The idea has been advanced that the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s was actually a cultural transition that was ushered in not by women seeking greater freedom and empowerment with respect to sexual activity, but by males who dominated the mass media and who used this "revolution" as a means of furthering the objectification of women as sexual playthings (Jacketta, 2002). At issue herein is a question of how male-dominated mass media, including advertising as well as film and television, created a situation in which women in many Western cultures adopted an attitude supportive of greater sexual freedom that ultimately worked to the benefit of men more than of women.
Tom Smith (1990) notes that the sexual revolution was literally discovered by the mass media in 1963 with articles appearing in such publications as Time, Mademoiselle, Esquire, and America. These publications depicted a major social transformation in which college-aged women were depicted as participating in premarital sexual activity more openly and frequently than ever before (The sexual revolution, 2009). The work of researchers such as Alfred Kinsey underpinned the development of a new ethos in which it was argued that women were as entitled to premarital sexual activity as men, that such activity on the part of women was not immoral and was perfectly natural, and that women seeking independence were entitled to sexual freedom (Makow, 2003).
However, Fawcett (2006) believes that the 1960s, while ushering in the sexual liberation of women, did so within the context of male definitions of sexual needs and pleasure and the capitalist organization of the labor market and of consumption. Women wore mini-skirts, for example, not because they wanted to be in style, but because males in the media promoted this particular fashion trend as liberating and thereby exercised control over women's fashion choices (Fawcett, 2006). Similar comments were adv...