress included high heels, dresses with push-up cleavage, and tops reminiscent of lingerie. There were also significant differences in terms of sexy expression; girls who had a sexy expression were also adultified. A third category, sexual connotation, was very close to being significantly related to adultification (p = .07) and was in the expected direction such that girls who were shown in contexts connotative of sexual activity were more likely to be adultified. Interestingly, though, adultification was not a function of girls’ body exposure. Body exposure is a culturally pervasive way of objectifying women that can occur in many contexts (e.g., fitness, fashion, and relationship articles) and across various messages. It appears that although body exposure is not a main way to sexually objectify girls in teen magazines, it is equally likely to occur whether or not the girls are adultified. Thus, there are some examples of co-occurrence of adultification and sexualization, but because body exposure is so prevalent for girls in general it is not more likely to occur in images of girls who are adultified. These findings are on par with research by Graff et al. (2013); their content analysis of images of girls in teen magazines such as Seventeen and Girl’s Life showed that sexual objectification has increased significantly over the last three decades.

In the adult magazines, there was no difference between women who are youthified and women who are not youthified in terms of provocative dress, sexual connotation, sexy expression, or body exposure. These findings could be due to the small amount of youthification in adult magazine images in general. That is, because youthification was relatively rare in both men’s and women’s magazines, there was not enough variance to further discriminate across the indicators of sexual objectification.

There are several implications for these findings. First, the practice of adultification in U.S. teen magazines evidenced in this study may encourage adolescent readers to experience pressure to “dress up” like adults and model what they see in the magazines. From a marketing perspective, companies want to push adult products on to girls to establish brand loyalty early on; they take advantage of adolescents’ need to fit in (Quart, 2008). Dressing like a sexual grown up before one actually understands her own sexuality may have a plethora of risks associated with it. Our findings point to a cultural pressure for girls to grow up faster, and in some ways to become sexual objects for others’ viewing pleasures. Developing a healthy sexuality and sexual self-concept is essential and crucial for adolescents (Tolman, 2002), and pressure for girls to dress like women serves to be counterproductive in fostering sexual agency. As Durham (2008) argues, it is important to free children from

the constraining, exploitative, and commercially motivated construction of sex that seems to be our only way of defining female sexuality . . . it’s imperative to unyoke sex work from childhood: to create safe and supportive spaces in which girls can come to understand their own sexuality on their own terms and in their own time. (pp. 131–132, emphasis original)

Indeed, seeing imagery of girls as sexual objects of male desire may cause desensitization to child sexual abuse (APA, 2007; Machia & Lamb, 2009) and lower intentions to seek sexual consent and lower intentions to adhere to decisions about sexual consent (Hust et al., 2014). Sexual objectification not only reflects “sexist attitudes, a societal tolerance of sexual violence, and the exploitation of girls and women but may also contribute to these phenomena” (APA, 2007, p. 3).

Finally, as noted in the results section, White women and girls were overrepresented in these magazines (about eight in 10 were White), while Black women and girls were underrepresented, Asian girls were underrepresented, and Hispanic/Latina women were grossly underrepresented. This trend is on par with previous content analytic work on magazines; one study found that Blacks and Latinas were underrepresented in advertisements (Taylor, Lee, & Stern, 1995), and another found that Black and Latina women were underrepresented in mainstream women’s magazine articles (Covert & Dixon, 2008). In the present study, there were not even enough units to run analyses comparing the way that women and girls from different racial/ethnic categories were portrayed. The lack of images of women and girls of color in this sample points to a larger problem: White women are portrayed as the ideal in mass circulation magazines, as well as in our larger media culture.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

There are several limitations of the current study that should be addressed and that future research could help to tackle. First, the indicators of youthification are more severe than the indicators of adultification. It may be that coding for some of the indicators of youthification such as props (e.g., suckers, playground equipment) in the adult magazines yielded less potential for being coded as youthification than coding for some of the indicators of adultification such as heavy makeup. In addition, we view youthification as more than just adult women looking younger, perhaps with the aid of antiaging serums and age-defying shampoos; rather, we view youthification as presenting an adult woman as childlike. Thus, this is an inherently more extreme form of age compression than adultification. Still, although the indicators emerged out of the constant comparative method in this particular analysis, future research can continue to adjust and improve the measures of adultification and youthification. Specifically, future research may better address youthification with indicators that are more broadly conceived. Second, this analysis includes only magazines, and it only focuses on visual sexual objectification. Much more content analytic work focused on the both visual and narrative portrayals of sexual objectification, adultification of girls, and the youthification of women is needed to understand the complex web of our larger media culture. Another limitation of this study is that there were not enough units to compare images of women and girls from different ethnic/racial groups. Future research might purposively sample images of girls and women of color in popular magazines and examine images of women and girls in magazines that are marketed specifically to girls and women of color, in order to determine how they are portrayed in terms of adultification, youthification, and sexualization. Furthermore, we acknowledge the difficulty in coding race based on appearance, and this is another limitation of the present study. Finally, this is a content analysis of a 2-year sampling period, not an effects study. As such, implications are purely speculative and conclusions can ultimately only be drawn about the magazines in this sampling period. Future research should include an effects study of the findings from this project, and should work to document adultification and youthification practices longitudinally to investigate whether these trends have changed over time.

Conclusion

Through this content analysis of adultification and youthification of girls and women in advertising and editorial images in teen girls’, women’s lifestyle, and men’s lifestyle U.S. magazines, it is evident that the adultification of girls is much more prevalent than the youthification of women. Furthermore, there are some examples of co-occurrence of adultification and sexualization. It is important to note that although Playboy and Maxim contained low levels of youthification, they exhibited extreme forms of sexual objectification. Overall, the results of this content analysis reveal that there is some truth to APA’s (2007) charge that girls, especially, are adultified in media. Thus, in U.S. teen girls’ magazines, a fairly significant message is that girls should present themselves as adult-like and that this presentation will be tied to their status as sexual objects. Certainly, these results are troubling, in light of their implications for adolescent girls’ body image, sexual socialization, and general health and well-being.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Sarah Turner-McGowen and Dr. Danielle Halliwell for their hard work as coders on this project.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Ashton Gerding Speno (PhD, University of Missouri, 2016) is an instructor in the Department of Mass Communications at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE). Her research focuses on issues of gender and sexualization in various media, adolescents’ experiences with new media technologies, and media effects on attitudes, behaviors, and self-concept.

Jennifer Stevens Aubrey (PhD, University of Michigan, 2004) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on media’s effects on emotional, mental, and physical health in young people, with an emphasis on issues related to sexuality and body image.

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