The Discursive Construction and Performance of Gendered Identity on Social Media

Journal article

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. The authors’ 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.

Authors: Hasmath, R; Cook, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Sage Journals
• Journal: Current Sociology
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 7
• Pages: 975-993
• Publication date: 2014-09-25
• Acceptance date: 2014-01-01
• DOI: 10.1177/0011392114550008
• EISSN: 1461-7064
• ISSN: 0011-3921
• Language: English
• Keywords: Slut Walk; gender identity; resistance; Facebook; social media; feminism