Amy Shields Dobson

Performative shamelessness on young women’s social network sites: Shielding the self and resisting gender melancholia

In this paper, I ask what the self-representations of young women on social network sites can tell us about the conditions and experience of inhabiting femininity in the digitally mediated post-feminist context. First, I outline four conditions of post-feminist girlhood that I suggest young women must navigate in the processes of subjectivity construction. I then describe some of the common kinds of performativity found on a small selection of social network site profiles owned by young Australian women. I suggest that a ‘shameless’ affect may be a necessary form of self-protection for these young women, operating in contexts that appear to require copious amounts, and intense forms, of self-display. The kind of ‘shameless’ affectations we can see on young women’s social network site profiles may also be a way of resisting the dominant terms by which contemporary femininity is understood as normatively ‘melancholic’ or damaged.

‘Individuality is everything’: ‘Autonomous’ femininity in MySpace mottos and self-descriptions

This article explores some popular constructions of young femininity on MySpace profiles through an examination of the affirmative or ‘inspirational’–style mottos and self-descriptions commonly posted on a sample of 45 public profiles maintained by Australian women aged between 18 and 21. In these texts self-esteem, self-worth, and self-determination are expressed in markedly uncompromising tones. Such textual expressions, I argue, may indicate an internalization on the part of young women of neo-liberal discourses of individualization. At the same time, the mottos discussed also suggest that traits and characteristics besides ‘sexiness’ are central to young womens online, socially moderated self-constructions. That is, the demonstration of a bold attitude and a fearless sense of autonomous self-definition also appear to be important aspects of feminine performativity on the profiles viewed, which is significant in light of recent panic around young women and ‘sexualization’.

Laddishness online: the possible significations and significance of 'performative shamelessness' for young women in the post-feminist context

In a textual analysis of public social network site (SNS) profiles owned by young women aged between 18 and 21, many of the profiles contain representations of self which would typically be considered ‘unfeminine’. Photos of young women and their friends posed with wide open mouths and protruding tongues and images depicting drunkenness and raucousness are common. This kind of ‘laddish’ performativity by young women leaves feminists, especially those concerned with cultural representation, with a dilemma: is ‘feminist representation’ to be found in this aspect of SNS representation, in this kind of ‘symbolically inverted’ depiction of feminine bodies? Does this kind of ‘laddish’ performativity by young women function less as a rebellion against femininity and more as a kind of ‘giving in’ to a certain model of masculinity; as a ‘phallic’ form of girlhood now licensed by the patriarchy; or even an indication of ‘feminine melancholia’, predicated on the broader cultural rejection of critical feminist voices? In this article, I suggest that neither paradigms of resistance or conformity completely suffice for understanding ‘laddishness’ by young women in the context of a viewing premise of self-production, such as that we encounter with SNS material. I start by offering a possible feminist reading of ‘laddish’ body performativity by young women on SNSs, drawing from theories of the ‘grotesque body’ in representation as well as from Mulveys psychological explanation of ‘voyeuristic’ viewing pleasure in narrative cinema. I go on to develop the concept of ‘performative shamelessness’ by young women and expand upon its possible significations in the post-feminist, neoliberal cultural landscape. Engaging in particular with McRobbies ideas about the post-feminist era, I suggest that performative shamelessness may be one of the few options available to young women wishing to maintain a sense of self-definition in the face of intense social and cultural scrutinizing, and often sexually objectifying, gazes.

“Sexy” And “Laddish” Girls: Unpacking complicity between two cultural imag(inations)es of young femininity

Unpacking ideologies at work within contemporary popular media discourses about young womanhood can be challenging when the terrain of their representation is often presented in a kind of binary-oppositional fashion. There is concern that in contemporary popular culture traditional gender roles are becoming even more entrenched, with femininity increasingly defined around notions of (hyper, hetero-normative) “sexiness.” At the same time, it seems that certain aspects of masculinity, namely sexual hedonism and social, drinking-centred hedonism, have conditionally opened up to young women. The panics that exist around both the figures of the “sexy girl” and the “laddish girl” lead me to unpack here how it is that concerns about womens excessive “sexiness,” and the gendered reinforcement of the sex-object role, relate to discourses of gender “transgression” that often circulate around the figure of the “ladette,” and the supposedly new-found freedoms she is exercising. I suggest that while the figures of the “sexy girl” and the “laddish girl” are both to some extent deplored and constructed as “excessive” and “transgressive” in recent media discourses, they are also both normalised and publicly imag(in)ed through such discourses as central post-feminist paradigms of young womanhood. I go on to explore a possible ideological function of the co-existence of “sexy” and “laddish” girls as normative figures within contemporary media culture.

Algorithmic hotness: young women’s “promotion” and “reconnaissance” work via social media body images

This article examines how the circulation of images on mobile and algorithmic social media platforms is gendered. We draw on data from a research project that examines the interplay between promotion, drinking culture, and social media. In this project, informants documented flows of images between their social media accounts and a nightlife precinct. We show how the human capacity to use bodies to affect other bodies, and to make critical judgments about bodies, is vital to algorithmic media platforms that aim to profit from calculative judgements about the affective dimensions of human life. We propose an expanded register of “body heat” on social media as both the symbolic labor of producing, maintaining, and digitally mediating a body that conforms to heterosexy visual codes and the affective labor of using a hot body to affect other bodies through movement, touch, and excessive consumption. The escalating capacity of social media platforms to calibrate flows of attention depends on the “hot” bodies of users and user’s work in curating “hot” body images to upload. Hot female bodies are critical to nightlife promotion via social media, in attracting viewer attention. Hot female bodies are also key to moments of nightlife reconnaissance: they are registered in the databases and sorted by the algorithms of social media platforms, enabling viewers to make judgments about the desirability of locations in the nightlife precinct.

Post-girlpower: globalized mediated femininities

Roughly 10 years since the Spice Girls exited the global music charts, having thoroughly implanted a ‘girlpower’ ideal and aesthetic in the popular cultural landscape, where are we now? In 2009, Gonick, Renold, Ringrose and Weems suggested that ‘In an important sense, we are already in an “after girl power” period, and have been for some time’ (2009, 2). Girlpower discourses in popular media perhaps opened some cultural spaces for girls to be seen as newly agentic, active and also both ‘powerful’ and ‘sexual’ in some significant ways. But whereas the 1990s can perhaps be characterized as a socio-political context in which, as the above-mentioned authors put it, ‘girls could be active, in the 2000s they are now expected/demanded to be fully self-actualized neo-liberal subjects’ (Gonick et al. 2009, 2). This, we suggest, is key to understanding the current era as one that is significantly not just ‘postfeminist’ but ‘post-girlpower’. This special issue is driven by the need to take stock at this point, and try to assess what kind of media and cultural discourses and practices about, by and for young women are emerging in a globalized mediated landscape that is, significantly, not only ‘postfeminist’ but also ‘post-girl power’. Where have the prominent cultural narratives the late 1990s regarding the power, agency, desire and capacity of girls and young women led us? There is a need to scope current post-girlpower scenes in terms of the kind of femininities on offer in both social and commercial mediascapes, the kind of audience/consumer engagements occurring with and around them in different locations and cultural contexts, and the ways in which media address to girls intersect with neoliberal demands on young women to be self-actualizing. Inter-disciplinary approaches, as well as investigations across a wide range of media platforms and geographic contexts, are necessary in order to map the possibilities and scope of post-girlpower femininities in nuanced ways. We hope the papers in this issue contribute to this project. We open with an inquiry into where notions of agency and ‘resistance’ fit with this new regime (Harris and Dobson). The expectations and possibilities for girls and young women today are complicated by the technological and socio-cultural developments around social media, through which girls and young women have become significant producers rather than just consumers of popular mediated femininities. Social media platforms engage diverse groups of young women, positioned within global youth markets and cultures that increasingly promise consumer lifestyles to girls world-wide. Papers in this issue complicate any straightforward or generalized assessments of how girls and young women themselves navigate calls towards feminine consumption (see in particular, Mojola; Pertierra). Girls and young women themselves are increasingly ‘luminous’ within both social and commercial media landscapes (see Kearney), and those whose media productions have become widely consumed and popular are held up and judged as beacons of the ‘feminist’ activity and capacity of this generation (see Keller, and Fuller and Driscoll). In this era, media aesthetics and representations of young femininity rapidly shift and change through commodification processes, but the display and circulation of

The contribution of online content to the promotion and normalisation of female genital cosmetic surgery: A systematic review of the literature

BackgroundWomen considering female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS) are likely to use the internet as a key source of information during the decision-making process. The aim of this systematic review was to determine what is known about the role of the internet in the promotion and normalisation of female genital cosmetic surgery and to identify areas for future research.MethodsEight social science, medical, and communication databases and Google Scholar were searched for peer-reviewed papers published in English. Results from all papers were analysed to identify recurring and unique themes.ResultsFive papers met inclusion criteria. Three of the papers reported investigations of website content of FGCS providers, a fourth compared motivations for labiaplasty publicised on provider websites with those disclosed by women in online communities, and the fifth analysed visual depictions of female genitalia in online pornography. Analysis yielded five significant and interrelated patterns of representation, each functioning to promote and normalise the practice of FGCS: pathologisation of genital diversity; female genital appearance as important to wellbeing; characteristics of women’s genitals are important for sex life; female body as degenerative and improvable through surgery; and FGCS as safe, easy, and effective. A significant gap was identified in the literature: the ways in which user-generated content might function to perpetuate, challenge, or subvert the normative discourses prevalent in online pornography and surgical websites.ConclusionsFurther research is needed to contribute to knowledge of the role played by the internet in the promotion and normalisation of female genital cosmetic surgery.

Invisible Labour? Tensions and Ambiguities of Modifying the ‘Private’ Body: The Case of Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery

The ‘designer vagina’ is a relatively new phenomenon, becoming part of public discourse only in the late 1990s. Although female genital surgery has a history longer than 150 years, modification has not usually been for aesthetic reasons (Green 2005). Nowadays, cosmetic surgeons promising ‘designer vaginas’ offer to modify all parts of women’s genitals, often to render them more attractive: the labia minora are minimised and made symmetrical (labiaplasty), the clitoral hood is made less prominent (clitoral hood reduction), the labia majora are plumped to make them look more ‘youthful’, and liposuction is available for a ‘fat’ mons pubis (Michala et al. 2012). Normal genital variation among women has been pathologised by describing visible labia minora as ‘hypertrophic’ (Miklos and Moore 2008). Simone Weil Davis (2002) quotes a cosmetic surgeon as telling her that ‘the ideal look for labia minora was not only minimal and not extended but also symmetrical, homogenously pink and not wavy’.

Digital Media and Gender

Quakerism, a Christian denomination, originated in the actions of a few radical preachers active throughout the British Isles but particularly in North West England and Bristol during the 1640s and 1650s, such as Barbara Blaugdone, possibly from Bristol (1609–1704), and George Fox from Leicestershire (1624–1691). “Friends,” as members called themselves, were initially scorned by others, and the term “Quaker,” although later used by the group themselves,was originally a formof abuse,mocking their physical shaking when divinely moved to speak. Most Quakers rejected the idea of paid ministry and traditional church hierarchies, favoring a more egalitarian structure based on spiritual maturity rather than social status, and the development of a series of testimonies, or guides to ethical living. One of the first was the peace testimony. Arising during a period of civil war in the British Isles, Quakerism was not, in the first instance, entirely pacifist: several members, including Fox, were part of the Parliamentarian army which rejected monarchy and sought a republic. Quakers spread radical new ideas, including the idea that everyone held “that of God” within them, developed from Luke 17:21. Such spiritual equality paralleled contemporary calls for political equality and was core to much early Quaker activity, but led to conflict with non-Quakers, particularly over gender and violence.Volume I Editors vii Contributors ix Lexicon xxxvii Introduction and Acknowledgments xlix Gender and Sexuality Studies Volume II Gender and Sexuality Studies Volume III Gender and Sexuality Studies Volume IV Gender and Sexuality Studies Volume V Gender and Sexuality Studies Index 000

Sexting in context: Understanding gendered sexual media practices beyond inherent 'risk' and 'harm'

The last twenty years have seen an explosion in the development of information technology, to the point that people spend a major portion of waking life in online spaces. While there are enormous benefits associated with this technology, there are also risks that can affect the most vulnerable in our society but also the most confident. Cybercrime and its victims explores the social construction of violence and victimisation in online spaces and brings together scholars from many areas of inquiry, including criminology, sociology, and cultural, media, and gender studies. The book is organised thematically into five parts. Part one addresses some broad conceptual and theoretical issues. Part two is concerned with issues relating to sexual violence, abuse, and exploitation, as well as to sexual expression online. Part three addresses issues related to race and culture. Part four addresses concerns around cyberbullying and online suicide, grouped together as ‘social violence’. The final part argues that victims of cybercrime are, in general, neglected and not receiving the recognition and support they need and deserve. It concludes that in the volatile and complex world of cyberspace continued awareness-raising is essential for bringing attention to the plight of victims. It also argues that there needs to be more support of all kinds for victims, as well as an increase in the exposure and punishment of perpetrators. Drawing on a range of pressing contemporary issues such as online grooming, sexting, cyber-hate, cyber-bulling and online radicalization, this book examines how cyberspace makes us more vulnerable to crime and violence, how it gives rise to new forms of surveillance and social control and how cybercrime can be prevented.This chapter offers an overview of the nature of online sexual grooming, the types of online groomers that have been identified and ‘classified’ in the latest studies. It also highlights some of the risk factors that affect the likelihood of children and young people becoming victims of online grooming. It indicates that online sexual solicitation through social networking sites has become increasingly concerning in recent years, with the Internet offering opportunities for sex offenders to engage in grooming behaviour. Furthermore, children and young people’s increased use of information communication technologies, their risk-taking behaviour and their frequent silence around sexual abuse, have presented serious safety concerns for the most vulnerable users online.