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Article
The Discursive Construction and Performance of Gendered Identity on Social Media
Current Sociology (2014)
  • Julia Cook, University of Melbourne
  • Reza Hasmath, University of Oxford
Abstract
This article looks at the construction and performance of gendered identity through a sub-section of Facebook web pages belonging to the Slut Walk movement. Our analysis suggests that gender is constructed through the subjects’ participation in the ‘post-feminist masquerade’ through which their gendered identity is defined in relation to a hegemonic masculine ideal. This situates the web pages within a space characterized through the ambivalent and appropriative treatment of feminism and further, coiled within an acute tension between feminist and post-feminist discourses. Acts of resistance are framed as individual, momentary ruptures of Judith Butler’s heterosexual matrix of ‘cultural intelligibility.’ The online context of these ruptures is found to vest a creative potential, by removing the constraints of time and location, indicating that the impact of these ruptures may extend beyond its immediate environment.
Keywords
  • Gender identity,
  • feminism,
  • Slut Walk,
  • social media,
  • Facebook,
  • resistance
Publication Date
2014
Citation Information
Cook, J. and Hasmath, R. (2014) “The Discursive Construction and Performance of Gendered Identity on Social Media”, Current Sociology 62(7): 975-993.