“Express yourself in new ways” – wait, not like that
A semiotic analysis of norm-breaking pictures on Instagram
COURSE: Thesis in Media and Communication science II 15 credits
PROGRAM: Media and Communication science
AUTHORS: Andrea Bille Pettersson, Aino Vauhkonen
EXAMINER: Peter Berglez
SEMESTER: FS2020
Title: “Express yourself in new ways” – wait, not like that
Semester: FS2020
Authors: Andrea Pettersson, Aino Vauhkonen
Supervisor: Leon Barkho
Abstract
Instagram, as one of today’s largest social media platforms, plays a significant part in the maintaining and reproducing of existing stereotypes and role expectations for women. The purpose of the thesis is to study how Instagram interprets violations against its guidelines, and whether decisions to remove certain pictures from the platform are in line with terms of use, or part of human subjectivity. The noticeable pattern among the removed pictures is that they are often norm-breaking. The thesis discusses communication within Instagram to reveal how and why some pictures are removed while others are not, which limits women’s possibilities to express themselves in non-conventional settings. The study applies semiotics to analyse 12 pictures that were banned from the platform without directly violating its guidelines. Role theory and norms are used to supplement semiotics and shed light on the underlying societal structures of female disadvantage. Two major conclusions are presented: 1) Instagram has unclearly communicated its guidelines to women’s disadvantage, and 2) Instagram has therefore been subjective in the decisions to have the pictures removed from the platform, also to women’s disadvantage. Further, the discussion focuses on how Instagram handles issues related to (1) female sexuality, (2) women stereotyping, and (3) female self-representation.
Keywords: social media, norms, roles, gender, self-representation, digital activism, censorship, female sexuality, women stereotyping
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ...... 1 1.2 Implementation...... 1 1.3 Purpose and contribution ...... 2 2. Research questions ...... 3 3. Background ...... 4 3.1 The second sex ...... 4 3.2 Misrepresentation in media ...... 5 3.3 Instagram and their community guidelines ...... 6 3.4 Who decides what - human or technology? ...... 7 3.5 Criticism of Instagram ...... 7 3.6 Usage of Instagram – more than just a picture sharing platform ...... 8 4. Previous research ...... 10 4.1 Women and the media ...... 10 4.2 Women and self-representation ...... 10 4.3 Maintenance of the stereotypical femininity ...... 12 5.Theories...... 14 5.1 The male gaze...... 14 5.2 Role theory – expectations and deviant behaviour ...... 15 6. Method ...... 18 6.1 Semiotics ...... 18 6.2 Myths ...... 18 6.3 Denotation and connotation ...... 19 6.4 Data analysis ...... 19 6.6 A critical review of the method ...... 21 7. Strategic quota samples and material ...... 23 7.1 Data selection ...... 23 7.1.2 Ethical reasoning ...... 24 8. Analysis...... 25 8.1 Category 1: Lower abdomen ...... 25 8.2 Category 2: Periods ...... 28 8.3 Category 3: Body image ...... 30 8.4 Category 4: provocative pictures...... 34 8.5 Category 5: imperfections ...... 37 8.6 Category 6: female pleasure ...... 39 9. Discussion and conclusion ...... 42 9.1 Fear of female sexuality? ...... 42 9.2 The importance of stereotypes ...... 44 9.3 The stigmatized womanhood ...... 44 9.4 Comfortable for who? ...... 45 10. Implications...... 48 11. Further research ...... 49 References ...... 50 Appendices ...... 54 Instagram’s guidelines...... 54 Consent to use the pictures ...... 59
1. Introduction
Women have traditionally played a significant part in the media industry. But often as objects and users, seldom as subjects and producers (Vargas-Bianchi, 2020). In everything from movies to advertisements, stereotypically feminine women have tended to be used for their looks and bodies to sell, seduce and satisfy (Collins, 2011; Vargas-Bianchi, 2020). Historically, the industry has been ruled by men, but with the modern technology and the development of equality – women now have a new and unique possibility to be their own producers (Burns, 2011; Kanai & Dobson, 2016: 1-4). This does, in theory, enable the possibility to represent a new kind of femininity that has not been broadly represented in mainstream media before – the type of femininity that does not fit into the societal expectations of how women should look and behave. But despite the freedom on social media, the deeply rooted traditional ideals and norms still seem too silent and conceal women who do not fit into the role of typical femininity (Bailey et al. 2013).
1.2 Implementation
Instagram was chosen since it is one of the largest social media platforms today. In the analysis, 12 pictures will be investigated on the claims of breaking Instagram’s guidelines. The selection is done through a strategic quota sample. The pictures are what we have chosen to call “statement pictures”, where women consciously break and oppose today’s norms. Despite this, it is questionable whether the pictures violate any of Instagram’s guidelines, and this leads to the discussion of whether Instagram has communicated their guidelines clearly enough. Therefore, there is reason to suspect that Instagram is subjective in their interpretations of their policy - and that women, in particular women who do not fit into the commonly known stereotype of femininity, might be disfavoured. This study does not only analyse whether these pictures have been unrightfully removed, but rather why, and how that reflects today’s representation of women on social media.
The selected data for the analysis is collected from the photobook Pics or it didn’t happen, written by the artists and Instagram celebrities Arvida Byström and Molly Soda. The authors themselves have had several pictures of provocative nature banned by Instagram. When producing the book, Byström and Soda asked their Instagram-followers to contribute with their pictures that had been banned by Instagram. And, as the authors claim, they quickly recognized
1 a pattern of what kinds of pictures were banned and censored from the platform (Byström & Soda, 2018: 14). Furthermore, the authors explain that their reason behind creating the book is the global female frustration over the censorship on Instagram, that, as they put it, “speaks a very clear language” of what is considered acceptable or normal today (op.cit., 2018: 18).
1.3 Purpose and contribution
The purpose of the thesis is to analyse the selected pictures in relation to Instagram’s guidelines. By doing this, it can be acknowledged if women have been exposed to the disadvantage of Instagram’s subjective interpretations of their guidelines. Previous research on the topic usually compares how women versus men are represented in media and focus on the perspectives of gender and feminism. This thesis will focus on women alone and the theoretical framework is supplemented with the theories of social roles and norms. This way, the purpose, and the research questions will be approached from a broader societal perspective, and that is where we as researchers will contribute with new insights into the area. It will be argued that Instagram’s guidelines and the interpretations of them reflect today’s society and its current values. This thesis aims to be a conversation starter that takes the debate on female representation in the media further.
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2. Research questions
• How does Instagram interpret violations of their guidelines in banning women’s pictures? • How are the stereotypical social roles reflected in Instagram’s interpretations of pictures selected for analysis? • Is there evidence to support the claim that Instagram is subjective when banning pictures selected for analysis? • What connotations do the pictures banned by Instagram convey about how women are expected to present themselves?
To answer these questions, we must first look at some background on the area of gender research and representation in the media, as well as Instagram’s guidelines and how the platform operates.
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3. Background
3.1 The second sex
Simone de Beauvoir’s book Le Deuxième Sexe, or The Second Sex from 1949, is heralded as a breakthrough in feminist progression studies in the twentieth century. The book claims, in alignment with its title, that the woman is the second sex in the sense that she is considered less valuable than the man (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25).
De Beauvoir starts by claiming that a man would not think of placing himself within the label of a gender. To men, their gender is natural, and therefore also positive (op.cit., 2002: 25). Women, on the other hand, represent the negative and are always attributed limitations that men are not (op.cit., 2002: 25). De Beauvoir explains:
I used to get annoyed in abstract discussions to hear men tell me: ‘You think such and such a thing because you’re a woman’. But I know my only defence is to answer, ‘I think so because it is true’, thereby eliminating my subjectivity; it was out of question to answer, ‘and you think the contrary because you’re a man,’ because it is understood that being a man is not a particularity, a man is in his right by virtue of being a man; it is the woman who is the wrong. (op.cit., 2002: 25)
In order to separate the two genders, everything anatomical that differs between men and women is viewed as a disadvantage to the woman (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25). Her female anatomy is binding her to the invisible contract of subjectivity (op.cit., 2002: 25). This is partially based on ancient quotes from great thinkers like Aristoteles and Thomas av Aquino who claimed that a woman is to be viewed as a “natural defectiveness” and as an “incomplete man” (op.cit., 2002: 26).
To view groups of people as the others is an ancient habit that is to be found in even the oldest of mythologies (de Beauvoir, 2002: 26). This is in modern knowledge to be applied for basically everyone who is not a white male, even though this separation at the most primitive of societies is not always used consciously, but rather as an instinct justified by evolutionary reasons (op.cit., 2002: 26). The separation of the sexes has evolved through centuries and to some extent positively for women. But even though women were given rights and are to be considered equal to men in many ways, the habit of their societal role derails practical possibilities to use these rights (op.cit., 2002: 30). For example, when women were allowed onto the labour market, the industrial or corporate world was already built by and for men
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(op.cit., 2002: 30). This forced women to compete on the terms of men, which arguably was impossible due to all the limitations given to women to separate them from men (op.cit., 2002: 25-30). At the beginning of the female entrance to the labour market, there were only a handful of jobs that women could work with: the kind of jobs that resonated with their former role as a housewife and mother (op.cit., 2002: 30). By the female refusal of being the other, negative consequences followed. To illustrate with an example from the labour market: if women followed the restrictions that came with their role, which were to not compete against men and jobs considered to be “reserved” for men - women were somewhat protected by men (op.cit., 2002: 30). Alongside every individual’s desire to be a subject, and in that sense be free with the possibility to experience self-realization, there was also a desire to be an object (op.cit., 2002: 30). This is perhaps best illustrated by the still existing housewife-culture where the woman is presented as protected, provided for, and taken care of by the man. And by this mutual contract, the woman lacks all tools of becoming a subject (op.cit., 2002: 30).
3.2 Misrepresentation in media
Television, videogames, films, porn, music videos, etc. all influence the construction of today’s social identities. The fact that women are underrepresented or perhaps misrepresented in media is well-researched. Most of it arrives at the same or similar conclusions: women’s and girl’s self-esteem, self-perception, and emotional well-being are affected by how the media portrays women and femininity (Collins, 2011: 294). Several studies also show that viewer’s sexual attitudes and behaviour are affected, and especially affecting the adolescent viewers during their identity shaping - and this goes for males as well as females (op.cit., 2011: 294).
Inaccurate representation in the media is not only problematic for those who are represented, thus in an unreasonable way, but also for those who are not represented (Collins, 2011: 292- 293). When being represented less often or not at all in the media, a common consequence is lowering of self-esteem (op.cit., 2011: 292-293). A lowered self-esteem or the feeling of not being included or perhaps not being good enough, does not only affect people as individuals - but it also affects the whole society (Angelöw et al., 2015). These are consequences that will be debated further in the discussion.
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3.3 Instagram and their community guidelines
Instagram, the American photo and video sharing platform was originally launched in 2010 and purchased by Facebook in 2012. As of 2020, Instagram had more than 1 billion monthly active users (Instagram, 2020) of which 510 million were women and 490 million men (Pew Research Center, 2018) and 72 percent of all teenagers worldwide use Instagram (Statista, 2020).
On their webpage, Instagram describes the platform as follows (Instagram, 2020):
“Bringing you closer to the people and things you love”
“We're committed to fostering a safe and supportive community for everyone.”
“Express yourself in new ways with the latest Instagram features.”
“Connect with more people, build influence, and create compelling content that's distinctly yours.”
“Share and grow your brand with our diverse, global community.”
These visions are maintained by Instagram through their Community Guidelines (see appendices 1-9). Instagram’s guidelines can shortly and with demarcation to the purpose of this thesis, be summarized as follows (Instagram, 2020):
• No pictures breaking the law (like posting unauthorized pictures) • No nudity (no genitals, no fully nude buttocks, and no female nipples) • No body fluids (such as snot or sperm) • No menstruation blood in the context of a sexual fetish.
Under “Learn how to address abuse”, Instagram writes:
Report a violation
Be sure to read through Instagram's Community Guidelines and Terms of Use.
After reviewing our guidelines, if you believe an account isn't following one or many of these, you should report abuse with our in-app-reporting. This is the fastest way to get abusive posts or profiles reviewed.
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Instagram only removes accounts and posts that aren't following our Guidelines and Terms. It's important to remember that Instagram doesn't mediate disputes between people who use our service. (Instagram, 2020)
3.4 Who decides what - human or technology?
Since Facebook owns Instagram, they share the same guidelines. The platforms have both human content moderators and technological censors whose job is to identify inappropriate or harmful content (Instagram, 2020; Byström & Soda, 2018: 21-22).
The technological censors are used to detect violations of the guidelines, for example, female nipples. In doing so, the censors try to tell the gender of the person whose breasts are exposed in the picture, and if it is a woman - the post is flagged as inappropriate or harmful and therefore risks being banned (Jacobs, 2019, para. 21).
The human content moderators are outsourced low-paid workforce by Facebook in Asia, where they during an eight hour-shift need to view roughly 2000 pictures per person. This leaves them with just a few minutes to look at, judge, and decide if to allow or ban a picture that has been reported or flagged as inappropriate or dangerous (Ganjoo, 2019, para. 2). Daily, these human reviewers must handle detailed and often violent pictures, not seldom of grotesque murders, rape, suicide, etc. (Byström & Soda, 2018: 18; Ganjoo, 2019, para. 4). Work-related stress among the employers of Facebook has led to a discussion about traumatism and stress-related issues at work (Ganjoo, 2019, para. 3-8) and how that could affect what types of pictures are allowed versus banned. And from a bigger perspective, these unstable working conditions also concern the dilemma of representation online. The platform claims to be working on developing algorithms to automatically detect and delete content that violates their guidelines, without any human reviewers involved (Thomas, 2020, para. 14). This would be a way to spare their workforce from exposure to barbaric and traumatic pictures.
3.5 Criticism of Instagram
If violating the guidelines of Instagram, one risks getting one's pictures or account removed by the platform. However, Instagram acknowledges that their system is not perfect, and mistakes happen (Instagram, 2020; Vagianos, 2015, para. 4-5). When receiving criticism, Instagram usually replies by blaming Apple App Store and its strict anti-pornographic rules (Byström & Soda, 2018: 17).
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There are cases where Instagram has received criticism for unrightfully removing pictures that did not violate their policy, and later corrected their mistake. One example of this is the case with the famous Canadian artist and photographer Petra Collins (@petrafcollins). Collins posted a picture in 2013 that raised attention when Instagram banned it and closed her account. The picture presented Collins in a bikini, with her pubic hair visible, which is not a violation against the guidelines (body hair is not mentioned by Instagram at all).
In a commentary to the Huff Post who reported the case, an Instagram spokesperson said:
We try hard to find a good balance between allowing people to express themselves creatively and having policies in place to maintain a comfortable experience for our global and culturally diverse community [...] This is one reason why our guidelines put limitations on nudity, but we recognize that we don’t always get it right. In this case, we made a mistake and have since restored the account. (Vagianos, 2015, para. 4-5) 3.6 Usage of Instagram – more than just a picture sharing platform
One way of using Instagram is through self-representation which is the act of creating an impression of oneself for an audience, usually through clothes, poses, facial expressions, speech and text (Boyd, 2007: 128). The audience has an important role here since the form of self-representation often changes based on the reactions of the audience. The phenomenon of self-representation itself is not new; it has taken place in art throughout history. What the development of social media has done, is change the form of self-representation into a more public one (op.cit., 2007: 128).
The theory of onstage/offstage can explain how self-representation on social media is a kind of performance where one wants to show only a carefully chosen side of oneself, which does not necessarily reflect the offstage reality (Goffman, 2014). One way of using Instagram is to post selfies or other pictures of oneself as a form of self-representation. The definition of a selfie is “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website” (Oxford University Press, 2013). Selfies are not the only modern form of self-representation taking place on Instagram, since pictures taken by someone else and published on one’s personal social media account can be a way of representing oneself too (Rettberg, 2014: 40).
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The opinions on selfies expressed by the broad audience are often negative since these pictures are considered as narcissistic and attention-seeking (Burns, 2015: 16-17). Selfies can also be viewed as a way of self-promotion or conducting an image of oneself that is hard to reach off-screen. Young women are the ones who most actively perform self-representation through social media, and therefore also the ones receiving most of the negative feedback surrounding the phenomenon (op.cit., 2015: 16-17). The negative feedback in question is usually expressed by unapproving comments and by users reporting pictures as inappropriate, as well as through unfollowing certain accounts, which illustrates what kind of content is viewed as unacceptable self-representation (Dinsmore, 2014: 40). This uneven treatment of gender on social media is problematic and therefore the purpose of this thesis.
Self-representation can turn into a form of digital activism where research shows that feminist activism on social media platforms, can be an effective way to support silenced women and under- or misrepresented groups (Merithew, 2004: 87-102). #Metoo and #freethenipple are examples of this type of feminist activism that has gone viral on social media and turned into political discussions. Body-positivity is another example of digital activism, where women post pictures of their bodies to broaden the representation of body types and as a reminder of how narrow the beauty and health ideal mainstream media shows is.
To justify the purpose of this thesis and why it is needed, it is necessary to first look at which conclusions previous researchers have reached on the area of female representation in media.
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4. Previous research
The 1970s was an era that saw a great amount of research on the area of gender roles in the media, largely inspired by the feministic movement. Male researchers tended to focus on how men and women were represented in respective normative roles. But feminist researchers were the ones to bring forward the issue of how women in media are expected to be both consumers and objects of consumption, but never producers – even when it came to their own images (Berger 1972/2008; Hess & Nochlin, 1973).
4.1 Women and the media
To discuss how the industry treats women today, it is valuable to look at how the industry historically has treated women. The saying “sex sells” is almost as old as the media industry itself, and a commonly used strategy within the business. The female body and sexuality have frequently been used within the industry as a part of messages, whether the purpose is to sell products/services, or to tell a plot/narrative (Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020: 77). This has resulted in the phrase female objectification, and the development of certain stereotypes for how women and men should act (op.cit., 2020: 78). Even though men, as well as women, are affected by these expectations, several studies show that women are more likely to be portrayed in a sexist manner, and as properties to men (op.cit., 2020: 78). This submission and the unachievable standards of perfection have resulted in numerous negative consequences for women, such as eating disorders, self-dissatisfaction, depression, anger, and low self-esteem (op.cit., 2020: 79).
These arguably unattainable stereotypes and female objectification have been normalized to a degree that has passed the ethical limit of what is possible for a human to look like (Vargas- Bianchi et al., 2020: 78). This can be exemplified by hyper-sexualized female characters in video games or perhaps the more traditional example of female toys and dolls, with Barbie as the most acknowledged one. These consequences and their origins are relevant to acknowledge as they are important factors for why this thesis is needed for the discussion on female representation in media.
4.2 Women and self-representation
Social media has given women the possibility to broaden the expectations of how they should look and behave (Bailey et al., 2013: 94). As a result of this feministic development, women
10 have grown to bigger importance in the media industry and have therefore not only created a new demand that the business needs to meet but has also made it possible for a new kind of marketing to arise. A kind of marketing where real women1 are used for creating empowerment by showing diversity. This contradictive dilemma will be analysed further, in the discussion.
Social media has given people a new platform on which to create content in the form of self- representation, as well as to perform activism. Women are the once who perform self- representation on social media the most actively (Burns, 2015: 16-17). When women post pictures that opposes the stereotypical femininity, it is often considered as norm-breaking or political (Jackson, 2018: 35). Historically, women have been excluded from the traditional areas of change-making such as within the politics and mainstream media (op.cit., 2018: 35). Social media has made it easier, or perhaps made it possible, for women to participate in activism, and is described as an alternative area that gives non-represented people the chance to confront the mainstream culture that for centuries has disparaged them (Jackson, 2018; Merithew, 2004). This female dominance has launched a discussion of women being not only users of the media but producers of it. Despite this, women still have a hard time being recognized as main producers and taken seriously in that role (Kanai & Dobson, 2016: 1-4). This double standard in treatment, that perhaps could be described as limitations given to women without equivalence to men (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25) is an aspect that will be discussed further when Instagram’s guidelines will be reviewed.
However, there is a difference between simply performing self-representation and performing it with an activistic intention. Sometimes women become labelled as activists when posting norm-breaking content, even if they do not see it as activistic themselves. For example, the creator and actor of the tv-series Girls, Lena Dunham, has gotten a lot of comments for being brave because she participated in several naked scenes. People’s Magazine writes:
Dunham also spoke about being praised for showing her body on Girls — but said she was praised for the wrong reasons […] “When my career started, some people celebrated my look but always through the lens of, ‘Isn’t she brave? Isn’t it such a bold move to show THAT body on TV?” (Goldstein, 2019, para. 16-17)
1 The expression “real women” is used since it is common in the advertisement business when referring to women who are not models.
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Her response to these comments has been that she does not consider it brave, claiming that she is comfortable naked, and what has annoyed her is that she does not think she would have gotten the same feedback if she had a normatively slim body (Goldstein, 2019).
Another example of this unintentional activism is the singer and songwriter Lizzo, who talked about the same issue on the tv-show “My Next Guest Needs no Introduction” with David Letterman. She said: "I'm sick of being an activist just because I’m fat and black” and also: “I want to be an activist because I’m intelligent, because I care about issues, because my music is good, because I want to help the world” (Letterman, 2020).
4.3 Maintenance of the stereotypical femininity
Despite the possibility to share a different kind of femininity online, studies show that women on social media often continue to maintain stereotypes (Bailey et al., 2013: 94-95). For example, by posting pictures of oneself or of one’s lifestyle that consort and reinforce what is considered as typical femininity, which is generally summarized as a woman with great looks, a great love life and a great social life preferably with elements of a party lifestyle (op.cit., 2013). Even if self-representation can contribute to a positive form of digital activism and bring forward norm-breaking content, statistics show that most of the content labelled self-representation is in fact within the social norms, rather than outside them (Thumim, 2012: 96).
Research results show that when young women view other young women’s social media accounts, common interpretations are expressed with phrases such as too exposing, too slutty, too public, too depending on a man, too inappropriate (Bailey et al., 2013: 101-107). Young women also tend to judge other women harder than men on social media. For example, when men post pictures with a romantic partner, they are generally considered loving and caring, while women are considered non-independent and attention-seeking (op.cit., 2013: 102). The context of a photo is also an important factor for how the person in the picture is judged - pictures of girls lightly dressed on beaches are more acceptable than lightly dressed pictures elsewhere but the beach for example (op.cit., 2013: 105).
This way of separate thinking of women and men resonates with what Simone de Beauvoir explained as limitations given to women without counterpart for men (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25). And the fact that women tend to judge other women, and that they tend to judge women harder than they judge men, is an important factor for this thesis. It does not only support that
12 de Beauvoir argues that the man is the natural, the first sex but also re-affirms that women too, are raised to think less of their sex (op.cit., 2002: 25). When Laura Mulvey examined the female objectification in her research on the male gaze, she found that women too objectified the female actors and identified with them (Mulvey, 1975: 58-62). Partially, this is an unconscious internalization for women as all cultures are mostly built by and for men (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25-30). But there is also an underlying desire of being an object, as the role of the objectified one is constructed to seem as comfortable, safe and supported (op.cit., 2002: 30). This is also taken into consideration and used as a motive behind why people tend to fulfil the stereotypical expectations on Instagram. To explain this desire, we have chosen the theories of roles and norms to reveal the underlying human wish to please her surroundings.
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5.Theories
5.1 The male gaze
The term the male gaze was coined by the British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey (1975: 57). The male gaze was first mentioned in Mulvey’s 1975 book Visual pleasure and narrative cinema, where she used Freud’s psychoanalysis to examine how the cinematic culture is built upon, and reinforcing pre-existing patriarchal patterns (Mulvey, 1975: 57). This will lay the ground for our analysis and discussion since the male gaze still reflects the modern media culture.
Mulvey claims that films are made by and for a male heterosexual audience, and that female actors are displayed as erotic objects, only participating for the satisfaction of the male gaze (Mulvey, 1975: 59), hence the name of the concept.
The basis of Mulvey’s text and the concept is Jaques Derrida’s theory on phallocentrism. It is the idea that the social world circles around the male genitalia, and that the woman lives with constant envy of the man because of her castration, her lack of a penis (Mulvey, 1975: 57- 58). Men, on the other hand, live with a constant fear of the woman because of her sexual difference, since the woman possesses the possibility to evoke the man’s anxiety of castration (op.cit., 1975: 57-58). To avoid the evoking of these feelings, the man must not identify with the woman. Therefore, females are made into passive, erotic objects who only carry meaning, but do not create meaning (op.cit., 1975: 64-65). Alongside with Simone de Beauvoir’s gender research, this male superiority is the outline for our analysis and discussion, as it explains the differences in the attitudes towards the genders.
Mulvey states two ways that men can avoid anxiety over castration. The first one she calls fetish scopophilia (Mulvey, 1975: 64). Hence the woman's castration, all women according to the phallocentric theory are defined by their sexual difference towards the man. By using the fetish scopophilia as a strategy, the man can demystify the woman and her mysteriousness (her lack of a penis). By turning her into an unreasonably beautiful (but passive) object, she becomes less dangerous. And this is how the female star was born in the cinematic culture (op.cit., 1975: 64).
The second way Mulvey claims that men can avoid the fear of castration is the strategy named voyeurism (Mulvey, 1975: 64-65). This avenue of escape is closely linked to sadism,
14 and the pleasure lies in punishing the woman for evoking the man's anxiety of castration. Evoking these feelings are usually done by the woman when she is deviating from her role of satisfying the gaze of the heterosexual man (op.cit., 1975: 64-65). Mulvey claims that voyeurism is a way for the man to reassert control and a way of obtaining the role of the active one, the creator of meaning (op.cit., 1975: 64-65).
Important to acknowledge regarding the male gaze though is that criticism has been pointed towards the concept because of its foundation in Freud’s and Derrida’s view on women. These views were arguably biased by the Victorian mortality; moral attitudes or views on how women in Europe should behave, which ruled during the late 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. As of Freud’s view on women, critics claim that these traditions, along with personal aspects such as his relationship with his parents, are the underlying reasons for his view on feminine psychology (Slipp, 1993: 2). Those who have participated in the development of both Freud’s and Derrida’s work, argue that by the maintenance of the phallocentric society, men can withhold their mastery of nature, and the theory is built upon the belief that women only lack a penis because of reproductive reasons. In retrospect, some suggest that this idea was created to make females and their sexuality less feared by the society (op.cit., 1993: 4) and the catalyst behind this is the changes of the society where the old traditions (such as the Victorian morality) were being substituted by new feminine values. This created what could arguably be a need to demean and control women at this point of time to maintain the society that profited the man (op.cit., 1993: 2). These reactions towards changing values are still relevant to the situation today. This is something we will argue for further in the results and discussion.
5.2 Role theory – expectations and deviant behaviour
Role theory acknowledges the importance and function of the social roles and how they as a part of society affect people's behaviour (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52). Social roles are often unconsciously internalized by the members of specific societies and learned through every day-institutions like school and media (op.cit., 2015).
A role is described as a total of norms for a specific task or position. Social roles are constantly changing, and they differ over time and culture. Roles can be divided into three different parts (Angelöw et al., 2015: 48): 1. The position: meaning what a person is or does, like being a woman or a lawyer for example.
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2. The role: meaning the expectations that people associate with being a woman or a lawyer. 3. The role behaviour: meaning how the person in the specific position should behave, according to the present role expectations that exist.
It is by the social roles that people can understand the society they live in because people tend to be valued by the extent to which they follow the expectations of their roles (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52). Role expectations could be compared with stereotypes: they make it easier for people to understand the world. Some roles have more significance in people’s lives than others, and they can affect which choices that person makes or what other types of roles he or she chooses to take on. To illustrate: when women were allowed onto the labour market, they were referred to jobs that did not imply competition with men, jobs similar to their former role at home (de Beauvoir, 2002: 30). Still, this is a common division in the labour market and therefore acts as an example of the importance that roles have on a person’s life and choices (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52).
The general opinion about the roles and their expectations differs, and gender roles are an example of this. Much of what has been expected of the different genders historically is not expected of them today, and at the same time, new expectations have replaced old ones (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52).
People do not only adapt to social roles; people also unconsciously expect other people to behave appropriately according to their roles (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52). When a person does not behave appropriately it is called deviant behaviour, which means going outside a given or expected role. This could be either positive or negative depending on the situation. When a behaviour is deviant in a positive way it gives a person respect, while a behaviour which is seen as deviant in a negative way leads to prejudice (op.cit., 2015: 47-52). For example, when women wear men’s clothes, women can be judged positively and given respect for doing so. While if men wear women’s clothes, they are often judged negatively because of its negatively associated deviation.
Whether a behaviour is deviant or not depends on the historical context. This means that certain behaviour can be deviant at one point in time while it is forgotten in a different time- era. Deviant behaviour is seen as a social construction since a behaviour alone without the opinions and reactions of others can’t be labelled as anything other than behaviour. The connotations which can make it deviant are created in the surrounding society. Powerful
16 groups in the society are the ones deciding which behaviours becomes labelled as deviant (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52).
5.3 Norms
Norms can be compared to social roles because of their arbitrariness to time and culture, and in the sense that they fill the same purpose: telling people how to behave (Bearman et al., 2011). Norms exist to illustrate what is normal, how people expect one to behave, and what is considered as deviating (op.cit., 2011).
Norms, like roles, are internalized through society and shape people’s identities and self- conceptions and have consequences for how people live their lives, what choices they make - for example, which job positions they acquire (Bearman et al., 2011; Angelöw et al., 2015).
When someone breaks the norm, it is usually considered deviating since that person is disturbing the social structure of the society; the status quo (Bearman et al., 2011). And with deviating behaviour comes negative consequences, for example in the form of alienation, harassment or bullying (Bearman et al., 2011; Angelöw et al., 2015).
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6. Method
6.1 Semiotics
What is foundational for semiotics is that everything is a sign, and every sign has a meaning (Bignell, 2002: 5-16). Even though traditional media, such as television and radio, are channels of communication that carry a variety of meaning – so do clothes, words, dancing, traffic lights and colours, etc. These are all signs, and therefore generating different kinds of meanings (op.cit. 2002: 5-16). Most of the time, people unconsciously interpret these signs and are not aware of them or their consequences (Barthes, 2016: 10-14). When people interpret a sign or code, it’s called decoding. The decoding-process looks different for everyone: what a sign means to one person might not have the same meaning to another (Saussure, 1949: 331). This all depends on the person’s specific background and experiences, and that is why semiotics is both useful to understand how signs are affecting people (Bignell, 2002: 1), but also useful for this thesis.
One way of describing a sign is by putting it in the context of opposites (Saussure, 1949: 331). A woman, for example, is a sign, and can in that sense be described by what she’s not - a woman is not a man and can be described by the way she differs from a man.
However, signs are incomprehensible without codes (also referred to as conventions), which gives them meaning. Codes are rules that are learned through the internalization in society, it is a sort of agreement or perhaps a contract that cultures live by (Barthes, 2016). Codes survive because people use them and rely on them by habit and because they make the world and the reality easier to understand (op.cit., 2016). To exemplify this with one of Barthes theories, myths, the sign of a woman might be closely linked to the myth and code of being caring and nursing (op.cit., 2016). And in contrast, the expression of a man might be linked to the idea or myth of providing for the woman. It is in this process that meaning is created for humans (Saussure, 1949: 331). According to semiotics, humans need to define those meanings to create their meaning, and in that sense understand the world (Barthes, 1994: 95- 98).
6.2 Myths
Myths are the first tool of the semiotic study used in this thesis. A myth takes hold of an existing sign and the connotation it carries and develops it into a specific message with a
18 social consequence. There is a human need to categorize everything to comprehend and understand the world or reality better and therefore makes use of myths (Barthes, 2016: 107- 116). What makes myths so powerful is that they make certain ideas seem natural even if we know that they are not – this also leads to the exclusion of alternative ways of thinking or understanding the world (Bignell, 2002: 24). A modern example of myths is the advertisement business where we are aware that pictures on magazine covers do not represent the reality, but we still accept the myth of beauty since it helps us understand the concept.
Historically, there was a need to create the theory about myths to describe the way superior groups in society benefit from using myths to maintain their superiority (Barthes, 2016: 107- 116). Myths are, just like everything else within the semiotics, arbitrary in the sense that they are socially, historically and culturally dependent (op.cit., 2016).
6.3 Denotation and connotation
The second tool of the semiotic study used in this thesis is denotation and connotation. Denotation is the manifest, the visual and the obvious dimension in a picture: what we directly see when looking at it (Barthes, 2007). As an addition to the first glance of a picture, the connotative dimension was created to reveal the latent, indirect meaning of the picture (op.cit., 2007). Connotations take into consideration the readers perceptions, feelings, experiences, and opinions, often shaped within that person's culture (Barthes, 1994: 89-94). The connotation of women and men differ over the world, for example, in our Swedish or perhaps Western culture, women are by some means equal to men. While in some cultures, female fetuses are aborted because they are considered less and inferior to male once. The denotation of a woman is generally the same all over the world, but the connotation, the interpretation, differs (op.cit., 1994). It is also important to acknowledge that some connotations are situational, where somethings might be connoted in one situation, but not in another (Gripsrud, 2011: 148). This can be exemplified with the previous research in the chapter “Maintenance of stereotypical femininity” which state that participants of a study on female social media accounts, claimed that revealing pictures of a woman on a beach is more acceptable than revealing pictures elsewhere (Bailey et al., 2013: 105).
6.4 Data analysis
When analysing the pictures from a denotative perspective, we are going to look at:
• People: gender, hair colour, body size etc.
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• Objects: clothing, accessories, physical objects, etc. • Settings: background • Disposition: the arrangement of the picture with the elements above.
As well as how we see these things through:
• Camera angles • Image cropping • Lighting • Colours (of clothing or objects, etc.) • Poses • Body language • Facial expressions.
The connotative perspective will have us look at how we interpret what we see and which associations we make on personal, common, and cultural levels. We will also reflect upon which values or attitudes we assign the women in the pictures. Further with the help of myths we can reveal what values exist around women today, and how they are expected to present themselves. These perspectives will be further discussed in “A critical review of the method”.
6.5 Usage of the method
The power of semiotics lies in its function to reveal not only what signs in society means, but also how that meaning affects that society or culture and the people living within it (Bignell, 2002: 5-26). Instagram has grown to become a significant part of people's everyday lives and the platform has arguably become an institution from which the users are internalized. The banning of certain pictures tells us what the female norm looks like on Instagram. Semiotics is an applicable method for our purpose since it does not only criticize existing misrepresentation and myths but also looks at the codes and signs they are built upon (op.cit., 2002: 59). For example, how femininity is explained as a cultural construction rather than a reflection of reality (op.cit., 2002: 60) which makes it interesting for us to see what the pictures banned by Instagram connotate when breaking the stereotypical feminine expectations.
Since the pictures selected for this thesis are chosen on the premises of being norm-breaking, but not violating any of Instagram’s guidelines, we consider semiotics the best option to
20 explain why and how they are norm-breaking. With the help of myths, we can reveal how some groups in society benefits from the maintenance of the existing norms today, which in turn needs to be explained by the current connotations connected to certain signs.
Therefore, we as researchers find the method and theories useful and applicable, since the purpose of the thesis is not only to approach the problem of women’s representation in media but acknowledge it from a larger, societal perspective. By using semiotics alongside role behaviour, norms, and the male gaze, we can shed light on the actual reason behind the problem: the values existing within cultures.
Furthermore, as both role theories, norms and semiotics explain, what is norm-breaking at one point, might not be so at another point. This is an important factor for this thesis. To tell anything about how women are expected to present themselves, one should take into consideration that the way women and femininity have been represented so far, has been re- defined constantly throughout history. And this can be enlightened by the help of our chosen method and theories.
6.6 A critical review of the method
Semiotics as a method of analysis has its limitations since we as researchers are bound to the current time in history and our culture, experiences, gender, and other similar factors. We cannot avoid the fact that this research would have gotten a different result if someone else analysed the same pictures. We as researchers are of North European culture, which is one of the most liberated cultures when it comes to gender equality and sexuality. This thesis might not have been possible to implement in cultures of opposing beliefs. This implies that other cultures might not agree with or understand the analysis and results, due to our different attitudes and levels of understanding. Furthermore, it is also difficult to reach any absolute truth on the subject using this method.
When analysing pictures, things such as colours and poses can be analysed and given meaning to by semiotics, but we cannot know for sure if the person in the picture had any intentions at all by for example wearing a certain colour. In other words, we could give the pictures more meaning than the owner had intended to create.
Regarding our selection of pictures, we want to acknowledge the fact that the book is portraying mostly white women - this is reflected in our selection as well. We considered this but decided to not base the selection on skin colour, and instead focused on the pictures that
21 in the best manner filled the quotas of the strategic quota sample method. It is also important to take into consideration that most of Byström’s and Soda’s followers might be Swedish or American since the authors are from these countries. This means that the banned pictures do not necessarily represent a global selection of banned pictures. We also do not know how their selection of pictures was handled, besides the fact that they asked their followers to contribute. They might have used strategies like first/best selection or snowball selection, which are considered less credible when choosing amongst the academic selection strategies, such as our own, strategic quota sample (Esaiasson et al., 2012: 190).
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7. Strategic quota samples and material
Since the purpose of this thesis is to analyse pictures with specific content, we have chosen a strategic selection of material, more specifically: strategic quota samples.
The purpose of strategic quota samples is to fill specific quotas that we as researchers qualify as relevant aspects regarding the total selection of options (Esaiasson et al., 2012: 190).
The method of strategic quota samples requires that the researchers have knowledge of the population that is being investigated (in our case: pictures that have been banned on Instagram).
The samples that are chosen need to represent the population of what’s being investigated (Esaiasson et al., 2012: 190). In our case, the samples we chose need to represent the majority of pictures of a norm-breaking character and that arguably have been banned from the platform on that basis. When considering these factors while selecting pictures from the book Pics or it didn’t happen, we narrowed down our quotas into a total of 12 pictures, divided into the following six categories, with two pictures in each category:
1. Lower abdomen 2. Periods 3. Body image 4. Provocative pictures 5. Imperfections 6. Female pleasure. 7.1 Data selection
The pictures for this thesis are collected from the book Pics or it didn’t happen, written and produced by Arvida Byström and Molly Soda. The book was first published in English by the German publishing company Prestel Verlag in 2017. When deciding to create the book, they asked their followers to contribute with pictures that had been banned by Instagram (Byström & Soda, 2018: 13-14). The book is primarily a photo book, containing a total of 250 pictures. Some general ideas about the problem around Instagram’s removal of pictures are written in the preface, but the book does not comment or analyse specific pictures.
In the process of selecting the data, we started by looking at all the 250 pictures in the book. Since some of them clearly violated Instagram’s guidelines and therefore were not relevant
23 for our selection, we started by marking those that did not clearly violate Instagram’s current guidelines. Since we chose to focus on women, we also excluded pictures of men, transgender, and pictures that did not contain people. At this point, we had narrowed down the selection from 250 pictures to 117. Afterwards, we divided these 117 pictures into different categories based on what they represented, and this resulted in the above mentioned six categories. We then marked the pictures we felt best fitted into the categories and this narrowed down the selection to 61 pictures. We decided that each category could have only two pictures to demarcate the analysis. These 12 pictures were chosen by the premises of being of good quality and representing the categories clearly. 7.1.2 Ethical reasoning
A dilemma occurred regarding our selection of the 12 pictures collected from the book Pics or it didn't happen. Spreading these pictures could be problematic because of the copyrights; we are not lawfully allowed to use these pictures without consent. To circumvent this problem, we contacted each of the 12 owners of the pictures. We contacted them on Instagram and Facebook, our messages and their answers are found in the appendices 10-15. Six of them answered and gave us their consent. Rupi Kaur (picture 3) is a famous writer with over four million followers on Instagram, and her picture is famously spread over the internet, therefore we consider it ethical enough for us to include it. As for the five remaining picture owners who did not answer us, we decided to include three of the pictures since the owner’s faces were not a part of the pictures (pictures 7, 9, 10). We considered these pictures anonymous as the owners are not recognizable. As of that scenario, we considered it to be ethical enough for us to include them, as the owners have posted these pictures on their Instagram accounts, and also contributed their pictures to the book with the knowledge and aspiration that they would be viewed by a broad audience. And since this thesis have a similar purpose as the book, Pics or it didn't happen, they would hopefully consent their contribution to this thesis. We decided to exclude the remaining two pictures (pictures 4, 12), as the owner's faces were part of the pictures. Therefore, we could not justify the use of them in this thesis.
With the foundation of the thesis explained, we will continue to analyse our 12 pictures with the help from our background, previous research, theories, and method.
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8. Analysis 8.1 Category 1: Lower abdomen
Picture 1
(P1) Page: 133 User: arvidabystrom Name: Arvida Byström
Picture one denotes a close-up of a woman’s lower abdomen. She is wearing a pair of pink underwear with a transparent heart with wings attached to it. Pubic hair is visible through the heart and by her panty line on her thighs.
Pink is in Western cultures connoted as a girly colour (Bergström, 2017), and the heart- shaped detail with wings connotes childish or girly associations, as they are generally more often found at the children’s department in clothing stores. At the same time, the heart is transparent and therefore shows more skin and pubic hair, which might be connoted as sexual
25 based on the hyper-sexualization of the female body created through traditional media (Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020: 77-78).
This picture could be a case of intended activism, based on its disposition, the empty background and the close-up angle, the focal point is the woman’s lower abdomen. The myth of women being hairless exist even though people know that it is not natural for humans to be hairless, but it is accepted as a convention nevertheless (Bignell 2002: 24; Barthes, 2016). To post a picture like this therefore becomes a statement or an opposition to that convention or norm. And like often is the case when breaking norms or conventions - negative consequences tend to follow (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52). In this case, the consequences could be unfollowing, reporting, and negative comments (Dinsmore, 2014: 40).
Since the beauty industry is mostly focused on women, they have been given a role where they are expected to follow trends to a larger extent than men are expected to. Since women are thought of as passive objects, they have higher demands to "look nice" (Mulvey, 1975). And what is considered as nice is arbitrary in relation to time and space (Bignell, 2002: 5-26), hence the word "trend". One trend is for young women to be hairless, and it has by the power of myths become “the natural” today, excluding alternative ways of being. This has turned unshaved (young) women into the different or the norm-breaking ones and they are therefore the ones receiving the negative consequences of deviating from their expected role (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52).
Apart from consequences such as lowered self-esteem and self-perception caused by being labelled as different (Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020: 79), another consequence is what could be called involuntary activism. When women post pictures that are seen as norm-breaking, they tend to be perceived as activistic and political (Jackson, 2018: 35), despite not having those intentions. Posting pictures of female pubic hair has arguably become political since several pictures of this character have been removed from Instagram. For example, the one with Petra Collins that the platform apologized for removing without valid reasons to do so since it did not violate their guidelines (Vagianos, 2015, para. 4-5).
Picture 2:
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(P2) Page: 54 User: habitual_body_monotoring Name: Maja Malou Lyse
This is a close-up picture denoting a woman’s lower abdomen. She is dressed in a pair of pink sweatpants, sitting tightly around her genital which is referred to by the phrase camel toe, which is when the outlines of a woman's labia majora are visible in tightly fitting clothes.
Her pink pants can be connoted as girly since the colour is strongly associated with young girls (Bergström, 2017). The colour pink and its girly and childish associations are in contrast to the act of intentionally creating awareness around such a stigmatized occurrence as camel toes - and this could be connoted by the disposition of the picture. Since the attention of the viewer is drawn to the genitals of this person, it can be assumed that this is a statement picture aiming to normalize the camel toes. Although, as stated in the criticism towards ourselves, the colour choice might not have been intentional by the person in the picture.
The occurrence of camel toes is considered as somewhat of a "beauty-defect" which origin we do not know. Possible reasons could be the fact that the woman's body is so hyper- sexualized but only portrayed in ways considered as "stereotypical sexiness", the kind of sexiness (Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020) that we are used to seeing in traditional media, where women are to be considered as erotic objects (Mulvey, 1975; Vargas-Bianchi et al, 2020).
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And this is an example of how femininity is a myth and a cultural construction rather than a reflection of reality (Bignell, 2002: 17-26). Therefore, pictures like these might induce feelings of uncomfortableness for people, as they are considered norm-breaking and deviating (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52).
According to the previous research on the area of female representation in the media, women are defined by their sexual difference to the men (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25). Therefore, men, as well as women, feel the need to de-mystify the female sex, by accepting to become an unreasonable beautiful object (Mulvey, 1975), which is considered as an unachievable level of perfection (Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020: 79). Camel toes are not considered as a part of this perfectness, because of the associations given by society. The media has portrayed camel toes as something deeply embarrassing, for example through several articles with paparazzi photos of celebrities that are “caught with camel toes” (Hamilton, 2014; Organassos, 2019). 8.2 Category 2: Periods
Picture 3:
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(P3) Page: 291 User: rupikaur Name: Rupi Kaur
This picture denotes a woman lying alone in a bed. She is wearing a tank top and sweatpants. Her back is facing the camera and therefore one cannot tell what her facial expression looks like or know if she is awake or asleep. She is in a curled-up posture, with her top leg curled up against her stomach. There is a bloodstain on the sheets and another one between her legs on her sweatpants.
The light shining on the wall connotes that it is probably morning or daytime, and the woman in the picture is wearing the kind of clothes with the connotation that they are suitable for sleeping or relaxing. By the placement of the bloodstain on her pants it can be connoted that it is period blood, and in that context, her posture could be an expression of pain, possibly period cramps.
In Western societies menstruation is and has for a long time been stigmatized, perhaps by the myth that women are defined by their sexual differences to men, suggesting that everything that anatomically differentiates is to the woman’s disadvantage (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25). Another myth is that women are expected to hide their menstruation since it is often considered too intimate. This argument is supported by the fact that menstruation is categorized by Instagram under the same guidelines for body fluids such as faeces, snot and sperm (Instagram, 2020). It could be illustrated by the modern example of advertisement for period products where blue liquids are used instead of red, to illustrate the absorbency of the blood.
This secrecy of menstruation is an expectation that has ruled for a long time, and once that expectation is not fulfilled, it creates a sort of deviation from expected norms in society and therefore people tend to become uncomfortable (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52). There is also a myth around women to be perfect as women represented in media usually are portrayed that way, and to be perfect women should also be clean. Menstruation, due to its stigma, does not resonate with that myth. According to Instagram, menstruation is only a violation of the guidelines, if in the context of a sexual situation or as a “fetish content” (Instagram, 2020). Although, the picture does not connote either of those.
Picture 4:
(P4) Page: 155 User: besosderebeka Name: Rebeca Díaz Larrin
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In this picture a young woman can be denoted lying in a bed, wearing only a pair of white underpants. Her underpants have a large stain of menstruation blood between her legs. Two white hearts are edited to cover her nipples. She is spreading her legs. Her mouth is closed. She looks directly into the camera.
This picture could be interpreted as a clear case of digital activism aiming to normalize and de-mystify menstruation. And also broaden the narrow mainstream media-representation of women and women's bodies that are often represented. The disposition of this picture could be connoted as planned. Her posture could be connoted as un-feminine and perhaps imitating what in the light of feminism is referred to as manspreading. Her facial expression connotes determination, which could be an opposite to the tendency for women to smile more often than men (Waldman, 2013). The exhibit of her body and its natural functions is something connoted as rare since it is unusual to see it portrayed like this in traditional media. All this together connotes that she is opposing the general image and expectations of how women should look and behave.
Because of the idea that women are defined negatively by their differences to men (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25), menstruation has historically been used as a motive to maintain the hierarchical order between the sexes none the least on the labour market. Common reasons to why women have been advised against important positions in society are the uncontrollable hormonal effects of their menstruation - a myth created by the non-menstruating part of society that has benefitted from the menstruating parts non-existing competition (Bignell, 2002: 17-26).
Like always with changes within cultures or societies, it is often uncomfortable for the rest of the members, and therefore the ones advocating change to encounter resistance (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52). Not only do they encounter resistance, but some also feel the need to punish those who deviate from the expected roles as they are often perceived to disturb the status quo (Mulvey, 1975). 8.3 Category 3: Body image
Picture 5
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(P5) Page: 178 User: babe_ebba Name: Ebba Nilsson
What can be denoted is a young woman, taking a photo of herself in a mirror, sitting on the floor. She is wearing a short, white tank top which ends right below her breast, and a pair of white underpants. She has tattoos on both her arms and one on her thigh. She has short, black hair. Her arm is resting on her knee.
This is a so-called mirror-selfie and selfies tend to be connoted as a narcissistic or attention- seeking kind of self-representation (Burns, 2015: 16-17). The picture could be connoted as a statement, since she is showing most of her non-stereotypically slim body,2 wearing only a small tank top. If this is the case, it is opposing the myth of how only normatively slim women should express themselves and are represented in the media. Although, this picture could also be a case of un-voluntary activism, where women who post norm-breaking
2 In our analysis, women in the pictures are refered to as “normatively slim” or “not normatively slim” in order to generalize them in light of current norms and expectations the media often present. We find these phrases necessary and purposeful in order to analyse how the societal roles are reflected in the pictures.
31 pictures tend to be labelled as political even though they had no activistic intentions (Jackson, 2018: 35; Goldstein, 2019).
The short, black hair is deviating from the normative female hairstyle of long hair with a lighter colour, for example, represented through traditional media such as movies. Her choice of clothing, the tank top, might be provocative to some since it is showing her stomach. When non-normatively slim women wear more revealing clothes, they tend to get fat- shamed, partially because of medias representation of these types of women, but mostly because of the negative associations Western cultures has given them.
Her body language, how she sits with her hand on her knee, taking up space, might be connoted as an unfeminine and rather seen as something manly (manspreading). Large and dark tattoos, like the ones the woman in the picture are seen as unfeminine by some because of their origin amongst criminals and sailors. This could also be perceived as a female appropriation to something manly, which makes the woman somewhat of a competitor to the man and therefore risking the negative consequences of deviating from her given role (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52; de Beauvoir, 2002).
Picture 6:
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(P6) Page: 41 User: ninaflageul Name: Nina Flageul
This picture denotes a naked woman’s body which is visible from her chin down to her thighs. Her body is completely covered in white paint, and green, blue, yellow and red paint is splashed over her. She has her arms raised over her head and she is standing in a pose with one of her legs over the other. The contours of her nipples are visible. Her front leg is covering her genitalia.
This woman’s posture and the fact that she is covered with paint connotes a sculpture. Her face is not a part of the picture, and the background is completely white, this connotes that her body, which is not normatively slim, is the focal point in this picture. The picture could be playing with Instagram’s guidelines since nudity and nipples are not allowed. Instagram writes: “For a variety of reasons we don’t allow nudity on Instagram [...] It also includes some photos of female nipples” (Instagram, 2020). Instagram adds: “Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK”. Although this is not a photo of a sculpture or art, this picture was chosen to enlighten the grey zone of the guidelines. Because of the disposition and
33 character of this picture, we have difficulties understanding how it differs from pictures of nude paintings or sculptures.
Since her genitalia is not visible, and her nipples barely are, and because her face and facial expression are not a part of the picture, there are no connotations of sex in this picture, which could qualify as inappropriate. However, it opposes the common feed and representation of female bodies today. The reactions from people on social media, for example, likes, comments, and reports illustrate what type of self-representation is accepted (Dinsmore, 2014: 40). These types of pictures are accepted to a larger extent when they show normatively slim bodies. And when a woman who is not normatively slim posts a picture like this, she is deviating from her expected role behaviour resulting in negative feedback (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52), of which fat shaming is the most common in this case. Despite the intentions, activistic or not, behind this picture, it inevitably becomes a normalization and broadening of the female representation in media. 8.4 Category 4: provocative pictures
Picture 7
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(P7) Page: 63 User: international_angel Name: Quinn
This picture denotes a woman’s body from the lower chest to her thighs. She is lying on a bright pink textile and wearing a pair of light pink thongs with “pussy power” written in black capital letters on the front.
This woman has a normatively slim body, and she has no visible pubic hair, which makes her identifiable with the female representation fetched by the beauty industry. The colour pink is connoted as feminine or girly (Bergström, 2017), and the phrase “pussy power” contradicts that girliness and the stereotypical femininity or myth that women should be timid, passive objects and pleasing in contrast to men (Mulvey, 1975). The word “pussy” tends to be used as an offensive word, often as an insult or to humiliate someone, i.e., the phrase “don’t be a pussy”, where “pussy” is used instead of “coward”.
There is a stigma around women posting lightly dressed pictures of themselves, if not on a beach in a bikini or bathing suit. When posing in underwear as self-representation, women tend to be judged as slutty or attention-seeking (Bailey et al, 2015). This woman’s body is fulfilling the criteria of a normatively slim body, which is usually allowed to be represented in the media and the everyday Instagram feed, although many people perceive the phrase “pussy power” as provoking for connoting resistance to the patriarchy. The usage of the phrase “pussy power” in the context of female empowerment is also a way of changing the meaning of the word, creating new associations which are positive and powerful. Changing the associations from negative to positive is also a way for women to “take control” of their sex and change how it is perceived by the society, challenging the historic hierarchy of the genders, where the female sex is the second sex (de Beauvoir, 2002). This change might be perceived as uncomfortable and scary (Angelöw et al., 2015) non the least for the first sex who have benefitted from their superiority in society (de Beauvoir, 2002: 25-30; Bignell, 2002: 17-26). But also, for women who have an alleged underlying desire to be an object because of the familiarity and because when not competing with men, they are somewhat protected by men (de Beauvoir, 2002: 30).
Picture 8
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(P8) Page: 201 User: nude.and.rude Name: anonymous This picture denotes a young woman’s body, visible from her breasts, right below her nipples, down to her thighs. She is wearing a pair of black jeans, unzipped, but held together with her hand. Her upper body is naked, and the lower half of her breasts are showing. The background is white.
This woman has a normatively slim body, which is usually seen as acceptable self- representation (Dinsmore, 2014: 40). The fact that half her breasts are showing and that her jeans are unzipped creates connotations that she might be challenging the sexualization of the female body.
This picture is not connoted as a case of body activism, as people with normatively slim bodies do not perform body activism in the same way as people with not normatively slim bodies do. Nor is there a need to perform body activism, as the society is more approving of normative body sizes (Dinsmore, 2014: 40). Since she is showing her body in an unconventional situation, it becomes norm-breaking. She is opposing the usual reactions that
36 women receive when posting pictures like these, where they are often judged after the myth of being exposing, slutty, or attention-seeking for example (Bailey et al., 2013: 101-107).
This is contradictive since this woman’s body is identifiable with ones usually represented in the media. But since this picture got banned by Instagram, it becomes clear that it is not considered as an acceptable kind of self-representation (Dinsmore, 2014: 40). 8.5 Category 5: imperfections
Picture 9
(P9) Page: 72 User: kaylaxcombs Name: Kayla Combs
This picture is denoting a woman’s thigh. We can see that she has several small bruises on her thigh and a couple of scratch marks.
This picture shows an example of the grey zones in Instagram’s guidelines: “Maintain our supportive environment by not glorifying self-injury […] Encouraging or urging people to embrace self-injury is counter to this environment of support and we´ll remove it or disable accounts if it is reported to us” (Instagram, 2020).
When connoting this picture, it is hard to tell if this is a case of self-injury or just unintentional bruises and scratches caused by a sports activity, for example. If the latter is the
37 case, it is problematic from the perspective that girls tend to be taught from a young age to be passive, careful, calm, and not to hurt themselves in comparison to boys who are taught to be active and fearless. This could be illustrated by the types of toys and games given to children, where boys tend to receive cars and balls, which involve higher speed and risk, while girls are given dolls, playhouses and kitchen playsets, which refers to a calmer way of behaving. The same reasoning could be applied to sports, where most sports that include a higher speed and risk were created by men and for men. This internalized female passivity and male activity are reflected in the developed roles and expected behaviour of the two sexes (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52), and this is visible in for example the male and female representation in movies (Mulvey, 1975).
This picture is an example of how Instagram signalizes to women that imperfections like these are not considered as acceptable self-representation (Dinsmore, 2014: 40). This could be based on the myth that women should be perfect and flawless in the way they are usually represented in the media.
Picture 10
(P10) Page: 212 User: resin_lips Name: Hayley Mandel
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The picture denotes a woman’s body, from her stomach to her thighs. She is lying down and spreading her legs. She is wearing a pair of white underpants, and a red top that ends above her belly button. She has rashes on her inner thighs.
The connotation of the rashes on her thighs is that they are probably caused by her thighs being rubbed together, which is a common issue for women during summertime when wearing a skirt, dress, or short shorts in the heat. By the disposition of the picture, it can be connoted that she is showing off the rashes (and her body) to normalize imperfections and therefore oppose the myth or expectation that women should look perfect and attractive when being photographed, often for the male gaze (Mulvey, 1975).
Imperfections like these rashes are often stigmatized as women tend to find it shameful, embarrassing and too private to share these kinds of issues. And the fact that it got deleted reinforces the stigma around imperfections and communicates to women that is shameful, embarrassing and unacceptable (Dinsmore, 2014: 40). 8.6 Category 6: female pleasure
Picture 11
(P11) Page: 223 User: appropriatingwhiteculture Name: Bea Miller
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This is a picture denoting a young woman posing naked, and the photo is cropped right above her mouth and by her foot. She has pink hair. She is holding her hand on one of her breasts to cover her nipple. Her front leg is covering her other breast, her stomach and her genitalia.
This picture could be connoted as an allusion to sex, since she is naked, sitting on a bed, touching her breast, and gently parting her lips. The fact that her hair is dyed light pink connotes that she is not following the ideal norm of how women tend to be represented in media, which is often with natural hair colours.
The female pleasure is not only stigmatized, but also historically considered un-important, and these two factors are closely connected. Since the male sex is, and always has been considered as the first sex (de Beauvoir, 2002), a construction of sex as penetration-focused has developed. Therefore, female pleasure has both biologically, and due to patriarchal reasons been un-prioritized.
This is reflected in expectations and behaviours for both genders (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47- 52), where women are expected to perform the role of the passive one that primarily pleases the man (Mulvey, 1975). Men are viewed as sexual beings, the creators of meaning, while women are sexual objects, carrying meaning (op.cit., 1975).
The representation of female sexuality or female pleasure in the media, for example in porn or movies, are, like most of the media industry, created by and for men (Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020: 77). Women have always been part of the male gaze (Mulvey, 1975), but now that women can be their own producers (Kanai & Dobson, 2016: 1-4), they can therefore participate in the shaping of a different kind of female sexuality, perhaps through self- representation like in this picture. But since this photo got deleted, despite not violating Instagram’s guidelines, it becomes clear that there is a resistance towards women expressing themselves in this manner (Dinsmore, 2014: 40).
Picture 12
(P12) Page: 272 User: rosieruthbiddle Name: Marcie Biddle Model: Rosie Biddle
This picture denotes a woman, standing in a lake. She is naked and white stripes are edited over her nipples. Her body is visible from her stomach up, her lower body is hidden behind rocks. She has her hands in her long, wet hair. Her eyes are closed, she is smiling gently.
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The connotation is that she has just been swimming, and her face connotes pleasure, due to her gentle smile. She looks comfortable in her body, because of her posture with her arms over her head, connoting confidence.
This could be a case of body activism, and a statement towards the sexualization of the female body, because of the disposition of the picture – how the rocks are covering her genital and how she has edited her nipples is customed to not violate Instagram’s guidelines which “don’t allow nudity [...] that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully- nude buttocks” (Instagram, 2020). However, it could also just be a woman comfortable in her naked body, which tend to become norm-breaking (Jackson, 2018: 35), this is supported by the fact that this picture got deleted (Dinsmore, 2014: 40).
We find that her facial expression only connotes pleasure as enjoyment and happiness, and not in a sexual manner, despite her being naked. The female body has become so hyper- sexualized (Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020: 78), that it has resulted in the myth of the naked female body as sexual in all situations. Although the situation itself, nor the woman’s intentions, might not be sexual.
With these twelve pictures in mind, we will now continue to summarize them and draw conclusions from the analysis, and further, discuss their importance from a societal perspective.
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9. Discussion and conclusion
In light of our analysis, we can arrive at two major conclusions:
1. Instagram have unclearly communicated their guidelines. There are grey zones that make it difficult for the users to know what violates the guidelines and what does not. This also complicates it for Instagram to fairly judge reported or flagged pictures, resulting in the second conclusion:
2. Instagram has been subjective when interpreting their own guidelines and when deciding which pictures get banned and which ones do not.
Further, the analysis sheds light on how Instagram handles issues related to (1) female sexuality, (2) women stereotyping, and (3) female self-representation. 9.1 Fear of female sexuality?
Based on how non-stereotypical women historically have been disfavoured regarding representation in traditional media (Mulvey, 1975; Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020), we suspected that the women in the selected pictures had been disfavoured as well. Found this to be true. However, we also found that women who fit perfectly into the expected norm of stereotypical femininity (Bailey et al., 2013) still risk getting their pictures unrightfully removed if portraying themselves in norm-breaking or unconventional manners. This was the case in category four: provocative pictures. In the previous research presented earlier, context was proven an important factor for what type of self-representation was considered acceptable (op.cit., 2013: 105) and these pictures are challenging not only Instagram's guidelines, but also the overall sexualization of the female body in unconventional situations. Since the female body is more sexualized than the male body is (Mulvey, 1975; Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020), Instagram’s guidelines have more restrictions regarding women, for example by not allowing female nipples. Therefore, it is harder for women than for men, to express themselves in non-conventional manners, based on their anatomical differences (De Beauvoir, 2002: 25) and the victimization of medial female objectification (Mulvey, 1975; Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020). But thanks to social media, women have gained so much influence it is referred to as a shift from women being users to being producers. This major shift has proven to cause frustration for those who previously have benefitted from women being users or passive objects.
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The changing values regarding women in the late 18th century, from the previously stricter Victorian morality, caused what is referred to as a “fear of female sexuality” (Slipp, 1993: 2). We argue that there is reason to claim a similar fear of female sexuality still exists today, since women now have tools and possibilities, like social media, to help them break free from their previous contract of subjectivity. This argument could explain why women who pose half-naked on famous Instagram accounts like Playboy and Dan Bilzerian do not seem to cause uncomfortable feelings nor risk banishment to the same extent. Not only do these women fit into the stereotypical role of femininity and objectivity that are usually represented in traditional media, but nor do they challenge the hierarchy between the genders. However, a woman who posts a picture of herself for herself or as a statement is evidently seen as something in need of silencing. We saw this clearly in the analysis of basically every picture, but especially those in category six: female pleasure. The female body is sexualized to the extent where a woman cannot be naked without being labelled as sexual. This reinforces the stigmatization around the female pleasure, possibly caused by a resistance and a fear towards the liberation of the female sexuality. With this in mind, there is reason to ask the following questions: is there a fear of women taking ownership of themselves? And is that fear based on the possibility of actual equality? The type of equality that would imply that some of the “benefits” men have due to the female submission would be eliminated.
Women’s transition from being passive to active is threatening for profit-making industries such as the beauty and film industry as well. But also, the very relevant influencer business which still evidently relies upon women’s need to constantly “improve” themselves with new products, services, etc. Since the market benefits from the existing stereotypical representations, the normalization of real women who are satisfied with themselves would be of less buying potential. On the other hand, there is an economic possibility for companies to exploit this desire for realness, by using these real women in their advertisement, with the message of female empowerment and diversity. Although, this trend raises the question of whether this really is empowering or rather just another trick to drive women into consumerism. Arguably the industry still primarily strives to make money, and the mix of feministic activism and consumerism, therefore, stands on the shaky grounds of the individuals buying power rather than a greater societal cause. And therefore, the individual and her possibility to express herself becomes an insignificant piece in a much bigger puzzle.
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9.2 The importance of stereotypes
One of the reasons why the analysed pictures might be conceived as norm-breaking could be because most of what women post on social media tend to maintain stereotypes (Bailey et al. 2013). Which in turn could be explained by the desire to follow expected role behaviour to be positively validated (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52). This could explain why not normatively slim women who post pictures of themselves tend to be exposed to fat-shaming, for example in category 3: body image. Since people get accustomed to a certain type of feed on Instagram, pictures that deviate from that might cause reactions of discomfort and confusion.
The human need to categorize (Angelöw et al., 2015; Bignell, 2002: 5-8) explains the importance of stereotypes, and how they help us understand the world. Because of the different expectations of the genders, men are not as bound to their role as women are. As Simone de Beauvoir expressed it, a man would not think of himself within the label of gender, he is the natural (2002: 25). A man can also acquire multiple roles, for a man it isn’t contradictive to be the boss of a big company, a father and have sex appeal all at the same time. Women on the other hand are still easily forced into categories like mother, housewife or sexual object. This could be partly explained with the Freudian phrase Madonna-whore- complex, which is the impossibility of seeing women as pure and lovable, and sexually desired at the same time (The Latch, 2020). This could be an underlying reason why people are quick to report pictures that they perceive as inappropriate. 9.3 The stigmatized womanhood
What became clear in the analysis was that much of what womanhood and femininity imply is stigmatized. Previous research has shown that misrepresentation in the media is affecting (especially young) people’s sexual attitudes and behaviour (Collins, 2011: 294). We find this aspect as an important indicator to why this discussion needs to be held, as the analysis showed that even pictures that we as researchers found as innocent were deleted. For example, picture three in category 2: periods, showing a resting woman with small stains of period blood. This was still perceived as too much of something, possibly too private, too intimate, or too controversial, to post on social media. What this recurrent habit of deleting pictures including menstruation is worrying for the development of equality.
Furthermore, it also became clear that the scarce representation of real and natural bodies today has resulted in the fact that the female body tends to be viewed as political when shown
44 in its naturalness. This partially supports what has previously been researched about, on women and digital activism (Jackson, 2018). For example, the pictures in category 1: lower abdomen, created discomfort to the degree that people found the need to remove them from the eyes of the public. This process supports the idea of myths and how what is natural can be turned into unnatural (Bignell, 2002: 24) and which of course reinforces the very well-known negative consequences emerged through previous research on social media and its effects on women and their self-esteem and self-perception (Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020: 79; Collins, 2011: 294). Important though is to remember that women themselves are also part of this judgement and silencing, which resonates with what has previously been researched about on the area of women and social media (Bailey et al., 2013). This is most likely caused by the way women have been internalized to think of themselves as subjective, perfect-looking properties to men, since that is how women often have been represented in the media (Mulvey, 1975; Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020) 9.4 Comfortable for who?
Instagram was first created to simply provide users with a picture sharing platform where they could represent themselves and their everyday lives. Although the “visions” that Instagram claims to strive for, like “Express yourself in new ways [...]”, “build influence [...] create compelling content that's distinctly yours”, and “Share and grow your brand with our diverse, global community” (Instagram, 2020) are perhaps no longer possible to comply with considering the economic factors that got involved when Facebook purchased Instagram, and targeted marketing became an important part of the feed.
It is relevant to ask what responsibility Instagram, as a huge media platform and an institution in society has in the granting of individuals possibilities to diverge from existing stereotypes which are proven harmful (Collins, 2011: 294; Vargas-Bianchi et al., 2020: 79). In the guidelines, Instagram writes:
Instagram is a reflection of our diverse community of cultures, ages, and beliefs. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the different points of view that create a safe and open environment for everyone. We created the Community Guidelines so you can help us foster and protect this amazing community. (Instagram, 2020)
As Instagram claims, they wish to reflect diversity which is questionable since they have removed several pictures unrightfully, simply for being norm-breaking, which they have apologized for. Further, they wish to create a safe and open environment for everyone and
45 foster and protect that with the help of their users. However, one can wonder whose safety they are referring to, and what they mean by everyone, considering that there is a clear pattern of what types of pictures that are removed (Byström & Soda, 2018). When replying to this criticism, Instagram said: “We try hard to find a good balance between allowing people to express themselves creatively and having policies in place to maintain a comfortable experience for our global and culturally diverse community” (Vagianos, 2015, para. 4-5).
Again, one can wonder who the content needs to be comfortable for and why. If the platform wanted to contribute to changing harmful representation of women in media, comfort would not be the main concern, since change is rarely comfortable (Angelöw et al., 2015: 47-52). Instagram claims to be a forum where people can express themselves in new and creative ways, but we argue that they never the less contribute to the maintenance of hegemonic gender norms.
What is problematic with the stereotypical representation of women on Instagram is that what one sees is what is interpreted as the truth. Consequently, what one does not see represented in the media becomes unnatural. As we argued for in the analysis, pictures of natural or real women and their bodies are therefore viewed as activistic or political. This creates an illusion of perfectness, where what we do not see does not exist. Category 5: imperfections, is an example of how something as natural as bruises and rashes has probably been banned on the assumption by Instagram that they are caused by violence or self-harm. This is problematic because they could be caused by natural reactions to movement, and by being banned, Instagram signalizes to women that this is not acceptable self-representation. If all norm- breaking pictures are banned from platforms like Instagram, it will create a media lacking representation that women can relate to. This creates exclusion and drives society further away from female empowerment and equality.
As previously discussed in the “Critical review of our method”, it is important to take into consideration the differences between cultures. Even if a picture is posted by someone of a certain culture, the picture is still (if having a non-private account) visible for people all over the world. Therefore, people from different cultures have the power to report their dissatisfaction. Then the picture is to be judged by human moderators, stationed in Asian countries (Ganjoo, 2019) with completely different views on women and female liberty. This might result in collisions between cultures, to the disadvantage of women and their possibilities to express themselves in non-conventional manners.
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Next, it will be explained how these conclusions and this discussion can be useful for further academic research.
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10. Implications
One of the implications of this thesis is faulty communication by Instagram in their guidelines. This thesis might incite other, similar companies to more clearly communicate their guidelines, especially texts that differentiate the sexes and which might affect the development of gender equality. Also, this thesis might act as an inspiration on how to moderate social media content on female sexuality, women stereotyping, and female self- expression.
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11. Further research
To draw more absolute conclusions around this problem, a larger study containing more pictures would be necessary. It would also be relevant to compare banned pictures with similar pictures that have not been deleted. Further research could analyse pictures from large Instagram accounts like Kim Kardashian and Playboy for example, which portray women in more stereotypical manners. These pictures could be compared with pictures like the ones presented in our thesis. The focus could be to examine what role the activistic and political aspects versus economic factors play.
Another alternative for further research could be to interview people on the perceived difference when comparing medias traditional representation of women in advertisement versus women in self-representation. By doing so, the importance of roles and women's expected behaviour on social media could be measured. As stated in Bailey et al’s study, participants claimed to view the investigated object, a fake Facebook account of a young woman posting pictures in line with the stereotypical expectations of femininity, as too slutty, too exposing, too public, etc. (Bailey et al., 2013: 101-107). It would, for the sake of equality, be relevant to see if the same result emerged in a similar study, but with an element of comparison between advertisement and private pictures.
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Appendices Instagram’s guidelines
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
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Appendix 3
Appendix 4
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Appendix 5
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Appendix 6
Appendix 7
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Appendix 8
Appendix 9
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Consent to use the pictures
Appendix 10 (P1) User: arvidabystrom
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Appendix 11 (P2) User: habitual_body_monotoring
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Appendix 12 (P5) User: babe_ebba
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Appendix 13 (P6) User: ninaflageul
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Appendix 14 (P8) User: nude.and.rude
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Appendix 15 (P11) User: appropriatingwhiteculture
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