Social Identity Online: The Role of Woman
After reading the Dobson piece “The ‘Grotesque Body’ in Young Women’s Self-Presentation on MySpace,” I found myself concerned with how social identity impacts self-image for my group of facebook "friends "and me. Dobson suggests that traditional femininity is playing into “shy” and submissive stereotypes, while subverting femininity has the potential to be powerful, and is likened to “mimicking masculinity” (4). Therefore, gender operates as an inherently disempowering social-role for women in this article. Dobson is concerned with discovering the meanings of these online self-representations to see how they connect to the ways we perform our gender. Yet, within the framework she laid out, the role of woman depends on the role of man to give her meaning regardless of how she “self-produces” her image on Myspace or any other social media site.
When I look at facebook presentations of my “friends” I see countless examples of girls’ online self-presentation that further outline the same patriarchal picture of decades ago, merely using the tools of modern society to perpetuate and reproduce females as the objects of the gaze.
But, there are also lots of girls who use social media to present an image of themselves that seems less driven by external standards and more driven by authentic identity performance. I think these girls who show their interests and natural beauty on their online profiles could be said to “constitute a ‘new feminist poetics’ of female representational practice” (Dobson, 4).
Rather than group girls into categories based on my own subjective opinion of their profile pictures, I prefer to look at the implications of each type of portrayal. First, I notice these flattering, nuanced representations of some of my “friends” as resulting in what I would call cultural re-education. By self-producing a page that layers their identity women can participate in their network of friends in a more powerful role. They are teaching people in their network that they expect to be treated with a certain level of respect. These portrayals show aren’t “unfeminine” as Dobson suggests – but they are not hyper-feminine. I guess I would say they vary and don’t have to be placed on a spectrum of femininity. I realize when reflecting on this that even when girls choose to perform identity without degrading, sexualizing or objectifying themselves they still cannot control the spectator’s gaze. So even in these carefully selected self-produced representations are subject to “gender stereotypes and the type of sadistic pleasure Mulvey associates with voyeuristic narratives and modes of viewing.”
I notice that the youngest group of girls in my network strive to self-present a traditional 20th century feminine representation, which include, according to Dobson, "aesthetic traits such as ‘cuteness’, pastel colors and tones, pinkness, and delicate, decorative ‘prettiness” (5).
I also notice “objectifying” facebook profiles are prevalent among my “friends.” They pose making ‘silly’ or caricatured faces; wide open mouths and protruding tongues; poses which would, according to Dobson, typically signify a ‘masculine’ body (6). I doubt they are attempting to enact a ‘symbolic inversion’ in culture via this performance, rather I see it as an attempt (often in vain) of the girl featured in the picture, arranging her facial muscles to create the illusion of cheekbones (for some fun examples: http://antiduckface.com/) or increase perceived beauty.
I guess I connected with this reading because I get really aggravated when girls pose in a hyper-sexualized and contrived way. I also respectfully disagree with when Dobson sites Bakhtin as saying "wide open mouths are not traditionally associated with...what is hetero-sexy, appealing and seductive in a feminine body," which doesn't really seem accurate to me (9). “Wide open mouth” has a slew of connotations that link effortlessly with what is hetero-sexy in my mind. This specific type of “grotesque representation of the body” doesn’t work in the subversive ways Dobson speculates.
In my view, they are more like the classical body than originally recognized; the aforementioned representation is like the classical in that both are facades that cannot be penetrated (Bakhtin 1965: 320). As the viewer and a part of the imaginary audience for these objectified photo-booth images, it is my duty to comment to validate the poster’s beauty. Being perceived as beautiful seems to take precedence over other types of potential comments. The Classical body is “seemingly indifferent to its audience/viewer; frozen in time, and in this sense, unengaged and ‘disembodied” and while the facebook representation I am discussing relies heavily on the feedback from the audience it attempts to cloak this dependence. I guess I just feel like in a lot of ways these representations continue to circulate the same “stereotypes of ‘masculinised’ hetero-sexual desire and construction of female bodies for a hetero-sexual ‘masculinised’ gaze” (Dobson, 4).
I regret that women and girls continue post images on facebook that objectifies their body, with the online activity surrounding those images resulting in pseudo-pedestalization with comments like “omg so jealous” and “why are you so pretty, stop” etc. (Please note I pulled those comments off of a “friend’s” profile picture, where her sorority sisters were pretending to be mad at her for being so naturally pretty.) But those types of images are anything but natural and comments seem to be further evidence of a lack of “symbolic inversion.” When I look at the entire performance of identity for the girl whose profile picture garnered the above comments, it leaves me disappointed. However, some women are using social media to perform an empowering identity that frees women from the silence and powerlessness of being a bearer, not maker, of meaning (Mulvey, 15).
--Kayla8thecity