Maxim is a Bully: Making Women the Victim for Male Pleasure

Authors

Pamela Hill Nettleton, Marquette UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

Spring 2018

Publisher

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication

Source Publication

Journal of Magazine Media

Source ISSN

2576-7887

Abstract

This study analyzes domestic violence discourse in 72 issues of Maxim magazine, an influential and widely circulated publication for young men that is rarely studied because it is not digitally archived or searchable. This discourse reveals culturally entrenched patriarchal attitudes and hegemonic and retrograde references that degrade and marginalize women in an important cultural artefact and a meaningful site of popular culture representations of gender. Maxim’s commodification of the bullying of women may undergird persistent patriarchal attitudes toward intimate partner violence and reveal an anxious masculine response to feminism. Maxim’s discourse positioned verbal, if not physical, violence against women as a socially acceptable signal of a desirable masculinity.

Comments

Published version. The Journal of Magazine Media, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Spring 2018). Publisher link. © 2018 AEJMC. Used with permission.

Recommended Citation

Nettleton, Pamela Hill, "Maxim is a Bully: Making Women the Victim for Male Pleasure" (2018). College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications. 514.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/comm_fac/514