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I recommend reading that. The scope of the report is exactly what the thread title states.
Logic would dictate that, hypothetically, if a mass cultural shift were to occur such that boys were sexualized in the media to the extent that girls currently are, that it would harm boys an equal amount, however, that hypothetical was not within the scope of the study. It does, however briefly address how sexualization of girls may harm boys and men (not by affecting their self-esteem, but rather by making them appreciate real women less).
The pdf highlights the extent to which girls are disproportionately sexualized in our culture. Data from some of the studies they cite (MUCH more in the pdf, read it if the subject interests you):
"In total (in a study of prime time tv episodes), the authors reported that approximately 78% of the harassment focused on demeaning terms for women or on the sexualization of their bodies."
"In the 182 (music) videos analyzed by Seidman (1992), 37% of women wore revealing clothing, compared with 4.2% of men."
"Kelly and Smith evaluated the 101 top-grossing G-rated films from 1990 to 2004. Of the over 4,000 characters in these films, 75% overall were male, 83% of characters in crowds were male, 83% of narrators were male, and 72% of speaking characters were male. In addition, there was little change from 1990 to 2004. This gross underrepresentation of women or girls in films with family-friendly content reflects a missed opportunity to present a broad spectrum of girls and women in roles that are nonsexualized."
"Fink and Kensicki (2002) explored the coverage of female athletes in Sports Illustrated (SI) and Sports Illustrated for Women (SIW) from 1997 to 1999.They found that only 10% of the photographs in SI during this 3-year period were of female athletes. Five percent of these photographs were “pornographic/sexually suggestive,” defined as women
dressed provocatively or photographed in such a way as to focus solely on sexual attributes (e.g., photograph framed on an athlete’s breasts). Only .2% of the photographs of men fell into this category. Sixty-six percent of the photographs of men showed them actively engaged in a sport versus 34% of the photographs of women."
"In their analysis of children appearing in advertisements drawn from five popular magazines (e.g., Ladies Home Journal, Newsweek) over a 40-year-period, O’Donohue, Gold and McKay (1997) found 38 ads (1.5%) that portrayed children in sexual ways. Moreover, 85% of these ads focused on girls, and this depiction of sexualized girls was found to increase significantly over time. In these ads, girls often appear with sexualized adult women and are posed in matching clothing or seductive poses."
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