Watchmen and the Technology of Print Media and its effects of abuse against women

The relationship between the male and female characters in the many graphic novels is one that is of particular interest to me. In this essay I will like to focus on the issues involving Sally Jupiter and The Comedian in the graphic novel Watchmen and discuss the public health issues surrounding the negative portrayals of women in different forms of print media such as comic strips. I found the article entitled “Women as Sex Objects and Victims in Print Advertisements” by Julie M. Stankiewicz and Francine Rosselli to be relevant to this topic because it discusses the extent to which women are portrayed as sex objects and victims of abuse through the technology of print media. Negative portrayals of women in the media cause major concerns for public health officials and human rights activists because studies have shown that the presentation of women as sex objects and victims of abuse in print media cause an increase in the acceptance of violence against women by men.
Although women superheroes have the capability to ward of villains and save the world for the greater good, are they really as equal to their male superhero counterparts? In the graphic novel Watchmen, there are a few female characters but they are heavily outnumbered by the male superheroes. The women are found wearing very revealing apparel and have relations with some of the men in the comic whether it was wanted or unwanted.
In the comic, there was a very intense scene where Sally Jupiter is sexually assaulted by The Comedian. As he forces himself on the woman, it is obvious that she feels violated. She attempts to fight back, but in retaliation to her effort of saving herself, The Comedian then begins to physically abuse the woman. As a result, Sally Jupiter falls to the ground, unable to fight anymore and is then saved by Nite Owl who comes in and witnesses the assault.
Such images like this example have shown a significant effect on the ways in which women are viewed in society. In the study conducted by Stankiewicz and Rosselli it was hypothesized that women would be portrayed as sex objects in approximately one-half of the advertisements that featured women; the way in which objectification is defined varies by study and by magazine. Because there is a significant amount of editorial content in men’s magazines that is explicitly sexual (Krassas et al. 2003; Taylor 2005) women were expected to be portrayed more often as sexual objects in men’s magazines than in other types of magazines.  Baker (2005) and Krassas et al. (2001) also believed that due to the content that is related to fashion, beauty, and ways of developing sexual skills, magazines directed towards women’s and adolescent girls’ will too present women as sex objects more so than in magazines that concentrate on broader social issues.
It was also hypothesized that women would appear as victims less often than as sex objects.  The authors state that Kilbourne (1999) provided several examples of magazines where women could be found as victims. Although it is clear that these images do exist, there has been no prior studies that attempt to document the extent to which women are victimized, sexually or not sexually, in print advertising.  The authors figured that this would be true because many of the other types of media that portray women as victims are in pornography which is more so marketed to men than to women. Therefore, they also expected that images of victimized women, mostly sexually victimized women, would most likely appear in men’s magazines.
The determinants of a women being objectified were if she had a suggestive facial expression or posture, activity such as showing some sort of sexual affection towards a man, make-up such as that associated with sexuality like bright red lipstick, camera angle and if it focused on a particular body part, and the amount of skin that was shown. None of the women had to necessarily meet a particular number of the stated criteria to be defined as a sex object. The criteria used for considering a woman as a victim would include: 1) if a person in involved in an unambiguous act of violence, 2) a man is dominating a woman in a sexual at, 3) if a woman appears lifeless or zombielike, 4) a woman being lied to or tricked, 5) a woman is in bondage or wearing heavy make-up, and 6) a woman is distressed.   If a woman was visible afraid, depressed, vulnerable, angry, or disgusted she was considered to be distressed. These examples were used for the coding of a woman being victimized.
I feel as though the criteria used to determine whether or not women were objectified and victimized in the ads are congruent to the depictions of women superheroes found in graphic novels. The predictions of the authors were consistent with the result that proved that on average, across the different magazine categories more than half of the advertisements featuring women portrayed them as sex objects. The results also showed that women portrayed as sex objects were significantly higher in men’s magazines than in any other magazine category except adolescent girls’ magazines. However, of that small percentage, women are more frequently shown as sex objects = in men’s magazines than in women’. The majority of ads featuring women in adolescent girls’ magazines and women’s magazines presented women as sex objects. In non-fashion magazines, women were portrayed as sex objects 36.53% of the time.
The hypothesis that women would be depicted as victims, less frequently than sex objects and that the depiction would vary by magazine type was perceived as true with the results showing that men’s magazines did in fact show more women as victims than in non-fashion magazines but it was not significantly different from the percentage found in women’s and adolescent girls’ magazines.
The implications of the study as stated by the authors is that the fact that women are sexualized in magazines that are geared towards both men and women show that women’s bodies are constantly on display to be judged. The message that is being given when women are portrayed as sex objects says that a woman’s value lies primarily with her appearance and sexuality and that she is only to subjected to the gaze of others, rather than as an actor of her own sexual desire.
This study raises major issues in public health because studies have shown that exposure to both violent and non-violent portrayals of women in print media result in attitudes that support aggressive behavior among men. As well as showing an increase in the acceptance of rape myths, such as the woman was the cause of her own rape due to how she was dressed, willingness to go with a man to his house, etc; interpersonal violence, and gender role stereotyping.  Also, over-sexualized women in advertisements cause issues with the self-esteem of adolescent girls’ as well as women. Those with complexes about their body are subject to developing eating disorders, depression, low self-esteem, and negative feelings about their sexuality. Women viewed as sex objects in ads also suggest that both men and women may associate sex with violence against women.
In conclusion, I felt that this study was both valuable and informative because we have all been subject to the brain washing affects of advertising. However, I have never thought of the affects of how portraying a woman as submissive and over-sexualized in print media such as comics and advertisements could in turn cause men to act violently against them. Although this may not be the only reason why some men act violently against women, it is one explanation.

Works Cited
Stankiewicz, Julie M., and Francine Rosselli.” Women as Sex Objects and Victims in Print Advertisements”. Sex Roles, 58. 7-8 (2008):579-589