Social media and the schoolgirl: performance, power and resistance
A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities.
2019
Jessica Faye Heal Manchester Institute of Education School of Environment, Education and Development Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures ...... 4
Abstract ...... 5
Acknowledgements ...... 7 About the author ...... 8
1. Introduction ...... 9 Background ...... 12 School Site Reflections ...... 18 Thesis Overview ...... 19
2. Literature review ...... 25 Introduction ...... 25 Defining Social Media ...... 26 Popularity and Peer groups ...... 45 Constructing power, knowledge, and resistance ...... 57 Gender and education ...... 74
3. Methodology ...... 93 Introduction ...... 93 Research design ...... 94 Epistemological approach ...... 108 Research Methods ...... 118 Sensitivity, ethics, access ...... 134 Chapter Summary ...... 141
4. Introducing the contexts of doing schoolgirl: social media, school and gender expectations...... 142 Situating social media ...... 143 School, Social Media and Social Learning ...... 156 Valued Femininity ...... 165 Chapter Summary ...... 184
5. The role of peer hierarchies, social media and male peers in maintaining schoolgirl femininity...... 186 Introduction ...... 186 Peer Hierarchies and Popularity ...... 187
2 Practising Peer Popularity Online ...... 208 Validating the Performance ...... 215 The role of male peers ...... 222 Chapter Summary ...... 229
6. Regulation of, and resistance to, schoolgirl femininities ...... 231 Regulating schoolgirl femininity ...... 232 Enforcing patriarchal control ...... 240 Shaming schoolgirls ...... 248 Pressure to perform ...... 258 Possibilities of resistance ...... 261 Chapter summary ...... 278
7. Conclusion ...... 280 Addressing the research questions ...... 281 Contributions to knowledge ...... 293 Implications ...... 301 Concluding reflections ...... 304
Biblography ...... 306 Appendix 1 Information sheet and consent form to students and parents . 352 Appendix 2 Letter to Head teachers ...... 356 Appendix 3 Interview Schedule ...... 357 Appendix 4 Additional interview questions ...... 359 Appendix 5 Detailed sample information ...... 360 Appendix 6 Sample stratified by self-reported peer popularity ...... 362 Appendix 7 Ethics approval confirmation ...... 363 Appendix 8 Draw-and-Tell Peer Hierarchy Diagrams ...... 364 Appendix 9 Coding framework ...... 365 Appendix 10 Example reflection piece ...... 366 Appendix 11 Extract from coding journal ...... 368 Appendix 12 Memo example ...... 369 Appendix 13 Number of Followers on Instagram by peer group ...... 370 Appendix 14 Numbers of participants by interview type ...... 370
3 List of Tables and Figures Table 1 Sample overview ...... 106
Figure 1 A diagram of the peer hierarchy across the sample schools ...... 107 Figure 2 A diagram depicting the peer hierarchy language...... 189 Figure 3 Interviewees self-reported social status by psuedonym and year group ...... 190 Figure 4 Drawing by Jennifer from Milner’s Academy ...... 364 Figure 5 Drawing by Jodie from Estuary Academy ...... 364
Word Count: 86,782
4 Abstract Jessica Faye Heal University of Manchester 2019 Social media and the schoolgirl: performance, power and resistance
This thesis explores the online performance and discursive construction of schoolgirl femininity. It is based upon interviews with girls between the ages of 12 and 15 in three maintained secondary schools in the UK, using smartphones and drawing to support the conversations.
Drawing on Foucault and Butler’s theorisations of power, performativity and resistance, the thesis finds that peer popularity is a vector for maintaining patriarchal norms by patrolling the most appropriate forms of digital and schoolgirl femininity. Methodologically, this thesis highlights the value of considering peer popularity within gender and education studies, as a mechanism to trace the flow of power, from societal to micro level interactions both in school and online.
The most ‘powerful’ form of femininity is characterised as hyper; an investment in outward appearance and sexualized behaviours validated by social media metrics. This hegemonic femininity actively patrols and enforces hetero-normative behaviour and the school is revealed as a modern-day panopticon in which smartphones act as surveillance, ready to capture and share any failures that are distributed through various online and offline tools to shame. The intersection of the online and offline in schools creates heightened pressure to balance authentic yet perfect forms of femininity that can be experienced as impossible to maintain, a fairy-tale authenticity. Within this contradictory discourse, however, lies the possibility of resistance for some girls. Those outside the most popular group counteract the prevailing discourses with tools to release them from the pressure of performance; and demarcate less patrolled digital spaces where alternative subjectivities can be practised. These resistances are underpinned by a conscious compliance, a sense that the current peer power systems and values will be short-lived, and therefore are more tolerable.
The thesis provides an in-depth understanding of how social media magnifies the role of school as a site of traditional gender role production through the culture of peer ranking and hierarchy. It shows how the power that the most popular girls seek to wield is a paradox: the performance required to gain status situates them in subordinate hegemonic position.
Given the salient nature of the subject matter, numerous contributions to both academia and policy are made, revealing the lived experiences of young women both in school and online. Social media is found to shape the way relationships and gender formation interact online and in school, demonstrating the need for further work to be done in readdressing gender inequity in education and society.
5 Declaration
I declare that no portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.
Copyright
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6 Acknowledgements It is with the greatest appreciation that I acknowledge the many people who supported this project and without whom; there would not be this thesis.
Firstly to the students; the articulate and passionate young women I interviewed. Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with me, it was an absolutely privilege to hear about your life and the world around you and I wish you all the best in your futures.
Thank you to my supervisors, Dave Hall and Ruth McGinity, I am so grateful for the insight, support, guidance and feedback across the last 6 years. I feel very lucky to have had such continual interrogation and critique of my work and it has made me a better researcher. I’m also thankful to Erica Burman, who co-supervised a long-distance PhD student with two remote supervisors in the last few years, I’ve appreciated your guidance and the opportunities you’ve given me.
To the schools, without whom I could not have spoken to any young women. A big thank you to Shelly, Sarah and Katie for taking time during their busy teaching schedules to support my research, wrangle consent forms and find me classrooms. I am forever indebted to you all!
To Louis my husband, who has supported and pushed me these last 10 years, and without whom I wouldn’t have been afforded the space to finish my PhD, let alone in the Californian sunshine. Thank you for helping me to make sense of my thoughts; debating discourse, inch marks, em dashes and hegemony with me, and for reading more of this thesis than I ever thought you would!
I’d like to thank my family, particularly my mum, for proofing and pushing me all these years (yes, I need a lot of pushing). I am also grateful to my previous employers, Teach First and the Behavioural Insights Team, who sponsored
7 my doctorate and allowed me to develop as a researcher. Also thanks to Matt Lloyd-Rose and Michael Sanders who created the flexibility for me to work full-time and study part-time.
I’d lastly like to thank all those friends, colleagues, tutors and peers who offered support and guidance across the last 6 years. Whether at a conference, a reading group or in a coffee shop, their support and guidance was critical, helped shape my thinking and question my assumptions.
About the author Jessica is a part-time doctoral student at the University of Manchester. Alongside her studies she has worked full time in education and applied research, firstly as a secondary school language teacher and more recently in the research teams of Teach First and the Behavioural Insights Team. In her next role, she hopes to use research to shape a new type of social media for young people. She currently resides in San Francisco, California.
8 1. Introduction
This research explores the construction of schoolgirl femininity in the digital environment – how gender is performed and constructed within the contexts of social media and school. Based upon 54 interviews with schoolgirls aged 13-15 across three mixed-sex secondary schools in South East England, it illuminates the perceptions and pressures of being a schoolgirl and navigating peer popularity, relationships and femininity. It explores how social media affects these everyday experiences, magnifying the potency of normalised gender discourse, but also the contradictory nature of these norms.
Throughout education, gender is organised along binary lines: schools, lessons, uniform and toilets are often segregated for either girls or boys. Gender organisation in schools stretches beyond these architectural constructions to inform how young people’s identities and relationships are formed and maintained. Within these gendered subjectivities lie inequitable experiences between boys and girls, which are the concerns of this thesis. On the surface, the term ‘schoolgirl’ denotes a female sex student during their primary or secondary level education. However, the term is imbued with deeper symbolism and is concurrently associated with innocence, education and sexuality. The Instagram hashtag #schoolgirl reflects this complexity: small girls on their first day of school with oversized backpacks and smiling faces of friendship groups on graduation day are interspersed with girls in tight and revealing uniform, holding their bodies in sexually desirable poses. The schoolgirl is therefore a set of contradictions: being educated; being innocent; being sexual. This research explores how girls experience and construct their schoolgirl femininity, how this is informed by peer relations and peer hierarchies both online and offline. It explores the influence of the relatively recent innovation of the Internet and social media upon femininity and masculinity, to map how power between boys and girls flows, and the truths and status quo that power conveys.
9 The research illuminates how schoolgirl femininity is performed and the influences upon its construction. It aims to understand how teenage girls navigate their gender in relation to their social status, peer popularity and relationships in school and online. Through the lens of performativity and relational power, it deconstructs how girls ‘do schoolgirl’, through four questions:
1. What are the contextual factors in which schoolgirl femininity is situated, and how do they inform the gender performance? 2. What are the prevailing discourses of schoolgirl femininity, and how are they constructed and performed both online and offline? 3. What is the role of peer hierarchies and social media in maintaining and reproducing schoolgirl femininity? 4. How are these notions of schoolgirl femininity enforced and challenged?
Through these research questions, I interrogate how power, success and agency are defined, and position some as primary recipients of these tools, whilst demoting others to secondary or deviant subjectivities. The thesis expands upon Michael Foucault and Judith Butler’s theories of power, gender and resistance to explore how and why this positioning takes place, and the consequences of this positioning in the everyday lives of schoolgirls.
To understand how I came to these questions and theoretical stance, the next sections of the introduction outline the study rationale, background to the thesis, reflections on the research topics, and provide a summative overview of the thesis.
Study rationale This study brings together two important, yet distinct, areas of research and combines them to provide a richer understanding of young people’s school experiences. Within the fields of education, gender and social media, this
10 study builds on the work of Jessica Ringrose, Laura Harvey, Sonia Livingstone and Rosalind Gill, whose study for the NSPCC, alongside prior and subsequent academic outputs, explored the manifestation of gender and sexuality online and in school (Livingstone, 2008; Gill, 2009; NSPCC, 2012; Ringrose, 2012; Ringrose et al, 2013; Ringrose and Harvey, 2015). Their study explored how the offline school environment interacted with young people’s digital lives, and influenced future studies into the gender inequality within the education and digital space (Kanai, 2015; Renold et al, 2017; MacIsaac et al, 2018). This thesis strengthens extant research by weaving peer popularity into the exploration of these experiences, offering a significantly extended and sharper understanding of the mechanics of the power dynamics at work.
Peer popularity is an area of research that has been lightly explored by education researchers over recent years, with works by Barbara Read, Becky Francis and Christine Skelton (2010; 2011; 2012) still considered incredibly influential. However, these works pre-date the explosion of social media in teenage cultures (Instagram and Snapchat, circa 2013). More recent research has considered peer dynamics within age groups outside the age of social media use (Paechter and Clark, 2016), or focussed on the offline, within school, context (Dytham, 2018). This thesis directly tackles this gap in the research; digital manifestations of peer popularity.
The addition of peer popularity, as an expression of peer power and influence, is valuable when considering the broader policy context. In the early teenage years, peers begin to wield greater influence than adults (Pomerantz et al, 2017), and therefore understanding the dynamics of peer influence on social media can reveal the pressures young people face (Vanden Abeele, 2014). This has significant implications for policy, both in education and beyond. Recent years have seen multiple government initiatives and papers produced in order to better protect young people online (Department for Health and Social Care and Department for Education 2017; Children’s Commissioner,
11 2018; Department for Education, 2019). This research is therefore viewed as timely. Through enhancing our understanding of young women’s experiences and bringing their voices to the fore, offers the potential for more nuanced and tailored policies and regulation.
Background
This PhD topic, developed over several years and was inspired by my master’s thesis, written in 2011, which explored how peer popularity manifested in a low socioeconomic community in Sheffield to reproduce, as well as challenge gender and class norms. The research took place in the school where I was then working as a language teacher. I was fascinated by how particular forms of femininity, hyper-feminine with extreme levels of make-up and beauty regimes, were also synonymous with often-aggressive behaviour and disengagement in class and with the school in general. I wanted to study this femininity, how it was enacted by the most popular girls and considered by younger girls as aspirational. This drew on class and gender to understand how popularity reproduced a white-working class femininity that acted to both resist and contribute to educational disengagement and hyper-femininity.
The influence of the masters’ thesis
The master’s thesis explored how peer popularity manifested as a hyper and aggressive form of femininity that patrolled the school hallways. Within this context, however, there were opportunities to resist and enact subtle subjectivities that attempted to straddle both appropriate feminine and academic behaviours.
This thesis led to my doctoral studies as I felt it was an area that warranted continued study. I was also lucky enough to have a supportive employer to support this endeavour, therefore, I embarked upon a part-time PhD to
12 explore how femininity, peer relations and popularity were understood and practiced by girls in schools serving lower-income communities. As the thesis developed, it was clear that themes around gender and social media, in relation to peer popularity, were quite apparent in the data. Although the original intention was to incorporate class analysis into this thesis, the theme was somewhat superseded by the rise of social media which were identified during the pilot study. Within the parameters of the study I therefore did not have enough resource to support this avenue of inquiry in the depth required for a doctoral study.
The emergence of social media During my master’s data analysis in 2009, social media was identified through my analysis as a small theme; the majority of students had some form of an early smartphone, typically a Blackberry; and predominantly communicated with each other on messaging platforms like Blackberry Messenger [BBM], or WhatsApp. The influence of the online photo was limited to a profile picture, as students spoke of the most popular girls holding a bottle of ‘Alco pop’ or beer in their photo as a way of signalling their social status. Blackberry Messenger was the concerning application of the day, as it contained a feature for ‘untraceable’ messaging; which provided a platform for peers to anonymously bully, abuse and troll each other (Katz, 2012).
A few years later when l conducted a pilot study in 2013, the proliferation and evolution of social media had grown to become an indelibly strong theme in my research: the girls I spoke to described the way social media applications at the time, Facebook; Snapchat; Instagram and WhatsApp, intertwined with daily interactions and lives. The research, therefore, took a much greater focus on social media when it became apparent that young people’s offline lived experience are inseparable from their online engagement; the two spheres are symbiotic. The pilot study found the school’s site to be a particularly unique environment where these two spheres overlapped; a large number of young people interacting daily both online and offline with each
13 other. This idea was confirmed at conferences by other academics, who found it to be a unique environment to study the co-occurrence of the online and offline worlds.
Studying social media is challenging as it is continually changing at a relentless pace. In the short time between my pilot study and primary data generation period, Facebook had waned in popularity and was barely referenced; ‘that’s for old people’ one of my interviewees remarked. Even since the interviews, other applications such as TikTok, a video-shorts sharing application has become pervasive whilst Snapchat is decreasing in popularity. MySpace and Bebo are relics of a past digital sociality. Through this thesis, therefore, I focus on the action of the application, photo sharing, and publicising the self, not the application itself. Focusing on the behaviour and the context, rather than the application: for example, the private or public nature of the space, where the content is posted; the permanency of the content and the display of audience engagement and opinion with the content. This approach aims to improve the applicability of the findings, to consider the construct of the application in regards to privacy, permanence and metrics, rather than the application itself.
Gender reflections There is a tension when exploring notions of gender, as this thesis does, that you serve to reinforce the very structures you aim to expose. The very use of the term ‘girl’ is imbued with a range of intersecting and competing influences, which means we must consider ‘how to talk about girls’ lives when doing so also creates the very exclusions we are attempting to redress’ (Aapola, Gonick and Harris, 2005:3).The categories of ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ used in this thesis should, therefore, be considered in the broadest possible terms, encompassing that girls’ subjective positioning is also informed by their class, sexuality and ethnicity. The term ‘girl’ should be read as one that holds a multiplicity of meanings for both the girls and those around them. The intersectional nature of each girl’s lived experience is fluid, and through the
14 consideration of ‘girl’ as a non-binary construct, it is hoped this thesis can challenge the binary discourses related to idealised gender performance.
Epistemological Reflections Given that this thesis discusses and analyses multiple subjective terms, it is important to outline from the outset the positioning of these constructs within this research. This short section will therefore outline how this research considers key terms from hereon in.
Sex: The biological category which denotes the physical differences attributed to male and females. Gender: The culturally and sociologically attributed characteristics, behaviours and expectations associated with the states of inhabiting male and female biological sex categories: masculinity and femininity. Femininity: The qualities, behaviours and attributes associated with the feminine gender category, often crafted in opposition to the masculine gender category. Schoolgirl femininity: The gender characteristics and behaviours that are associated with a female student currently attending compulsory education, Hyper-femininity: An excessive form of femininity, associated with emphasising the characteristics deemed feminine of the sexed body. This is often associated with emphasising external feminine traits such as make-up, long nails; hair extensions; tanning products; contact lenses; clothing that reveals the female parts of the body; such as hips, stomach and breasts. Hyper-femininity is largely considered hetero-normative, with the purpose of attracting male attention. Doing schoolgirl: The act of performing schoolgirl femininity; referencing Judith Butler’s ‘Doing gender’, it reflects the performative and socially constructed nature of the schoolgirl’s subjectivity. Popularity: A term that defines students’ social status. Those who wield greater influence and power over others are considered more popular within
15 school. This is an informal social influence, where those with social status can approve or reject other students’ behaviour and actions. Peer hierarchies: A term to define the different cliques and social groupings within school, and the social status they have compared to each other. Those social groupings with the most status would be at the top of the peer hierarchy, and are considered most popular, whilst the inverse is true of the groups with the least social status and popularity.
Researcher Reflections I have been driven by a desire to bring about positive change; from my years as a teenager mobilising my peers to boycott Esso and attend Stop the War marches to my undergraduate studies intent on uncovering previously unheard voices such as ‘monstrous’ children from the mid-century modern period and transvestites in Medieval France. In more recent years, it motivated me to become a schoolteacher in a deprived community and most recently to undertake applied research for the government. I spend a lot of my time thinking about inequality and ways to build evidence to help alleviate our current social issues. My drive to conduct this study is driven by the inequality I see in the world around me.
During my time as form tutor of Year 7s that grew into Year 9s, I regularly bore witness to particular forms of femininity being branded as powerful that ultimately served to reinforce gender inequity. I often questioned the displays of hyper-femininity I saw developing in my 12 and 13 year old girls in order to understand what their behaviours meant and why they were valued. I clearly remember one day, chatting to one of my tutees about her make-up, suggesting that she did not need to wear so much. She explained that her older sister wore a lot of make-up and she had a boyfriend and therefore this type of make-up was needed in order to gain a boyfriend. I responded by asking her if she liked her sister’s boyfriend. She responded, no. From the next day, she wore distinctly less make-up. I do not know whether it was to please me, or because she realised she did not want that type of boyfriend.
16 Either way, I felt that it was a small victory and it was these types of conversations on an almost daily basis that piqued my curiosity and motivated me to interrogate these femininities, and how they interacted with peer hierarchies.
This incident was not the first exposure to inequitable gender experiences. When I was in secondary school my mother, then Head of Communications for a large law firm, dealt with the first ‘viral’ email thread of a sexual nature, sent between two consenting young adults that spread around the world after being forwarded from the employers email system. I heard her discussing the paparazzi that lay in wait outside the woman’s house and even her parents’ house but heard a lot less about the social shame that was inflicted upon the male, who was framed as ‘macho’ and a ‘lad’ in the press.1
When writing Chapter 6 of this thesis on double standards, I was reminded of the inequitable hostile media coverage at the time and the parallels between the girls experience over 17 years later. I was in Year 9 at the time, beginning to understand that the world appeared different for men and women, beyond just biological differences. The girls I interviewed, between 13-15 themselves, were also becoming more aware of the differences in experience, and how their gender shaped their experiences of the world around them. Their burgeoning cognisance was parallel to my own teenage experience, although situated in a different era. My adolescence fell within the post-feminist era at the turn of the millennium, where even close friends during my undergraduate studies questioned the need for feminism in the western world. However, the last few years have seen a resurgence of mainstream feminism, characterised by digital activism, #MeToo #Everydaysexism and the Women’s March. Despite these high profile campaigns, gender inequity had not reached many
1 A Google search in 2019 found articles about the incident on the Washington Post, BBC, Computing Weekly, Taipei Times as well as lesser-known sites such as San Francisco Gate.
17 of the girls’ consciousness until they were describing the differing consequences for sending male and female sexually revealing photos. This example felt relatively simple to explain and observe, as the girls had either first or second-hand experience of this. However, awareness raising is only the first, and arguably easiest step on the path to challenging inequality. As a researcher, it was valuable to remember my own feminist awakening, and the awkwardness I often felt when challenging the status quo. Compared to campaigning for the Kyoto Protocol, or against a political decision to go to war, fighting for equality for half the population appears for many to be a questionable and unnecessary agenda. It is important to remember that this is still the prevailing message coming from many traditional and new media sources as well as local communities.
In the past six months, I have been lucky enough to speak about the findings from my research to policymakers, technology leaders, acquaintances and peers. I have heard excuses made for the behaviours reported in this thesis; ‘I’m glad I don’t have girls’; ‘it was like that for us as teenagers’ or ‘they’ll grow out of it’, which I find reflects a lack of motivation to engage with the issues, and an acceptance and normalisation of the inequalities. It is hoped that this research can contribute to tackling these reductionist notions, shining a light on how the prevailing norms serve to hold one gender to higher account for their actions than another.
School Site Reflections
The study took place in three schools in South East England and was designed to generate rich data about school hierarchies and cultures. Conducting the research in this manner allowed me to understand the social practices, behaviours and localised influences within the schools, particularly between the social groupings. Having worked and conducted research in multiple schools during my employment heightened my awareness of the cultural differences that can exist in apparently similar contexts. I had
18 originally conceived the study to be based upon one school site, but then evolved to conduct the study in three, after the emergence of social media drove me to explore how similar or different these experiences were in different contexts. The move away from one school serving a predominantly white working class community, akin to my master’s thesis, to multiple sites in more diverse communities additionally contributed to the de-prioritisation of class analysis, increasing the focus on social media, peer popularity and gender. More information about the schools and the sample is provided in the methodology section. This introduction now provides an overview of the thesis structure and chapter summary.
Thesis Overview
Chapter 1: Introduction In this introductory chapter, I discuss the aims and background of the study and my reflections as a researcher upon my topic of study, particularly to social media, gender and my own experiences. I then provide an overview of the thesis structure. This chapter concludes with a summary of the research questions.
Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Framework This chapter situates the thesis themes in prior research and social theory, social media; peer popularity; gender; education and the school. It initially explores the development of social media and the characteristics and behaviours of teenagers’ online activity. It then moves on to discuss peer popularity, the traits needed to enact popularity and the literature that explores the different peer groups within schools. The thesis then builds upon popularity as a construct of relational power and knowledge to explore notions of power, knowledge, discourse and truth, and ways in which Foucault and feminist theorist Judith Butler theorised these as regulated and resisted. The chapter then moves on to discuss the academic literature and philosophy relating to the construction of gender, both more broadly and within education, drawing on feminist theorists and researchers. It identifies how this thesis
19 considers gender as constructed, moving through essentialist to performative notions of gender to outline research relating to the hegemonic framework and neoliberal complications upon the feminist perspective of gender. It highlights how the body is the primary site for gender production, where power and knowledge are enacted. The section then finishes by outlining how these notions of gender can and are being resisted. The final section turns to the role of the school as a site for reproducing these inequalities both structurally and informally.
Chapter 3: Methodology This chapter outlines the methodological approach taken to uncover descriptive and perceptive understandings of how social media is used by young women in schools to navigate their gender, social status and relationships. It argues that this qualitative methodology best allowed for the in-depth exploration of the research questions. It then moves on to outline the epistemological underpinnings of the study, the sampling strategy and methods. It discusses how interviews, draw-and-tell activities, and using smartphones as a prompt all contributed to uncovering rich data and how a pilot study helped refine both the methods and research focus. It finally discusses the ethical issues relating to such sensitive topics, and how the ethical issues informed all aspects of design and research.
Chapter 4: The aspects that influence pupil culture and experience: Social media, school and gender expectations The themes and results of the study are discussed through three chapters of analysis. They build upon each other to create a nuanced understanding of the experiences and pressures upon young women to perform particular femininities. It argues that peer popularity enacted on social media is a vector to validate, reinforce and regulate idealised hetero-normative gender ideals.
The first chapter provides an overview, situating the later findings by exploring the contextual aspects which inform girls’ lived experience: how they use
20 social media, their experience of social media within their school and the most valued forms of schoolgirl femininity. It demonstrates that social media structures enable particular behaviours and affect how young people interact. It argues that social media, within the school and between peers, creates a complex relational web that alters how interactions temporally and geographically take place. This environment has facilitated a hyper form of femininity to flourish, where excessive adoption of beauty regimes and an hourglass figure are celebrated and validated through influencers and celebrities. It demonstrates the performative nature of gender, drawing on Judith Butler and Michel Foucault to argue that traditional essentialist forms of gender are being purported through local discursive practices.
Chapter 5: The construction of femininity through peer hierarchies, online engagement and male approval The second analysis chapter moves on to explore how this hyper-feminine ideal is validated and arbitrated through peer hierarchies and their online behaviour. It then spends time deconstructing the role of other influences in this process: celebrities, influencers and male peers all contribute to the validation of hyper-femininity. Drawing on Foucault, it argues that the relational nature of power can be mapped through the peer hierarchies, demonstrating how those who hold social status enact and validate particular discursive practices. This offline social status is magnified through social media, with online metrics viscerally documenting the worth of hyper- feminised photographed body. The role of authenticity and feedback are both crucial to crafting this performance, firstly to ensure the body stays within the realms of reality and secondly to ensure it continues to alter its performance depending upon the feedback it is given by peers, particularly the most popular male peers.
21
Chapter 6: The regulation, enforcement and resistance to approved schoolgirl femininity The last analysis chapter builds upon the first two. It explores how the hyper- feminine schoolgirl performance is not just controlled through a celebration of ‘correct’ discursive investment, but punished for failure. This last chapter argues that the school environment, filled with smartphone-wielding students, is at the epicentre of the surveillance of self and the surveillance of others. It draws on Michel Foucault’s work on discipline and punishment in order to interpret the methods of observation and judgment at work in schools and on social media to create a student body that consciously complies with the idealised discursive practice purported by the most popular. It then moves on to unpick how patriarchal structures reinforce this process, and how double standards are emphasised through social media, providing emojis and sexually revealing photos as examples. It then demonstrates how these double standards manifest in the punishment and shaming of girls who fail to navigate the impossible standards placed upon their performance. It then argues that the pressure of the interaction between the online and offline environment serves to patrol the bodies of young women but at the same time highlights the contradictions in the truths they are told. The last section of this chapter outlines how these discursive contradictions create opportunities to challenge and resist, providing examples and techniques which some girls used to demarcate safer spaces online from which they could practice alternative subjectivities. It concludes by positing that the micro-resistances form a baseline, a blueprint of a method from which to critique and challenge normalised inequality.
Chapter 7: Conclusion In the concluding chapter, this thesis returns to the research questions, addressing each in turn. It then moves on to articulate the main contributions to knowledge that span across all analysis chapters and the implications of
22 the research. It outlines in detail how the knowledge uncovered relating to social media in schools, gender and power can be used to inform both avenues for future research and policymaking.
Contributions to knowledge The key contributions to knowledge this thesis makes are organised by methodological, conceptual and empirical developments. It highlights the benefit of stratifying samples by popularity, in order to better explore gender and education experiences. A second methodological contribution is to reveal the benefit of light-touch visual research methods, and their role to enhance the semi-structured interview, particularly when it pertains to more sensitive topics.
Conceptually, this thesis forwards the use of Foucauldian theories by using peer popularity as a tool to understand how prevailing discourses are transmitted into school communities. It secondly builds evidence of hegemonic femininity acting in schools, through the most popular girls, to maintain patriarchal norms and power structures. Lastly social media is used to extend our understanding of gender performativity – which is a valuable tool for exploring schoolgirl femininity and the different values ascribed to these performances by school peers, and wider society.
Empirically, this thesis develops our understanding of how social media informs school experiences, and the additional pressure it adds to the performance of schoolgirl femininity. It reveals how the architecture of social media purports a notion of fairy-tale authenticity, which reinforces the impossibility of attaining successful schoolgirl femininity. Through providing examples of evolved double standards and gender inequity, it reveals how offline inequalities are mapped and magnified online. Equally, in magnifying inequalities it more greatly exposes the contradictory expectations of schoolgirl femininity, and the resistances that are formulated in the spaces between these discourses. In its last main contribution to knowledge, the thesis extends our understanding of resistant subjectivities to show how
23 nascent resistance can develop in hostile environments. It provides a blueprint for resistance, illuminating how girls’ create safe spaces in which to practice alternative subjectivities, and how these subjectivities, working together, reformulate the notion of successful schoolgirl femininity.
24 2. Literature review
Introduction
This research explores how girls experience and construct doing schoolgirl femininity, and how this is influenced by peer relations and peer hierarchies. It is concerned with how gender, femininity, and social media intersect to inform these experiences. The literature review will situate these concepts, firstly, by describing the research around social media – paying particular attention to teenage usage, gender, and the conditions which social media enables. It will then move on to discuss the literature around peer relations and popularity, particularly concerning how young people perceive, construct and enact the notion of ‘popularity’ and peer groups within school.
The next sections will articulate the theoretical grounding for this research. It firstly draws on Foucault to describe the maintenance of normative gender discourses through young people’s peer hierarchies. It then discusses the mechanisms for ensuring compliance to these dominant discursive practices and the complexities of resisting such power. It will then draw together multiple themes to discuss gender and education, particularly the construction of gender, the performance of gender, and the influence of neoliberalism. There is an exploration of the concept of hegemonic masculinity and femininity– one that actively maintains desirable gender behaviour through regulation. Finally, the review turns to more recent research on young girls’ experiences of resisting perceived normative behaviour through acts of feminism.
After discussing social media, peer popularity, and the theoretical structure which writes the rules for these experiences, the literature finishes by turning to the institution where these norms are formed and maintained: the school. This section describes how the school itself acts as both a vessel for
25 experiencing and enacting subjectivities, but also the influence it wields over them.
Defining Social Media
The birth of social media reformulated how humans engaged with the Internet and with each other. Social Media catalysed the evolution of the internet from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, a term used to describe how the internet changed from a place to observe content to one where users would create content and critique the content of others (O’Reilly, 2009). Social Media grew from, and is defined around, the concept of user-generated content:
‘Social Media is a group of internet-based applications built on an ideological and technological foundation of Web 2.0 that allow for the creation and exchange of User Generated Content’ (Kaplan, 2010: 16).
User-Generated Content is a broad term, encompassing ‘blogs and web forums, social bookmarking sites, photos, and video sharing communities as well as social networking platforms…community-driven question/answer portals’ (Agichtein et al., 2008: 183). Participating in Social Media takes place via Social Networking Sites (SNS)2. Boyd and Ellison’s definition of SNS focuses on the availability of the information shared and the audience.
‘(1) Web-based services that allow individuals to construct a semi-public profile within a bounded system, 2) articulate a list of other users with whom
2 In 2018, Pew reported the SNS most commonly used were YouTube, Facebook, Instagram Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp for US adults. Interestingly, Facebook and Instagram have copied the popular disappearing photo feature of Snapchat. This review recognises that it may not be long before these sites are considered outmoded relics, such as MySpace, Bebo, and Friendster are all considered today. http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/
26 they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system’ (Boyd and Ellison, 2007: 211)
These sites are not static, but wax and wane in popularity. SNS typically comprise personal images, descriptions, and demographic information alongside the display of connections held with others also on the platform (Robards and Bennett, 2011)3. Social media data has been described as ‘lively data’, to highlight the constant generation of this digital data (Savage, 2013). Lupton takes this definition further, suggesting these data are about the lived experience of humans, their bodies, behaviours, social relationships, moods, and emotions (2016). The data ‘play a significant role in influencing people’s behaviours, sense of self, relationships, and increasingly, their life chances and opportunities’ (Lupton, 2016:5).
Beyond the individual, these data contribute to profitmaking for businesses; they work as tools of surveillance by governments and companies (as demonstrated in the Edward Snowden whistleblowing case revealed by van Dijck, 2014) or they may facilitate uprisings and political unrest (Rane and Salem, 2012; Boulianne, 2015).
The design and construction of communication systems, which allow individuals to connect via mediums other than face-to-face interactions has been evolving for thousands of years. Smoke signals, telegrams, and mobile phones are tools of communication that bring public and private spheres closer together but attracted criticism. For example, the telephone received censure for intruding into a person’s home when it was first released (Marvin,
3 We see the large platforms, particularly Facebook, diversify its offering in order to stay competitive (as well as owning Instagram and WhatsApp) – it now has Marketplace, fundraising, and video streaming functionality. This trend of appropriation may continue as it aims to strive to stay relevant. See here for a list of products offered https://www.facebook.com/help/1561485474074139
27 1990). Social Media, in many ways, is no different and is blamed for irrevocably for changing personal relationships by allowing the capability of near-constant communication (Silverman, 2016).
Social Media serves to close the gap between public and private spheres by being designed to encourage ‘genuine’ content creation – an underlying motivation to connect both in life and online (Balick, 2014). Social media has created a platform to encourage users to input their “real” name, provide accurate demographic information, and share real updates about their life. The user and the content they create are the focus – where previously avatars and anonymity were standard (Kietzmann et al., 2011; Kane et al., 2014). This focus on authenticity represents a move away from the mid-90s focus on avatars and the ‘social laboratory for identity’ (Turkle, 1995) towards the merger of our online and offline worlds to present an authentic self (Zhao, Grasmuck, and Martin, 2008; Balick, 2014). As Sheryl Sandburg said in The Economist in 2011, authenticity is to be celebrated and rewarded:
‘Expressing our authentic identity will become even more pervasive…Profiles will no longer be outlines, but detailed self-portraits… it empowers individuals to amplify and broadcast their voices. The truer that voice, the louder it will sound, and the farther it will reach’ (quoted in Balick, 2014: 76).
In 2013, Pew Research reported that 92% of young people stated they input real information in the SNS they used most often (Madden, 2013). The researchers cited declared that Facebook is designed to encourage authentic information – it asks the user to input a first and last name, and that ‘fake’ accounts are illegal according to their Terms of Service (Madden, 2013: 3). However, 26% of teenagers stated they used fake names and locations on other sites to protect their privacy (Madden, 2013). It is not just individuals creating fake accounts; various data scientists estimate that 5-15% of all Twitter accounts are fake, as well as bots – automatic accounts that react and respond to words used in other accounts and which have been identified as
28 integral to SNS as tools of surveillance, state-craft and control (Ferrara et al., 2016; Varol et al., 2017).
Despite numerous fake accounts, the majority of users on social media input mostly accurate information, and it is a foundational characteristic of the SNS sites (Henderson and Bowley, 2010; Kietzmann et al., 2011). This new form of user-generated sharing has created a new sociality, a new way to relate to others and the self (Palfrey et al., 2010; Palfrey and Gasser, 2011a; Buckingham and Willett, 2013). Research suggests this phenomenon has been particularly valuable for marginalised communities, especially those geographically isolated, who can now traverse geographical distances to connect with others who share a similar identity. Recent examples include connecting LGBTQ communities in areas that face stigma and exclusion, such as Hong Kong (Chong et al., 2015); allowing these groups to bond, and find information that may be otherwise difficult to access (Hillier, Mitchell and Ybarra, 2012; Craig and McInroy, 2014; Fox and Ralston, 2016; Wright, 2019). Evidence suggests that LGBTQ adolescents feel safer to reveal sexual orientation online, especially in trusted support groups (Hillier, Mitchell and Ybarra, 2012). Social media also facilitates those with particular convictions to connect and mobilise, such as the Charleston activist network (O’Byrne and Hale, 2018). However, social media is not uniformly positive, with LGBTQ youth also facing increasing trolling and victimisation online (McConnell et al., 2017). Similarly, rural to urban Chinese migrants face increased victimisation online (Zhong, Xu, and Piquero, 2017).
Teenage Social Media Users
The young people involved in this study, all born after the millennium, are categorised by Marc Prensky as ‘Digital Natives’ as they are born after the birth of Web 2.0. For ‘Digital Natives’, their identity, relationships, and ways of being are inherently tied in with digital media use. Digital media is ‘second nature’ (Selwyn, 2009; Palfrey et al., 2010; Palfrey and Gasser, 2011) and
29 ‘provides the basis for their positioning in the social world’ (Couldry and Hepp, 2018: 152). However, young people’s online participation pre-dates their engagement in social media in that the lives of many have been documented online from birth by parents, friends or relatives, and they have grown-up in homes which are documented digitally with their experiences shared with more extensive networks (Couldry and Hepp, 2018).
Young people between ages 12-154, generally have high digital usage. Ofcom found that 99% of young people go online regularly (Ofcom, 2017), a statistic that has remained static in recent years. Studies by PISA found that 94.8% of 15-year-olds in the UK use social media before and after school, while 37% of British teenagers were found to be ‘extreme’ social media users, connecting for over six hours a day (PISA, 2017). The ONS similarly found that 56.5% of 10-15-year-olds spent up to three hours a day online, with an additional 9.2% spending over three5. Ofcom found that social media usage increased with age – where 39% of 8-11-year-olds had smartphones in their 2016 survey; this increased to 83% for 12-15-year-olds (2017).
Girls aged 12-15 were also found by PISA to use social media before school slightly more frequently than their male peers (81%/75%), who generally reported higher usage of online gaming sites. Those from lower socio- economic groups were also more likely to use social media before school compared to more affluent peers (80%/75%; PISA, 2017). The overall amount of time a young person spends online does not seem to differ by affluence; however, the activities online they engage in do vary. A report by the OCED found affluent young people tend to search for information or read the news, while less affluent young people chat or play video games (Pena-Lopez,
4 As defined by the Office of National Statistics 3 hours or more online a day 5 Office of National Statistics Children’s Wellbeing Measures, March 2016. Data from Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Survey
30 2016). In a study of photo-sharing, the UK Safer Internet Centre found ‘the majority of 8-17 year olds surveyed had shared a photo online (84%), rising from 73% of 8-12 year olds to 95% of 13-17 year olds, with 1 in 6 (17%) saying they had done this in the last hour’ (UK Safer Internet Centre, 2017: 5). Though these statistics vary, they paint a picture of continued and frequent digital usage. The boundaries between these offline and online interactions are often blurred, as smartphones allow for online interactions to be interwoven with offline experiences, often occurring in the same geographical and temporal place, but in different spaces (Dyer, 2017).
How young people access other media has also evolved. Network devices are more frequently used to access television, and tablets are a common way of going online, alongside smartphones (Ofcom, 2017). Livingstone believes that this evolution has enabled internet users to become more private, as the concept of a ‘family computer has become dated and the internet is more readily available on multiple devices: young people go online away from their parents (Livingstone et al., 2017). Other researchers argue this independence afforded by private Internet access has been a driver for the rise in social media, as young people can craft their identities away from supervising adults (Reid and Boyer, 2013; Senft, 2013; Craig and McInroy, 2014; Eleuteri, Saladino and Verrastro, 2017). These are spaces, ‘unregulated publics,’ where young people can ‘hang out’ and engage in public participation without adult observation (Boyd, 2008).
Teenage Mental Wellbeing and Social Media There has been a general rise in the incidence of mental health conditions in young people in the last ten years (NHS Digital, 2016). A growing number of studies show that mood disorders in young people are increasing, particularly amongst girls and young women (Collishaw, 2015). Such is the interest that a recent government green paper was explicitly developed to tackle youth
31 mental health problems.6 It cited social media as a potentially harmful influence on mental health. Recent research from the Millennium Cohort Study suggests that social media may be more harmful to the mental health of girls compared to boys (Patalay and Fitzsimons, 2016; The Children’s Commissioner, 2018).
There has been a growing body of research exploring the relationship between wellbeing, mental health, and social media usage in adolescents. Self-esteem was one of the earlier dimensions to be explored, with research suggesting that the online validation a teenager receives correlates with increased or decreased self-esteem (Valkenburg, Peter, and Schouten, 2006). A study of 400 participants suggested that more time spent on social media correlated with decreased self-esteem and increased distress (Campbell and O’Dea, 2011). Vogel further suggested those spending more time on Facebook suffered lower self-esteem through ‘upwards comparison’– feeling that their lives compared poorly to others on the social networking site (Vogel et al., 2014). In a study with 1,829 Australian students aged 14-17, Blomfield Neira and Barber investigated the relationship between adolescent social media use, self-concept, self-esteem, and depressed mood. Higher use of social media correlated with lower self-esteem and increase depressed mood (2014).
Several studies have highlighted a correlation between sleep, social media, and depression, with a positive correlation found between depressive symptoms and the time spent on social networks (Pantic, 2014). A study by Woods and Scott found that higher levels of investment in social media correlated with more imperfect sleep patterns and increased levels of anxiety
6 DfE and DoH (2017) Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision: a Green Paper https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6648 55/Transforming_children_and_young_people’s_mental_health_provision.pdf [accessed 27.08.19]
32 and depression (Woods and Scott, 2016). Depression has also linked to abuse; Wang et al. found correlations between depression, cyberbullying, and victimisation (Wang, Nansel and Iannotti, 2011).
The studies above show that typical or innocuous digital behaviour can modify experiences and health offline. The role of social media in young people’s lives concerning their wellbeing is central throughout this thesis. Understanding the impact of social media usage can help researchers map the implications of the online with the offline experience.
Characteristics of Teenage Social Media Usage
The available research demonstrates the sustained and frequent nature in which young people engage in social media and interact on social networking sites. The next section discusses the defining characteristics of social media usage and how it shapes but is influenced by the usage of others.
Always online as offline Social media became mobile with the birth of smartphones, enabling users to interact anywhere their phone has coverage. Online conversations evolved from static, desktop computer-based to portable handheld devices that accompany young people wherever they go. Being connected, or available to connect 24/7, is a reality for many young people and adults alike (Turkle, 2011; Hall and Baym, 2012; Elwell, 2014). This constant connectivity is seen by many to characterise the lives of digital natives (Hepp, 2014; Palfrey and Gasser, 2008; Dyer 2017). This mobility of social media enables further, more profound, and more sustained communications (Fu et al., 2013) but may also be exhausting (Turkle, 2011; Chong et al., 2015). The capability to consistently communicate creates an expectation that the user will keep these channels of communication open (Couldry, 2012). Research suggests this ‘always on’ communication may lead to less meaningful or less productive interactions as the differences between online and offline communication is
33 too great to overcome (Mihailidis, 2014). During face to face interactions, a person can understand social or bodily cues unavailable in online conversations and can also witness reactions to their dialogue (Turkle, 2011; Cunningham, 2013).
This endless potential to communicate has led people to seek opportunities to reduce their availability to others. Remaining open to communication means ‘permanently orientating oneself to the world beyond one’s private space’ (Couldry and Hepp, 2018: 113). Researchers have highlighted reactions against this incessant nature of digital media – ‘going off-grid’ or ‘a digital detox’ being a direct reaction to their experience on social media (Turkle, 2011, 2015; Syvertsen, 2017). There is also a spectrum of digital disengagement, where people go through ‘practices of demarcation’ to switch off their connectivity, either on holiday or at certain times of the day or week (Hepp and Krotz, 2014; Burchell, 2015).
Given that social media is ubiquitous with the everyday lives of young people, research suggests young people see a minimal distinction between offline and online interactions (Livingstone and Helsper, 2007, 2010; Eklund, 2015). As the interactions offline may overlap with online interactions both temporally and geographically, young people may perceive limited differences between these interactions (Dyer, 2017). However, academics note that perception does not match the behaviour and can be at the heart of many issues that arise online (Barnes, 2006; Palfrey et al., 2010). For example, a comment or event occurring offline, if undocumented, can disappear or fade into memory. However, content shared online contributes to one’s digital footprint, even when social media features claim to be non-permanent (Charteris, Gregory, and Masters, 2015). In a study of Snapchat, Poltash found ‘the self- destruction of photos can make users feel immune to their repercussions’ (2013:20). Social Media increases the ‘shelf life’ of these memories, as they can follow a young person around for a significant length of time (O’Keeffe, 2013; Reyns et al., 2013). As Palfrey describes, for young people, ‘life is
34 recorded, whether through their active disclosure or otherwise’ (2010:15). However, despite significant differences between online and offline longevity and consequences, it is still essential to situate this study within the perceptions of the young people participating in the research.
This online/offline distinction played a significant role in digital research during the 1990s, as the Internet provided a separate space for avatars, and those wanting to experiment with different identities anonymously (Turkle, 1995). However, this separation is now increasingly seen as a false dichotomy and a counterproductive conceptualisation in digital research (Eynon, 2017). Instead, social media and offline interactions are viewed ‘not as discrete entities but as constituents of layered social and technological networks embodied by young people and adults alike’ (Jensen, 2011: 46).
Presentation of the self A crucial component of engaging on social media is the self that the individual presents. Goffman’s work on self-presentation, the seminal study on impression management, explores the interaction of performance and life. Goffman uses the metaphor of the world as a stage, with front and backstage personas, and an audience. A person performs roles on stage that shift depending on the context and the other actors, or depending on the audience (Goffman, 1959, 1969). That person can shift how they behave and what they wear. Although these personas may be contradictory, the aim is ultimately to fit into the social world:
‘When an individual plays a part, he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them. They are asked to believe that the character they see actually possesses the attributes he appears to possess, that the tasks that he performs will have the consequences that are implicitly claimed for it, and that, in general, matters are what they appear to be.’ (Goffman, 1959: 28)
35 Goffman’s work about face-to-face impression management, is still relevant today, despite being written over fifty years ago. Today it relates to theorising how individuals portray themselves to others online. This performance still exists, through the lens of authenticity – presenting an authentic self that is curated (Schwartz and Halegoua, 2015; Robinson, 2018). There is a focus on sharing the ‘best’ ‘authentic’ qualities and experiences (Livingstone, 2008), to manage the impression portrayed (Chua and Chang, 2016).
This process of editing and selecting the images, words, and media takes time. Photos can be edited and manipulated with Photoshop, filters added, and multiple shots were taken until the right one is secured (Perloff, 2014; Kapidzic and Herring, 2015). Editing varies depending on the context, and the aspect of self the user wants to convey and their motivation for doing so (Balick, 2013). Several drivers influence how young people craft their digital persona in two essentials ways:
1) Gazing at others – the other actors on stage The first driver is the comparison to other actors. Social media regularly exposes young people to a wealth of celebrities, influencers, and peers. Media is increasingly participatory (Marwick, 2015b). Social media has, in recent years, enabled vast quantities of data to be shared, distributed, and engaged with (Marwick, 2015), particularly about the private ‘hidden’ life of a person. The concept of celebrity has diversified over the past 15 years; the rise of reality TV rendered the mundane everyday life a consumable (Kavka, 2012). Acting similarly, curating and sharing photos of private life, has also facilitated the emergence of micro-celebrities. These persons without a public persona who present themselves in the same style like a celebrity, to generate and increase status and followers, and a financial income (Senft, 2013; Marwick, 2015b). Research suggests that by drawing on similar techniques to celebrities or branding, some young people can become ‘influencers,’ who have their micro-followings (Khamis, Ang, and Welling, 2016). Research shows the success of ‘Zoella,’ a famous Vlogger (posting
36 videos on YouTube) who in 2019 is worth over, £2.5 million7 for her content, advertisement and produce ranges demonstrates; this is a ‘commodification through intimacy’ (Berryman and Kavka, 2017).
The exposure to the crafted images of others, particularly celebrities and micro-celebrities, can encourage comparison and alter behaviour (Manago et al., 2015). Exposure drives emulation, as young people compare and seek to match their experiences with those of others (Perloff, 2014). These are the standards built by peers, and by broader society, that build the identities of young people (Mabe, Forney and Keel, 2014; Manago et al., 2015). Some try to resist these dominant ideologies (Dobson, 2013), and create spaces for the expression of less mainstream personas, disrupting the norms of femininity (Kanai and Dobson, 2016) and sexuality (Seidman and Miller, 2013; Fink and Miller, 2014). However, research suggests these spaces are contradictory and complex as forming an online identity, ‘encapsulates the idea that human bodies are viewed as complex and dynamic configurations of flesh, others’ bodies, discourses, practices, ideas and material objects’ (Lupton, 2016:6).
Although digital natives can afford the opportunity to resist normative expectations, for many, the influence of other actors is overpowering as identity performs related to others in a ‘knotted analytical practice’ (Haraway, 2018). Through emulation, the majority of young people present and reinforce the particular standards set (Berriman and Thomson, 2015), and reproduce culturally dominant ideologies of gender and race (Kapidzic and Herring, 2015). However, these comparisons are generally upward and can be detrimental to an already fragile sense of self (Turkle, 2011; Perloff, 2014). The photo-centric forms of social media currently enable and encourage outward appearance to be a central signifier of self (Berriman and Thomson, 2015). Photos focus on ways of looking – the body, the face, and make-up
7 https://www.spearswms.com/zoe-sugg-net-worth/ [accessed 28.09.19]
37 (Manago, 2015; Fardouly, 2015). For some researchers, the concept of the ‘selfie’ – a photo taken of the self by the self – exemplifies that the absorption with the outward appearance can be damaging (Mingoia et al., 2017; Fardouly, Willburger, and Vartanian, 2018).
2) The influence of the gaze of others – the audience The other influence on the digital persona is the onlooker, the audience, the imagined consumer of content that the young person creates (Marwick and Boyd, 2014). In many ways, the audience is a collaborative producer of content as they influence the user-generated content they observe (Berriman and Thomson, 2015). Audiences actively participate in the content – ‘liking,’ commenting, or sharing – garnering engagement from others (Balick, 2014; Ramsey and Horan, 2018; Wright, 2019). This sharing of content can, therefore, be ‘invitations to interact with others online’ (Kapidzic and Herring, 2015).
This desire for feedback and external reassurance can decrease the autonomy of the young person (Gardner and Davis, 2013), as they aim to match the preferences and expectations of the audience (Chua and Chang, 2016). Producing social media content for the audience has been termed ‘hyper-other directedness’ and is underwritten by the validation of others. In this way, the audience acts as a source of potential energy, as a young person posts content tailored to what they think the audience will like, comment, or share (Turkle, 2011; Perloff, 2014).
The audience does not have to be tangible. The public nature of social media means that users internalise an audience – whether they are actual or not (Rice and Atkin, 2009; Perloff, 2014). Furthermore, these imagined audiences are fluid: ‘in mediated spaces, there are no structures to limit the audience, search collapses all virtual walls’ (Boyd, 2008: 132). A crucial element of this audience is that it can be a viewer in the future as much as the viewer in the present real-time. Mediated spaces collapse the temporal nature of an audience: ‘young people face uncertainty about ‘where’ and ‘when’ they act,
38 and so whether they, or someone or something else, is ultimately in control, as they perform ordinary acts’ (Couldry and Hepp, 2018: 154). These digital productions by young people are also ‘searchable, leaving a permanent trail of digital traces, which is also easily replicable, and so may start chains of signification across multiple contexts and actions beyond the control of the initial actor’ (2018: 153).
Perceived protection by the screen
Despite online communication described as being as less meaningful, the screen between two users interacting can enable topics conversations or actions to take place where previously the participants may have felt reluctant (Kietzmann et al., 2011; Turkle, 2011). Through depersonalisation, statements, and actions that may have previously whispered through gossip or written on walls in toilets are conveyed more freely (Pomerantz, Raby and Harris, 2017).
The opportunity to behave differently from offline is known as ‘online disinhibition’ (Suler, 2016). Suler theorises several drivers lie beneath this concept. The first idea is anonymity (partial or full), in which people can hide behind specific characteristics or traits not tied to their whole self. The situation separates actions online with an offline sense of consequences. Turkle argues that the screen insulates the communicator from witnessing how the recipient receives their comments and helps them assuage any guilt, as they cannot see any harmful consequences (2011). The disassociation from the consequences of potentially harmful or negative behaviours online, helps the user compartmentalise their behaviour to the online context (George, 2006; Belk, 2013; Emanuel and Stanton Fraser, 2014). This phenomenon may help explain why drama, ‘a pervasive culture of what might be better termed endless banter and taunting…everyday slights, insults and innuendos’ (Miller, 2016: 130), is used much more commonly by teenagers to describe the abuse they have witnessed, received, or given online. For young
39 people, it has lower stakes compared to what they conceptualise as cyberbullying (Marwick and Boyd, 2014). Miller argues that the confusion between these terms is due to a lack of precision and consistency in defining harm (2016:130), not just in research but also in policy.
The screen also enables the user to have ‘short-cuts’ – breaks and time in which to be able to think and compose a response (Turkle, 2011). Also, communicating online can provide an outlet for pent-up emotions (Davis, 2012), enabling ‘indirect’ frustrations to be shared – not with the person who caused the frustration, but anonymously with a wider audience (Miller, 2016).
The crowd can also add additional protection, where users feel protected to abuse others in the company of many (Berne, Frisén, and Kling, 2014; Suler, 2016). The presence of observers during the abuse of others can exacerbate a situation through exposure to a wider audience (Berriman and Thomson, 2015). The love of the spectacle drives this encounter and, participatory audiences whose behaviour is a bid for attention in itself: ‘social media is so perfectly designed to manipulate our desire for approval’ (Ronson, 2015:60)
Protection from the screen may also affect how young people conceptualise risk. Livingstone and colleagues found that the older the teenager became, the more their desire for metric-driven approval overshadowed their judgement about the risk of sharing that information (2008; 2012). Others found that young people were particularly susceptible to sharing highly personal information while engaging in social media, mainly when they were testing and experimenting with identity and self-development (Gyberg and Lunde, 2015). As Rich and Miah argue, communications online render information public that previously might be considered private (2014).
Some of the reasons attributed to risky behaviour online are young people’s susceptibility to peer pressure, limited life experience, limited control to self- regulate, and an inability to see the long term repercussions of Internet use
40 (O’Keeffe and Clarke-Pearson, 2011). However, other scholars have critiqued the tendency for the mass media and some scholars to fuel ‘moral panics’ regarding youth online (Boyd and Ellison, 2007; Kapidzic and Herring, 2015; Dobson, 2015).
Gender and Social Media
There is a growing body of research exploring the gendered nature of how young people use and experience social media. This work generally focuses on photo production and distribution.
Research suggests that a young person’s profile picture, and other photographic content, can be gendered. For example, Kapidzic and Herring found that, compared to their male peers, girls are more likely to choose profile pictures that are ‘seductive’ (2015). In research into social media comments, the objectification of women occurred twice as often that of men, and the recipient of gendered hate speech five times more (Döring and Mohseni, 2019).
The attractiveness of the photographic content may also be of higher value for girls than boys (Mascheroni, Vincent and Jimenez, 2015; Chua and Chang, 2016). Although attractive photos generate more friends or follow requests for both sexes (Wang et al., 2010), girls attract more requests than males with similarly attractive photos (Seidman and Miller, 2013). These stereotypically gendered displays, such as body position, bodily focus, sparse clothing, are also found to mirror mainstream media portrayals of women, particularly in the advertising industry (Döring, Reif and Poeschl, 2016).
Sexting Participation Another particularly gendered component of social media is sexting. Sexting is the sharing of sexual, naked, or semi-naked photos or videos, or sexually
41 explicit messages via mobile phones (NSPCC, 2012). Although several studies explore this subject, there is still a lack of research around the motivations and experiences of sexting (NSPCC, 2012; Cooper et al., 2016; Kosenko, Luurs, and Binder, 2017; Krieger, 2017). The data on exactly how many people engage in sexting in inconsistent, with evidence ranging from 2.5-27% in teenagers (Dake et al., 2012; Temple et al., 2012; Ricketts et al., 2015) and 30-81% in adults (Kosenko, 2017). This inaccuracy is potentially due to nonprobability and convenience survey sampling and a lack of standardised measures for assessing sexting (Kosenko, 2017; Cooper 2016). As Ringrose and colleagues explain, ‘it is difficult to know if ‘sexting’ is under‐ reported because of social desirability factors (for example, embarrassment on the part of respondents) or over‐reported because of response biases (those who do it may be more likely to respond to surveys)’ (Ringrose et al., 2013: 12).
Similarly, statistical research into gender differences in sexting prevalence is mixed. Some researchers find that both genders engage equally (Lenhart, 2009; Dake et al., 2012). Others find the boys are more likely to “sext” (Jonsson et al., 2014), while research also exists, suggesting girls are more engaged in sexting (Martinez-Prather, 2014).
Sexting experience Despite a dearth in reliable statistical data, other research has explored sexting and the gender imbalance that exists in the experience. Although research is unclear as to the prevalence of sexting, there is a developing body of evidence that attests that girls and boys experience sexting in very different ways.
One survey of 498 adolescents found that girls faced more pressure to sext than male peers, and felt social pressure from friends and romantic partners more acutely (Walrave, Heirman, and Hallam, 2014). Several researchers found that some girls felt they needed to produce sexual images in order to
42 maintain a good relationship with their partner (Drouin and Tobin, 2014; Lippman and Campbell, 2014; Renfrow and Rollo, 2014). Although in some cases, girls do consent to taking and sending self-produced sexual images, Hasinoff found that coercion does play a role in motivating young women to share photos of themselves (2013). A study of 617 young people found coercion to be twice as common among girls compared to boys (Englander, 2012). Further evidence found that girls were much more affected by being asked to sext, and survey results showed that they reported being significantly more likely to be ‘bothered a great deal by it’ than boys (Temple, 2012: 4).
A growing amount of research also demonstrates that the consequences of sexting are very different for girls than boys. Females engaged in sexting are more likely to be viewed negatively than males, using criteria of putting themselves at harm, being irresponsible or having an apparent desire for male attention (Lenhart, 2009; Ringrose and Renold, 2012; Hasinoff, 2013; Ringrose et al., 2013; Karaian, 2014). The consequences of sexting are also harsher; the gendered norms of our society shape them (Simpson, 2013). Some research suggests that there is a higher frequency of distribution of photos of females than photos of males with Powell’s research suggesting that sexual images of women and girls are disproportionately created, sent, and redistributed without consent (2010). Girls are often ‘blamed’ if an image of them is widely shared as opposed to blaming those who shared the image (Ringrose, 2013; Hasinoff, 2013). It reflects more broadly the sexual double standards that are as present in wider society, as in teenage peer circles (Kreager, 2016; Harvey and Ringrose, 2013; Ringrose, Harvey, Gill, Livingstone, 2013). There are different obligations for girls and boys concerning their sexting and sexuality ‘it reflects a sexual double standard which, culturally and legally, has resulted in girls’ sexual activities being disbelieved or judged and punished more harshly’ (Karaian 2014, 286). Dobson and Ringrose found that girls felt discourses of double standards were normalised by the media, as opposed to being a consequence of the discourses themselves (2016).
43 Dick Pics ‘Dick Pic’ is the colloquial term for a photograph of a penis distributed via email, text, or social media. To date, there has been limited scholarly attention to this pervasive cultural practice (Hayes and Dragiewicz, 2018). Dick pics generally fall under sexting research, when considered as part of a consensual exchange, but recently there is a growing body of research which explores unsolicited distributed of photos predominantly by women, labelled by some researchers as ‘digital flashing’ (Powell and Henry, 2016). This deployment of sexually revealing images is shown to be an example of unequal power dynamics between men and women, with different treatment of nude photos (Salter, 2015, 2016; Vitis and Gilmour, 2017). The research argues that opinions on nude photography reinforce normative gender prescriptions, in which the male is aggressive and sexually predatory, and the female is a passive recipient (Ringrose and Lawrence, 2018). Other recent scholars have analysed non-consensual dick pic distribution through the lens of male entitlement, eroticism, and exhibitionism. They argue that dick pic distribution contradicts recent movements to counter sexual harassment and abuse, such as the #MeToo movement, and find that senders of dick pic images do not understand that their image is unwanted or undesired (Hayes and Dragiewicz, 2018). Dick pic distribution is currently an under-examined element of image-based sexual abuse, which warrants further research.
Research demonstrates how young women receive inequitable treatment, compared to young men, around sexually revealing photos. Salter found male senders of dick pics were ignored generally, while young women were held responsible for their failure to protect their data if a nude photo of their body was revealed (2015). Reactions reflect a broader societal imbalance in that men are ‘invisible when their behaviour is socially undesirable and might raise questions about the appropriateness of male privilege’ (Johnson, 2005: 155). These everyday occurrences on social media reproduce traditional gendered norms, behaviours, and roles. However, the meaning attributed dick pics can be ambiguous, dependent upon the consent, mode of distribution, and
44 intimacy of the recipient with the sender, and therefore requires study within the specific context (Paasonen, Light, and Jarrett, 2019).
This section highlighted the differences in how girls and boys experience social media and how young people use social media more broadly. Given that this form of media is primarily concerned with presenting the self and interacting with others, offline social standing within peer groups and more extensive networks also affect online behaviours and attitudes. The influence of peer grouping and peer popularity upon social media usage is a primary concern within this thesis, and therefore, the review will now discuss the conceptualisation of peer hierarchies and peer popularity in the literature.
Popularity and Peer groups
Defining popularity
Defining popularity based on a set of core characteristics is difficult as it is heavily context-dependent (Francis, Skelton, and Read, 2012). How to attribute popularity in young people has evolved. This chapter will outline how research has moved away from the standard definition of popularity to consider the term from the perspective of the young person and their everyday experiences.
The etymological roots of popularity lie in the Latin term popularis, ‘accepted by the people’. This term suggests a commonly held admiration of, or for, something or someone. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary defines popular as ‘liked or admired by many people or by a particular person or group’8. This interpretation is also how popularity is considered in common parlance today,
8 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/popularity [accessed 07.04.18]
45 with terms like ‘popular culture’9 or ‘the most popular baby names of 2018’10, referring to those who are the most well-liked by the highest consensus of people (Coie, Dodge and Coppotelli, 1982; Cillessen and Rose, 2005).
Popularity, first discussed in the research, refers to the acceptance and rejection of peers. In a field of study termed ‘peer relationships,’ it explored relationships with teachers, home life, appearance and personality, and the impact of peer approval (Borch, Hyde and Cillessen, 2011). Research about popularity relating to young people emerged in the 1940s in the field of psychology as the term ‘socio-metric popularity’ (Bonney, 1947). The term reflects these Latin roots of the term as it means ‘most commonly well-liked’ (Parkhurst and Hopmeyer, 1998). Studies into socio-metric popularity were common through the 50s, 60s and 70s and have continued, although less frequently, to the present day (Rose, Frankel and Kerr, 1956; Hartup and Glazer, 1967; Hartup and Moore, 1990; McElhaney, Antonishak and Allen, 2008; Wegge et al., 2016). To be socio-metrically popular is to be liked by many peers (Caravita, Blasio, and Salmivalli, 2010). Characteristics associated with socio-metric popularity are supportive and co-operative behaviour, high educational attainment, and physical attractiveness. They are generally considered to be peaceful and do not seek confrontation (Coie, Dodge, and Coppotelli, 1982; George, 2006; Currie, Kelly, and Pomerantz, 2007).
Peer perceived popularity
The next section will explore how ‘perceived popularity’ differs from the traditional notion being liked by many (Parkhurst and Hopmeyer, 1998). Despite the Latin root of the term ‘popularis’ meaning ‘common’ or ‘being well-
9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_culture [accessed 07.04.18] 10 https://www.babycenter.com/top-baby-names-2018.htm [accessed 07.04.18]
46 liked,’ the term ‘popular’ is interpreted differently by young people (Currie et al., 2007; George, 2007). For teenagers, it is ‘more connected with social power than widespread warm regard’ (Duncan, 2004: 143-44).
In the 1980s, the understanding of adolescent popularity shifted as researchers found their conceptualisation of popularity did not match that of young people in school (Lease, Kennedy, and Axelrod, 2002). Adler and Adler found popularity to be consensually authoritarian: when students voted for ‘popular’ students, they did not choose the most pro-social peers, instead, they choose those who had social influence and dominance within the class (1988; 1996). ’Popular,’ in the context of children and adolescents, has been increasingly considered to be those who hold social power and influence, and do not necessarily need to be well-liked (Mayeux, Sandstrom, and Cillessen, 2008; Duncan and Owens, 2011). To be considered as perceived-peer popular is to have a role that is visible, notorious, and influential (de Bruyn and Cillessen, 2006; Graham, 2007; Mayeux, Houser, and Dyches, 2011; Dytham, 2018). Indeed, some researchers have found that it is ‘easier for adolescents who are unpopular for some reason to become liked by their peers than those who are considered popular’( Kosir and Pecjak, 2005: 140).
As young people generally consider those most popular to be those who wield the enormous influence, perceived popularity is inherently tied up with power. This understanding relates to Max Weber’s theory of group processes, with status predicated on social hierarchy (Weber, 1968, 2013; Borch, Hyde and Cillessen, 2011). It renders popularity to be a commodity – one to be contested, fought over, won, and lost (Currie, 2006). The status can be conceptualised as a value, not as a relationship (Bellmore, 2011).
Popularity, as a commodity, can be seen as a continuum as different students possess comparatively more or less social status than others. Outside the group labelled ‘popular,’ there is a range of student groupings that possess less popularity than the highest status peers.
47 The less popular
‘Normals’ In general, research suggests that those not in the popular groups conformed to, and were influenced by, standards and trends ‘seemingly ubiquitous among more dominant groups’ (Paechter and Clark, 2016: 458).
The motivation for following these trends may not be aspirational, like ‘wannabees,’ but a mechanism to navigate peer relationships and fit in with more popular peers (Pronk and Zimmer-Gembeck, 2010). It is within this dynamic performance that ‘normal’ girls must choose between being girls deemed ‘OK or normal’ by their peers rather than ‘weird or different’ (Currie et al., 2006: 422). Many girls interviewed by Pomerantz and Raby worried that engaging too much in academic studies would label them an ‘outsider’ or ‘loner,’ which they felt was ‘the worst-case scenario for being too smart’ (2017: 62). In this way, some girls ‘strategically embraced popular femininity’, purported by the most popular, in order to avoid being labelled and targeted, and to appear more attractive to boys’ (2017: 66-7).
‘Outsiders’ As well as those who invest in popular femininity to fit in, there is a group of peers for whom this is not a priority and others who actively chose not to participate (Pomertanz and Raby, 2017). In previous research they have been labelled by peers as nerds, freaks, swots, geeks, outsiders (Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz, 2007; Francis, 2009; Allan, 2010; Archer, Hollingworth and Mendick, 2010; Law, Swann and Swann, 2011; Jackson, 2014; Milner, 2015; Francis et al., 2017). The group is at the margins of youth culture, looked down upon by some peers, and celebrated by others (Pomerantz and Raby, 2017).
As the group who represent the inverse of the popular, their peers often describe them as engaging in activities that are not socially approved (Allan, 2010; Raby and Pomerantz, 2013; Pomerantz, Raby, and Harris, 2017).
48 Drawing on Arendt, Francis argues that these unpopular students are seen as pariahs and serve to regulate more ‘normal’ peers through observing the consequences of not complying to behaviours stipulated by the most popular (Francis, 2009). This disengagement threatens the most popular as their power relies on the underpinning assumption that everyone else aspires to be part of their group (Paechter and Clark, 2016).
Girls in this contrary situation describe themselves in terms that can be described as a ‘form of oppositional counter-discourse’ to the rules established by the most popular (Paetcher and Clark, 2016: 12). Members also display a ‘hyper-reflexivity’ concerning their position within the school (Reay, 2015: 368). Being able to act in a way that is not allied to that of the popular groups may be attributed to such a low social standing. Researchers found that the pariah status led to those least popular excluded and ultimately ignored (Svahn and Evaldsson, 2011). It shows that maintaining popularity, or a level of social standing within the school is an active process, where young people are continually behaving or appearing in ways that are approved by the broader peer group.
Peer status and social media While those less popular may use different applications to express themselves, they also receive less attention around their photos or social media content. Group muting theory offers a lens to help understand their experience. The concept developed by Edwin and Shirley Ardener (1975; 2005) explores the how male and female vocalisation of subjects were perceived differently, as a consequence of unequal power relations between dominant and subordinate groups (Ardener, 1975; Ardener, 2005). The voices of the girls less popular are not silenced but somewhat marginalised or ignored by those in power or seeking power. The less popular are limited in their ability to be heard in a way that they choose (Mitra, 2001; Orbe, 2005). Kramarae also builds on this to suggest how marginalized groups perceive their own reality is influenced by the dominant group (2005).
49
It is not without precedence that peer popularity and muted group theory become considered together. Edwin Ardener spoke to his wife about his own experience in secondary school, about the containment of his self-expression compared to his more sportive peers (Ardener, 2005). However, it is essential to ground this concept of control and power: despite these teenager tastemakers enacting power/knowledge within their micro force relations, it is always ‘through normative forms of gendered visual self-representation’ (Ringrose, 2011: 102).
Similarly, peers of higher status, or aiming to accrue higher status, may be more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviours online, such as sexting. Peer status has also been found to correlate with sexting, Vanden Abeele found that more popular teenagers were more likely to report engaging in sexting (2014). Ringrose also found that some boys ‘collect’ explicit images, and in some cases, trade them as a form a social currency (Ringrose et al., 2013). Livingstone found that as children develop into teenagers, their sense of risk versus reward is altered, making them more likely to make more risky decisions for the sake of improving their standing amongst their peers (2013). Although there is currently limited research to date upon this topic, this research intends to contribute to a better understanding of the intersection of peer hierarchies and social media in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of how best to support young people.
Enacting popularity
‘Popularity’ itself is a nebulous concept, underwritten by societal notions of class, race, and gender (Francis, Skelton and Read, 2012; Warrington and Younger, 2014). Foucault talks about local, micro relations of powers that are ‘immanent in the sphere in which they operate’ (Foucault, 1980: 92). Those in different schools, or of different ages, may have different signifiers of popularity, with meanings attributed at a local level and within locally normed
50 economic and gendered knowledge. However, from across the literature, several overarching characteristics and traits were identified that were required by young people to enact popularity:
Being Authentic Authenticity is the concept of being ‘real’ and ‘genuine’– whether that is how you behave, dress, or act (Read and Francis, 2010). Authenticity is tied closely to the notion of being popular – and this peer validation acts as a tool to reinforce young people’s social standing (Francis, Skelton and Read, 2010, 2012). Girls cited as ‘popular’ by peers are ‘those who project a coherent, authentic, self that is perceived as effortless’ (Lamb et al., 2016: 14). Authenticity is also valuable within the celebrity culture, Lamb and colleagues finding that teenage girls valued celebrities who were ‘comfortable in their own skin’ (2016)– this idealising a form of empowerment that the media supports (Gill, 2007). Additionally, research outlines the pressure girls’ feel to present an authentic self to achieve social status among their peers (Read, Francis, and Skelton, 2010).
The importance of ‘authenticity’ as a trait of being popular is seen easily in situations where it is absent. Authenticity separates those who are perceived popular from those who try to emulate them (Paechter and Clark, 2016). Peers who try to enact popularity, but do not wield social standing, are heavily admonished by their peers as they do not hold enough power to protect themselves from admonishment (Paechter and Clark, 2016). Without having the necessary social dominance for protection, this position as a ‘wannabe’ is precarious and isolating. It leads others to scapegoat or victimise members (Svahn and Evaldsson, 2011; Paechter and Clark, 2016).
In Bresland’s work on the social costs for ‘wannabes’, they argue that youth with high popularity goals, who are unpopular, have negative experiences with peers. This predicament was found to be more pronounced for girls, who were more likely than male peers to experience peer rejection and victimisation (Breslend et al., 2018). The substantial investment in the most popular
51 students’ discourse, over and above compliance, isolates these middle/average students from the rest of their similar status peers (Paetcher and Clark, 2016).
Remaining Visible Attractiveness is a quality associated with popularity from the earliest studies in this field (Dion and Berscheid, 1974; Smith and Krantz, 1986; Merten, 1997). Duncan’s Q-methodology study found that the most common characteristics to describe a popular girl were ‘very pretty, very fashionable… very loud and… very popular with boys.’ (2011:310).
To maintain social status requires active investment in the outward physical appearance – typically hyper-feminine beauty regimes and ways of dressing (Paechter, 2006; Allan, 2009; Reay, 2010). Hyper-femininity is a particularly exaggerated, emphasised, and ideal performance of femininity: ‘dramaturgical, glamourised femininity’ (Paechter, 2006: 6) or ‘girly-girls’ (Allan, 2009). Currie and Pomerantz describe it as:
‘[The] culturally dominant way to ‘do’ girlhood…mandates that girls be pretty. It warns them of the dangers of being ‘fat’ and encourages them to behave in ways that win male attention’ (2008: 31).
Connell’s conception of hyper‐femininity highlights the perceived dominant ways in which girls feel they have to present themselves as ‘proper girls’ (1995). In this way, the power that links to peer perceived popular girls ‘comes from the ability to invoke the unspoken ‘rules’ that police the boundaries of acceptable femininity’ (Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz, 2007).
Several studies have highlighted that that girls who were perceived popular, enacted their gender within these boundaries of acceptability (Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz, 2007; Reay, 2010; Jackson, 2010; Jackson and Nyström, 2015; Paechter, 2017). This type femininity closely mirrors that promoted in
52 the media. Celebrity comparisons reproduce discourses of class and gender that are closely related to the girls’ class and gender position (Mendick, Allen and Harvey, 2015; 2016). Other researchers distinguish the symbols of working-class female popularity as glamorous, hyper-feminine (a large amount of investment in extreme beauty routines), as well as being interested in celebrities, fashion, and boys (Thomson, 2011; Warrington and Younger, 2014). Warrington and Younger’s study found brands and clothing was a central tenant to peer inclusion and integration, as ‘wearing voguish clothing and the right designer trainers…legitimate a sense of belonging and wellbeing’ (2014: 153).
A further study into identity and achievement in early adolescent highlighted that that popular girls should be beautiful but not too smart. They further argue that this investment in being popular ‘may be conforming to that role at the expense of cultivating other important aspects of themselves and their education’ (Roeser et al., 2008: 146). Jackson and Nystrom argue that this subject position of ‘effortless achiever’ is unequally available to students, depending on their intersection of gender, social class, ethnicity, and institutional setting (2015).
Engaging in disruptive behaviour Girls who invest in being smart in school are excluded typically from the sanctioned forms of femininity (Ringrose and Walkerdine, 2008). Although researchers have found that some girls can be simultaneously smart and popular provided they conform to excessive femininity (Allan, 2009; Francis, Skelton and Read, 2010; Francombe-Webb and Silk, 2016). However, these ‘top girls’ are part of what she called ‘post-feminist masquerade’ due to the need for impossible perfection (McRobbie, 2007). This dual positioning is more feasible for girls of the middle class or upper-middle-class backgrounds (Walkerdine, Lucey and Melody, 2001; 2003; Maxwell and Aggleton, 2014). Researchers argue it can be harder for working-class women to navigate femininity and a studious student persona than their more affluent peers,
53 whose femininity is more associated with being ‘nice’ and ‘quiet’ (Hey, 1997; Reay, 2001; Skeggs, 2005; Renold, 2006; Renold and Allan, 2006). A study by Archer and colleagues also found that working-class and more ethnically diverse schools had a stronger ‘ladette’ discourse, which manifests in overtly heterosexual and glamorous behaviours (Archer, Halsall, and Hollingworth, 2007). It is a positioning of femininity that is argued to be ‘antithetical to educational engagement and success’ (170).
The association with loudness and audibility relates to Jackson’s work on ladettes (2006a), Wild Girls (2006b), and, more recently, to Dobson’s work on performative shamelessness. These studies explore how young women who self-identify as ‘loud, enact ‘performatively defiant’ aspects of girl-power and laddish contemporary femininity’ (Dobson, 2014: 100). Archer’s work on ‘Urban Youth’ explores femininity of BAME young women, who see their loudness as ‘a desirable and valued aspect of their performance as strong, agentic and independent Black or Turkish femininity’ (2007: 45).
As Dobson describes, this loudness is a source of both power and control:
‘[P]ost-feminist girl-power recipes for feminine subjectivity combine performative sexiness, strength, confidence and ‘carefree-ness’ in a way that may be at times experienced as a pressure by young women and at other times may be experienced as a powerful and useful strategy of self-definition’ (2014:111).
Assertive aggression Peer popularity is associated with abusive actions, either verbal, physical, online, or offline). Those who are most popular are more likely to be involved in aggression, as they have a more considerable reputation to protect (Mayeux, Houser, and Dyches, 2011; Waldron, 2011). For popular girls, being well-liked by peers is of lower importance than being ‘respected’(Flores‐ Gonzalez, 2005; Cohen et al., 2006). Some research suggests that peer
54 respect helps the most popular enact more aggressive behaviours without consequence (Kuryluk, Cohen and Audley-Piotrowski, 2011).
The title of ‘most popular’ is hotly contested, and aggressive behaviours are required to maintain this prime position. Researchers have long understood aggression as a critical factor in the maintenance of popularity, as peer perceived popularity by definition is associated with holding power and influence over peers (Raine et al., 2006; Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz, 2007; Dytham, 2018). This aggression manifests as proactive threats, manipulation, or coercive bullying (de Bruyn and Cillessen, 2006; Jackson, 2014; Stoltz et al., 2016; Lansu, 2018). These behaviours relate to qualities of ‘ladette’ culture, and ‘wild girls’ who display ‘masculine’ traits such as acting tough, being loud and overtly heterosexual (Jackson, 2006a, 2006b; Dobson, 2014; Page and Charteris, 2017).
The most popular exhibit different types of aggressive behaviour when confronting the most popular groups in different schools, compared with dealing with the less popular of their peer group. Card and Little stratified the functions of aggression into two categories; ‘direct’– meaning physical or bodily violence; and ‘indirect’- relational aggression such rumours, peer exclusion, rejection or manipulation (Card et al., 2008). Stolz outlines further typologies through the framework of reactive and proactive aggression. The former is an impulsive response to other behaviours where there is a perceived threat (actual or unintentional). The latter relates to aggression that is planned, goal orientated, and motivated by external reward (2016; Card and Little, 2006; Dodge, 1991, Mayeux et al. 2011).
These definitions have been criticised for being overly essentialist and entrenching gender-norms: boys are violent, girls indirectly aggressive (Ringrose and Renold, 2010), and a more fluctuating spectrum of direct/indirect/passive/reactive has been posited (Allen, 2015). Using this spectrum enables girls to be positioned as both acting proactively and
55 reactively aggressive. As Allen states, ‘within this messy milieu, assigning labels to problematic social situations often fail to adequately capture the essence of these complex social interactions.’ (2015: 178).
This idea also assumes that not all aggression can be categorised as bullying. Although the examples below often show a victim and a bully, these are fluctuating roles, and some could constitute more of a ‘drama’ than bullying (Veinot et al., 2011; Waldron, 2011; Marwick and Boyd, 2014; Allen, 2015). Although some young people posit aggression as an entirely separate concept from bullying, it is only relatively recently that the notion has been constructed in literature and has no agreed-upon definition (Miller, 2016). This definition requires consideration alongside bullying in the analysis of the types of aggression that are used to maintain and gain popularity.
Direct aggression of females towards other high-status females is not uncommon. Researchers have found that high-status females exhibit this tendency in schools towards both males and other females (Dytham, 2018). This behaviour supports the idea that the power wielded by the most popular is a finite resource, the scarcity of which causes high-status rival groups to make claims on each other’s power resource (Martin, 2009; Faris and Felmlee, 2014). Indeed, other researchers suggest this aggressive behaviour reaps a greater reward than targeting the lower status youth (Faris, 2012).
This review has now provided an overview of the literature relating to social media, peer networks, and peer popularity. It has defined social media as sites where users upload their content, and react to the content of others, connecting in semi-public digital spaces that wax and wane in popularity. The review describes how social media has altered young people’s experience of the world around them, the pervasive and frequent usage, the impact of social media on their mental health, and the behaviours digital platforms enable. The architecture of social media has created spaces where young people always possess the possibility of connecting. This dynamic shifts their focus towards
56 presenting themselves to others, where the role of the audience, both real and imagined, is critical.
Additionally, social media provides short cuts and safety, where young people can curate and edit communications, but are also hidden from the ramifications of what they say and do online. This change is attributed to the rise in drama, low-level bullying, and gossip that flows between the offline and online spaces. The drama is often inequitably experienced by boys and girls and drawing on research from sexting and dick pics; this review found girls are both more solicited and more heavily reprimanded than male peers for sexually revealing photos. Peer networks and popularity are discussed, and the traits needed to accrue and maintain social status amongst peers. Popularity is not about those most liked, but those who have the most considerable reputation and power. The popular perform particular gender roles and aggressive behaviours to maintain their status and visibility both online and in school.
It is these theoretical underpinnings that help situate the evidence are discussed next, including theories of power, control, and performative gender. The research will draw on Foucauldian analysis tools to understand peer popularity, the characteristics of social media, and the inequitable experience of performative gender, exploring misbalanced power relations and methods of control relating to gender and the digital and physical body.
Constructing power, knowledge, and resistance
The literature demonstrates the value of particular mores and traits over others, both on social media and offline. It is, therefore, important to map how these practices are conceived and infiltrate them into the everyday experiences for schoolgirls. Understanding the relationship between these truths, knowledge of enacting such truths, and the power they carry is essential to this thesis. This section outlines the theoretical position of this
57 thesis, which views power as relational, driving truths, and discourses that reinforce hetero-normative performative gender practices. It lastly touches upon resistance, as a pre-requisite to the existence of power, and explores how resistant actors and acts are born out of the contradictory nature of the discursive practices that seek to control.
Power
Traditionally the construct of power has been conceived structurally, where an institution provides instructions that catalyse the actions of many (Lukes, 2004; Weber, 2013). For Foucault, the idea that power derives from the actions of one institution acting upon another is too deterministic. To enact power, humans need choice and freedom. I cannot be wielded over a slave who is in chains (Foucault, 1982). Power is linked also to the truth. While Structuralists aim to situate individuals within systems of ‘truth’ (Levi-Strauss, 1955), Foucault challenges this notion by positing that power and truth emerge from more ephemeral interactions. Truth, and phenomena that are considered true originate from many sources: ‘It is a relationship between "partners," individual or collective…there is no such entity as power…even though it underpins permanent structures.’ (Foucault, 2000: 340)
Foucault’s notion of power, and how it is sustained and negotiated, is born at micro-level interactions and relations between individuals. This power, therefore, is not static ‘individuals…are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising power’ (Foucault and Gordon, 1980: 98). Describing power as being in ‘capillary form’, it infuses ‘...into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives.’ (1980: 39). The term, ‘microphysics of power’ (1977:26), can be understood not only as physical interactions between teenagers in school but decisions made, or perceptions held about that other person, whether online or offline.
58 For Foucault: ‘[P]ower must be understood in the first instance as a multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organisation.’ (Foucault, 1978: 92).
This multitude of ‘force relations’ can be interpreted in a variety of ways yet are united in one shared practice– in order for it to be a ‘force’, one side of the relationship must be stronger or more influential than the other (although who this is can change) (1978). This ‘force’ can take many shapes but shares an outcome – the product of the force is that the other less powerful person is compelled, influenced and pressured to act, react and perceive a situation in a certain way:
‘Power is never anything more than a relationship that can, and must, be studied only by looking at the interplay of the terms of the relationship’ (Foucault, 2003: 168).
Therefore, being considered to hold perceived popularity by peers is not only associated with influencing how other peers act but enforcing such behaviours (Sandstrom, 2011). Popularity and social status within peer networks will, therefore, be conceptualised as ‘an index of social visibility and power’ (Mayeux, Houser and Dyches, 2011; Houser, Mayeux and Cross, 2015).
Discourse and truth
For Foucault, power derives from culturally specific ‘regimes of truth’:
‘[E]ach society has its regime of truth…the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true’ (Foucault in ed. Gordon 1980: 207)
59
In order to understand how young people hold onto power, there is a need to step back and uncover the truth or discourse from which power derives. Discourse, for Foucault, is the relationship between language, social institutions, subjectivity, and power (1980). Discursive fields are used to understand competing meanings in the social organisation of the world, as these meanings influence and ultimately formulate the ‘nature’ of their minds, bodies, and emotional lives (Weedon, 1997). These discourses also represent political interests and can act as tactical elements that can run contradictory within the same strategy because they are constantly vying for status and power (Foucault, 1977).
Unpacking discourse, Whisnant describes how discourse operates on several fundamental levels. Firstly, the shaping of our world. Discourse creates our understanding of the world, how it binds us together socially under the same constructed reality, which therefore underpins what we believe to be true. This creation of truth generates the process and environment to accept these truths and, therefore, as a statement –is power. Discourse, therefore:
‘…constitutes the world that we live in, but also all forms of knowledge of ‘truth... organised through the structures, interconnections and associations that are built into language’. It can also generate truth... the power to convince people to accept statements as true’ (Whisnant, 2012: 7).
These discourses pertaining to localised gender norms are ‘determined by and constitutive of the power relations that permeate the social realms’ (McNay, 1994: 87). Discourse provides a range of possible choices that young people can use to form their subjectivity; these are temporally and geographically specific, available, and contextually appropriate (Kitzinger Wilkinson, 1995; Ringrose, 2008). Discourses stipulate ‘a range of subject positions that denote who they can be and how they are able to understand the world’ (Allan, 2009:148). Using and participating in the discourse
60 communicates knowledge, and the extent to which they can do this effectively, and with whom they can do this effectively, demonstrates a person’s status. Discourse is ‘intimately involved with socially embedded networks of power’; specific discourse enables particular individuals to speak more truth than others while simultaneously increase the power that person wields (Whisnant, 2012: 6-7).
The concept of knowledge ties discourse to power – the ability to enact particular discursive practices. Therefore, those who have the greatest ability to enact a valued discourse can wield the highest power, particularly over those who cannot enact the knowledge to the same degree.
Knowledge
For Foucault, if one can speak in a discursive practice, one has knowledge:
‘Knowledge is that of which one can speak in a discursive practice … there is no knowledge without a particular discursive practice, and any discursive practice may be defined by the knowledge that it forms.’ (1969: 182-183)
Understanding the sociocultural context within which the online and offline peer hierarchies and networks are located can help to unveil how the power- knowledge dynamic is enacted through Foucault’s discursive practices: The regular communications, set of rules, and institutes are application techniques (Foucault, 1969; Matthews, 2013). According to Foucault, power produces knowledge, and knowledge also has a transformational effect on the power structures created.
‘Knowledge linked to power, not only assumes the authority of ‘the truth’ but has the power to make itself true. All knowledge, once applied in the real world, has effects, and in that sense, at least, ‘becomes true.’ Knowledge, once used to regulate the conduct of others, entails constraint, regulation, and the disciplining of practice. Thus, there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does
61 not presuppose and constitute at the same time, power relations.’ (Foucault 1977: 27)
The ability of power to evolve interpretations of knowledge and truth is essential to ensuring that those controlled are always in a continual state of trying to be within acceptable norms.
‘The violent or surreptitious appropriation of a system of rules… in order to impose a direction, to bend it to its will to force its participation in a new game’ (Foucault, 1984: 378).
This condition exists on a micro-level within a school-based peer-hierarchy. Those with the greatest popularity act as tastemakers, evolving, and approving of specific fashions, actions, and behaviours within the heteronormative discourse. As Campbell and Gregor describe, these more popular students ‘enact the world they inhabit and know about, in concert with other people, and of course with the technologies that people operate’ (2004; p 170). Similarly to tastemaker celebrities du jour, those with the power/knowledge ‘like fairy godmothers, brook no argument’ (Phillips, 2008: 125). Within school, those at the top of the peer hierarchy have a similar status to celebrities. The discursive practices of the tastemakers are then spread through their relational networks to influence decision-making and the behaviour of other pupils. However, this is all ‘through normative forms of gendered visual self-representation... of a semi-public digital subjectivity’ (Ringrose, 2011: 102).
By trying to understand the knowledge relating to peer popularity, two types of knowledge may emerge – “connaissance” and “savoir.” The former relates to individual consciousness while the latter to underlying structures of order. Although these both translate into English as ‘knowledge,’ Foucault distinguishes their meaning:
62 ‘I see “savoir” as a process by which the subject undergoes a modification through the very things that one knows [connaissance] or, rather, in the course of the work that one does in order to know. It is what enables one both to modify the subject and to construct the object.’ (Foucault, 2000: 256-7)
In French, savoir means to know an objective fact, while connaissance, from the infinitive, connaître, is more subjective – knowing a person, an experience, a feeling. This structure of differentiated forms of knowledge will be useful to unpick popularity, gendered double standards, and performativity. Enacting and reinforcing the prevailing savoir and connaissance can be understood through Foucault’s ‘technologies of power’:
‘[T]he cultivation of the self... the form of an attitude, a mode of behaviour, becomes instilled in the ways of living; it evolves into procedures, practices, and formulas’ (Foucault, 1988: 45).
The technologies of the self, according to Foucault ‘permit individuals to affect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies, thoughts conduct, and a way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a particular state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immorality’ (Foucault, 1988a: 18). Those most popular are practitioners of procedures within the school, the proponents of specific modes of knowledge, the technologists of the self. A failure to adhere is a failure of self-discipline or conformity, which the next section of this review will detail further.
Discipline and control
Having knowledge and power is synonymous with wielding power and knowledge. This next section outlines Foucauldian systems of control, drawing heavily upon Discipline and Punishment (1977). This work is useful
63 here to understand how knowledge and power is11 enacted as a method of control. Foucault posits that criminal, disciplinary techniques are pervasive across modern society: ‘this great carceral network reaches all the disciplinary mechanisms that function throughout society… from the penal institution to the entire social body’ (1977: 298). The following theories will be used to analyse how power works by ‘composing forces in order to obtain an efficient machine’ (1977: 135) to maintain and patrol acceptable discourse.
Discipline for Foucault aims to create ‘docile bodies,’ and it is through the body that power and knowledge are displayed. Power is within the bodies, and the relationships between the bodies, which serves to reinforce the discursive apparatus it purports (Courtney, 2016). McNay outlines below how this works concerning gender performativity:
‘Body is the principal target of power/knowledge relations transmitted through discourse… the question of sexuality and the body must be looked at in terms of how the body is invested with certain properties and inserted regimes of truth via the operations of power and knowledge.’ (1992: 26)
Judith Butler, building on Foucauldian analysis, outlines that the subject is “discursively constructed” within a ‘regulatory ideal.’ This ideal:
‘[N]ot only functions as a norm, but is part of a regulatory practice that produces the bodies it governs, that is, whose regulatory force is made clear as a kind of productive power, the power to produce—demarcate, circulate, differentiate—the bodies it controls’ (Butler 1993:1)
Correct investments in the body situate the person within the accepted or approved of norms, which Foucault describes as a:
11 Singular conjugation employed to reflect how these concepts are indelibly bound together
64 ‘...set of material elements and techniques that serve as weapons, relays, communication routes and supports for the power and knowledge relations that invest human bodies and subjugate them into objects of knowledge’ (Foucault, 1977: 28)
These elements translate into a series of outward and inward signs and actions that are appropriate within a given system of hierarchy (Paechter, 2017). It is, in some ways, conceived as a currency, with attained discursive practices compared against others (Pomerantz and Raby, 2017). These practices are not just material possessions such as fashion or the latest technology, but the social currency individuals hold, where the favour of some is worth more than others. Both online and offline, there are approved-of ways of looking and behaving, as well as ways of actively confirming or supporting approval within hetero-normative structure (Archer, Halsall, and Hollingworth, 2007).
In order to ensure compliance with a particular set of norms, systems of control exist to patrol and maintain the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable practices. For Foucault, control of bodies is through conscious and subliminal control mechanisms. These disciplinary measures act ‘not only so that they may do as one wishes, but so that they operate as one wishes’ (Foucault, 1977: 138). The ultimate goal of these control practices is to create docile bodies – those who comply through their own self-regulation. For Foucault, discipline is the only means by which to achieve a self-regulation entity ‘that may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved…. this docile body can only be achieved through strict regimen of disciplinary acts.’ (1977: 136)
The creation of docile bodies comes through a three-stage process.
1) Hierarchical observation Control through observation, and the perception that one is continuously observed. Foucault describes this through the idea of
65 a panopticon that induces ‘a state of consciousness and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power’ (1977: 201). Within school, students may feel conscious of the hundreds of pairs of eyes, who observe their actions and possess the ability to document behaviour on their phones. In being visible to others, one feels hyperaware (Krips, 2010). Through the eyes of many observers, power stays invisible while rendering the object, or individual, visible. The school site and interaction between online and offline may exacerbate this sense of observation: surveillance is built into the school space both formally and informally. Young people are concurrently at risk and a risk to others (Renold and Ringrose, 2017; Silk, Andrews, and Thorpe, 2017).
2) Normalising judgment There is no judgement of right or wrong for bodies, but their actions place them on a ranked scale that compares them to everyone else (1977:177). The scale is dependent upon the local conditions in which normalising judgement takes place, altering to reflect the interplay between relational knowledge-power: ‘The exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge, and conversely, knowledge constantly induces effects of power’ (Foucault, 1980: 52). Those who own the knowledge of these symbols and the power are most well placed to be able to edit and evolve it. ‘Full participants are able to act as definers of reality and thus, identity’ (Paechter, 2006: 16). Therefore, students are ranked on a scale that is continually fluctuating, constantly cognisant of their position in comparison to peers to ensure they remain within the realms of normality.
3) Examination Stages one and two combine to create a person in a state where they are visible in their self-regulation. They follow and react accordingly without pressure. They become the docile body. These
66 bodies conform to the appropriate behaviours and become normalised within their everyday lives. It is at this intersection that Foucault believes the locus of power and knowledge lies through ‘the deployment of force and the establishment of truth’ (1977: 184).
Within this system, the body is considered an object – categorised by distinctive characteristics within the Power/Knowledge system and controlled and changed through the process outlined above. The body, here, is not only an object of discipline but also a self-regulating subject of personal knowledge. The subject is engaged in ‘games of truth’ – discourses to produce real ‘knowledge.’ Foucault terms these practices ‘aesthetics of existence,’ which, according to Hall, refer to ‘deliberate stylisation of daily life, and its technologies… most effectively demonstrated in the practices of self- production... in what we have come to later recognise as a kind of performativity’ (1996: 13). Although Foucault uses the metaphor of the prison to illustrate his theory, Bartky and others have shown how the same theory can translate to self-regulating feminine identity practices (Bartky, 1988; Kanai, 2015)
‘The woman who checks her make up half a dozen times a day to see if her foundation has caked or her mascara run, who worries that the wind or rain may spoil her hair-do, who looks frequently to see if her stockings have bagged at the ankle, or who, feeling fat, monitors everything she eats, has become, just as surely as the inmate of the panopticon, a self-policing subject, a self-committed to a relentless self-surveillance.’ (Bartky, 1988: 81)
However, although what Bartky describes may be familiar, it is not universal. Choices are available, which can lead some to decide not to engage in this form of self-surveillance and resist the expected norms, as described later. It is also essential to highlight the further work required of feminists when using Foucault’s theories due to its theoretical limitations. An outline of these
67 limitations is in the next section, alongside how feminists built upon Foucault’s work to interrogate the conditions between men and women.
Moving beyond the limitations of Foucault and feminism
Feminist scholars have criticised Foucault’s theorisation of power. for not going far enough. Judith Butler highlights how his process of forming submissive subjects neither explains control by this submission (1997) or ‘constituted by power and immobilised in a society of discipline’ (Hekman, 2010: 217). McNay also criticised the notion of docility for not enabling an intricate understanding of dynamic subjectification (1992). Considering bodies as ‘docile’ in isolation may blinker authors to the complexities and intersectional nature of the docility. In reducing a subjectivity to ‘female,’ new societal norms associated with economic, ethnic, and social subordination are more easily ignored (Deveaux, 1994). Other feminist authors, such as Fraser and Hartsock, find Foucault’s notion of power problematic as it obscures the structural oppression of gender (Fraser, 1989; Hartsock, 1990). Hartsock’s repost to Foucault’s famous quote: ‘power is everywhere and ultimately nowhere’ (Hartsock, 1990) exemplifies the objection. However, despite the potential totalising or obfuscating limitations, his tools have allowed scholars to push the understanding of power, subject, and truth to apply them to contexts beyond which he discussed.
Here is where Bartky analyses ‘the disciplinary practices that engender “docile bodies” of women…more docile than the bodies of men’ (Bartky, 1990: 65). Butler evolved his framework of constructing docile bodies through performativity. Power over a person is brought through their repeated performance of gender norms (1990). Hekman argued that this anti-totalising approach to power helps critically assess issues as complex and relational, as opposed to one size fits all approach (1999). Additionally, Sawicki considers Foucault’s theories of power as complementary as they enable feminist
68 thinkers to ‘think of power outside the confines of State, law, or class… Foucault frees power from the political domain’ (Sawicki, 1991: 20).
Skeggs explains that Foucauldian analysis can help feminists boundary discourse within higher normalised truths (Skeggs, 1997). ‘Foucault in later works acknowledges that subjectivity is only constructed from positions within social relations and structures’ (:12) and how ‘legacies were formed which continue to inform the position of women through class, race, gender, and sexuality’ which is a ‘productive power whereby social regulation can be achieved willingly by the participants themselves’ (:41).
These structures delineate the discourse set within appropriate gendered norms, ‘techniques necessary to maintain the current norms of feminine embodiment’ (Bartky, 2002: 17). For Fraser, this takes places in the public sphere, in school or online, where discourse is not neutral but ‘privileges the expressive norms of one cultural group over another, thereby making discursive assimilation a condition for participation in public debate’ (Fraser,
1989: 84).
Through adopting these processes to uncover how power structures maintain accepted norms, Foucauldian notions of resistance, and articulation of the mechanisms of oppression, are enacted. This next section highlights these processes for resistance in greater detail.
Resistance
When adopting a Foucauldian analysis strategy, it would be impossible to consider power without the possibility of resistance. Indeed, researchers have actively criticised those who use Foucault’s work without acknowledging or considering the resistance of mechanisms for governmentality, arguing that Foucault does not view individuals as powerless, nor power as unidirectional (Markula, 2004; Evans et al., 2008; Tiidenberg and Gómez Cruz, 2015). For Foucault, as power has the potential to be everywhere, so do ‘possibilities of
69 resistance and counter-attack.’ (Foucault 1980: 163). As the Foucault classic quote summarises in the History of Sexuality, ‘where there is power, there is resistance’ (1978) that it is ‘more real and effective because they are formed right at the point where relations of power are exercised’ (Foucault 1980: 142).
Foucault’s thinking about resistance developed throughout his career. Initially focusing on the difference between ‘madness’ and revolutionary resistance in his mid-career, his later writings, and lectures focus on the diffuse and localised natural resistance (Pickett, 1996). Sawicki and Bartky both argue that Foucault’s later writing on the subject of resistance is a valuable lens from which to understand micro-resistances and acts born out of power wielded over the subject. This theory mirrors the relational and multifarious nature of power itself. As there are so many sites to resist, it will never be a project fully realised but continually negotiated as new asymmetrical power relationships arise (Sawicki, 1991; Bartky, 2002a).
Mechanisms to resist
The performance of resistance reflects the contextual power imbalance in which it is situated (Kondo, 1990; Harding, Ford and Lee, 2017). The relational and multifaceted nature of power creates multiple points of resistance (Foucault, 1982; Paechter, 2003). Power is often exposed, through conflicting or competing discourses that emerge due to their transitory and evolving nature (St. Pierre, 2004; Whisnant, 2012). Resistance is often fragmented and transitory as it reflects how discourse is expressed and acts upon an individual. Indeed, researchers argue that it is in the space between these contrary discourses that fosters resistance (Raby, 2005; Ringrose, 2008; Harris and Dobson, 2015).
In order to aid cognisance of these contradictions, individuals must be exposed to multiple discourses or ways of being (Azzarito, 2009; Pringle and
70 Pringle, 2012). Challenging these discourses occurs through their deconstruction. Individuals frequently become aware of the discourses when they compete or are at odds with a person’s position in the social narrative. This internal conflict can heighten awareness about the discourse and enable a challenge:
‘The individual is not merely the passive site of discursive struggle. The individual, who has a memory and an already discursively constituted sense of identity may resist particular interpellations or produce new versions of meaning from the conflicts and contradictions between existing discourses. Knowledge of more than one discourse and the recognition that meaning is plural allows for a measure of choice on the part of the individual, and even where choice is not available, resistance is still possible.’ (Weedon, 1997, p 102).
In earlier work, Pringle argued that exposure to various discourses, including the more marginalised, is the best method of counter-acting dominant power structures (2005). As Davis highlighted, those who are aware of these contradictions are more likely to find ways to deconstruct and resist them (1991). However, real change through resistance can be brought about through the mobilisation of others – helping others to recognise the contradictions and shift the social power (MacNaughton, 2005).
Individuals may come together in collective resistance to challenge through a shared sense of difference (Collinson, 2000; Konrad et al., 2006). This difference is born out of a failure to comply appropriately with the prevailing norms, whether consciously or subconsciously. It is conceptualised as productive, and through a connection to others, resistant acts can take place (Gagnon and Collinson, 2017). Agency is found through a co-constructed collective identity, formed in opposition to the prevailing norms. This opposition is used to shape the resistance, as in this difference, a new form a success can be fashioned, from which resistance to the dominant discursive practices emerges (Gagnon and Collinson, 2017).
71
Challenges to resistance However, when exploring resistance, it is essential to consider to what extent it is available for all individuals, how the dominant discourses act upon it and how desirable is it to resist in any given context?
It is crucial, as Nelson argues, to take account of the effect of performing dissident subjectivities (Nelson, 2006). Ensuring this is particularly pertinent for variants of schoolgirl femininity that may appear at odds with dominant gender and sex norms (McRobbie, 2000; Harris, 2004; Kelly, Pomerantz and Currie, 2005; Renold and Ringrose, 2008). Youdell also explores this complex environment in which resistance may take place:
‘We might struggle to refuse these subjectivities, but subject-hood is dependent on our intelligibility, and so we might have to take them up; we might find them put on us; and we might be attached to them, politically, socially, relationally, psychically, orgasmically.’ (Youdell, 2010: 88)
It is also essential to consider the intersectional implications of resistance – how class, race, and sexuality all may affect one’s ability to resist, the variety of discourses available, and the potency of the dominating discourses. Researchers have helped to illuminate the contradictory narratives that young people may describe, but not subscribe to (Holland et al., 1998; Maxwell, 2007; Allan, 2009). Resistance can also be contradictory – best described in Learning to Labour, where the resistant acts of the white working-class boys served to entrench class inequality further. Their acts were superficially empowering and agentic but ultimately reflected broader societal expectations around the working-class identity. In rejecting education, their resistance to schooling served to reproduce class power structures that maintained inequality (Willis, 1978). Their resistance, or power, was therefore superficial.
72 Similarly, work on resistant Instagram micro-celebrities, such as Tattoo Artists and other non-conformist occupation, exposes contradictions, and false notions of agency. The aesthetic production required to gain fame positions the non-conformist within traditional celebrity and media discourse (Marwick, 2015a). The consequence demonstrates how resisting individuals can engage in both conformist and resisting acts that both legitimise and reject particular narratives and dominant discourses (Kondo, 1990; Harding, Ford, and Lee, 2017).
Others have found that young people may resist dominant discourses by locating themselves in opposition (Garrett, 2004), while others feel they would like to resist, but cannot remove themselves due to the pressure they feel (Oliver and Lalik, 2004). It is essential to consider how young people may struggle to resist, or partially resist, dominant discourses, even given the protection that the online environment can afford (Johansson and Lalander, 2012; Vitis and Gilmour, 2017).
Indeed, this idea feeds into broader discussions around one’s ability to effectively resist potent discourse, as Rasmussen explains about gender identity:
‘My understanding of post-structuralism’s relation to gender identity is not that gender is something I want to do away with, but rather that it is something I can’t do without, and definitely something that I cannot avoid, or be freed from, even if, sometimes, I might wish that I could, single-handedly, eschew gender binaries.’ (Rasmussen, 2009: 439).
Exploring the complexities of resistance has never been more critical in a world where discourses are reinforced across multiple online and offline spaces. Of particular importance to this thesis are the discourses relating to gender and how validated forms of femininity are enacted, controlled, and resisted both in social media and in school. It is essential to firstly ground this thesis in the theoretical literature relating to gender and how feminist
73 researchers reveal the underlying power, knowledge, discourses, and truths within the education space.
Gender and education
From essentialist to performative gender
From the outset, it is important to situate gender as a social construct. This positioning is in conscious opposition to the structured, binary notion that gender and sex are interchangeable definitions (Fine, 1988), or ‘the set of arrangement by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity’ (Rubin, 1975). Underpinning this essentialist assumption is the belief that gender is ‘natural’ (Connell, 1995). Delphy, amongst others, have helped us critique this notion to ‘think of gender in terms of sex: to see it as a social dichotomy determined by a natural dichotomy...gender as the content with sex as the container’ (Delphy, 1993: 3). Thinkers that challenged the structural approach helped move the concept of gender on from being considered an objective binary to subjectivity, a social category that fits within a system of social relations:
‘Gender is, above all, a matter of the social relations within which individuals and groups act...gender must be understood as a social structure...not an expression of biology, nor a fixed dichotomy in human life or character. It is a pattern of our social arrangements, and in everyday activities or practices which those arrangements govern.’ (Connell, 1995; p 10)
In order to maintain the order and structure within this social categorisation, gender is naturalised early – often before birth, as Simone de Beauvoir articulates ‘one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman’ (1949: 38). Butler describes the categorisation of gender starts from the moment the sex, of an often-unborn child, is revealed:
74 ‘To the extent that the naming of the “girl” is transitive, that is, initiates the process by which a certain “girling” is compelled, the term or, rather, its symbolic power, governs the formation of a corporeally enacted femininity that never fully approximates the norm. This is a “girl”, however, who is compelled to “cite” the norm in order to qualify and remain a viable subject. Femininity is thus not the product of a choice, but the forcible citation of a norm, one whose complex historicity is indissociable from relations of discipline, regulation, punishment.’ (Butler, 1993; p. 232)
The ‘it’s a girl’ pronouncement starts in motion a train of behaviours enacted by those around the child that reinforce the formulation of the gendered identity. It is a categorisation governed by implicit rules and norms that are socially constructed (Paechter, 2007). The pressure to conform is significant:
‘[G]ender is central to our definitions of human subjectivity…to treat a baby gender-neutral, as an ‘it’ rather than a ‘he’ or a ‘she’, therefore, is tantamount to denying its (or perhaps I should say his or hers) humanity’ (Burman, 1995:49).
As gender is socially produced, West and Zimmerman describe how we receive directions from those around us regarding how we should perform (West and Zimmerman, 1987). These directions present a gender ‘which produces, reproduces, and legitimises choices and limits predicated on sex categories’ (1987: 146). Psychological research demonstrates the gendering behaviour of others, where parents had different expectations and beliefs about their baby, depending on whether they had a boy or a girl. A crawling task with 11-month-olds showed how mothers of girls expected their child to fail when their probability of success was very high (Mondschein, Adolph, and Tamis-LeMonda, 2000). Conversely, mothers of boys expected their child to succeed, even when the odds of completing the task were low. Parent stereotyping of children is also well documented across their choice of toys, and perceptions of motor skills (Smith and Lloyd, 1978), and around how they
75 encourage their child to engage in different types of activities (Ruble, Martin, and Berenbaum, 2007).
Implicit norms and expectations placed upon us by the world around us underwrite the concept of gender: it is an enacted not a predestined phenomenon (Butler, 1990). Performativity as social evaluation lies in Lyotard’s work, which conceived performance as a normalising expression of power and knowledge, with the ultimate goal creating an efficient system:
‘They follow a principle, and it is the principle of optimal performance: maximising output (the information or modifications obtained) and minimising input (the energy expended in the process)’ (Lyotard, 1984: 44)
Social evaluation is born from measuring how effectively or efficiently something is performed (Locke, 2015). A set of choices that we can produce and adopt is the basis for our performance of gender – It has social consequences depending upon how well they fit within the socially acceptable norms (West and Zimmerman, 1987; Hey, 1997). These choices can be more or less acceptable depending on a variety of variables, including class, gender, ethnicity. The elements intersecting within our identity and context, render these our performances less a choice and more a proscription or prescription (Walkerdine, Lucey and Melody, 2001): ‘we claim a place in the gender order – or respond to what we have been given – by the way we conduct ourselves in everyday life’ (Connell, 2010: 6). How we enact our gender and identity is all-encompassing and is considered a ‘moral certainty’ – this governs where we fit within societal structures, how we are treated, what is expected of us, and how we are expected to interact with those around us (Paechter, 2007). It is a system of judgement based upon revelation, not science as Lyotard notes:
‘It is self-legitimating, in the same way, a system organised around performance maximisation seems to be’ (Lyotard, 1984: 47).
76 Performativity, according to Butler, is ‘not the act by which a subject brings into being what he/she names but rather as that reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constrains’ (1993:2). This performativity and conscious assent to the rule is seen within those who are striving to become more popular, consciously assimilating more of the approved stylisation in order to become more acceptable within the discourse. Alternatively, it might be a conscious manoeuvre for those students who want to appear conforming in some ways while existing, behaviourally, outside the accepted ‘popularity’ norm. For Ball, this is a continual exercise of negotiations:
‘There is not so much, or not only, a structure of surveillance, as a flow of performativities both continuous and eventful – that is spectacular’ (Ball, 2000: 3)
Constructing gender identity through performance is intertwined with the knowledge of what it means to be male or female. This performance is not static, but continually in flux: ‘gender is the repeated stylisation of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance’ (Butler, 1990:33) — considering the multiplicity of intersecting variables working upon the gendered identity (Walkerdine, 2001; McNay, 2000). These are essential factors to consider:
‘Recognising that identity politics takes place at the site of where categories intersect thus seems more fruitful than challenging the possibility of talking about categories at all’ (Crenshaw, 1990: 377)
Gender is localised, temporal, and situated within the contexts of ethnicity, class, race, and sexuality (Crenshaw 1990; Connell, 2005). These criteria are important, given McNay’s welcome critique of the simplicity that resisting binary norms can ‘lead to a rather exaggerated notion of the internal uniformity of gender norms’ (McNay, 2003: 142). Context of the gender
77 inequality is also essential as ‘there is a glossing over of within-group differences according to different matrices of power – for example, class, ethnicity and age’ (Peace, 2003: 161). When considering the intersectional play of gender and class and ethnicity, the body can be seen to embody the local environment: ‘the inscription of dominant social norms or the “cultural arbitrary” upon the body.’(McNay, 2013:26). The intersectional approach, therefore, allows us to consider ‘the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relations and subject formations—as itself a central category of analysis’ (McCall, 2008: 1771).
Situating gender within a hegemonic framework
A hegemonic framework governs our performance of gender and the structure surrounding it. In this, femininity cannot be conceptualised in isolation but has to be considered alongside its counterpart – hegemonic masculinity. It is masculinity based upon power, aggression, and strength. Connell argues it is the form of masculinity most rewarded in Western culture, defined as:
‘…the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women’ (Connell 1995, p. 77: 77).
Hegemony is the expression of a highly desired and legitimised form of gender performance – displaying characteristics in males as powerful and dominant while for women, ‘emphasised femininity’ is conceived in opposition to hegemonic masculinity. This identification requires females to enact femininity that is attentive to the outward appearance, is passive and openly heterosexual (Payne, 2007). Hegemonic masculinity is constructed in opposition to subordinate masculinity, which is constructed against emphasized femininity – a role of compliance and subordination (Connell, 2010). Schippers builds on this, arguing hegemonic forms of femininity and
78 masculinity sit within the same hierarchy and reinforce the ‘heterosexual matrix’– the inequitable relations between men and women through compulsory heterosexuality (Butler, 2004; Schippers, 2014). The hegemonic framework is, therefore, the framework for performing gender appropriately – it is deterministic in how it informs societal expectations, and is essentially the knowledge of how to do gender suitably – from which power relations are built and reinforced (Ortner, 2002; Paechter, 2006). This structure acts to limit opportunities and expectations for young women, especially concerning success and leadership (Skelton et al., 2006; Gill and Scharff, 2011).
Recent research has begun to interrogate the oppositional femininities – articulating that they are more complex and multifaceted than purely ‘passive’ or ‘submissive.’ Taking a wider angle enables us to diversify the overlooked female narratives of subjugation or resistance that occur through our singular focus on emphasised femininity:
‘Interrogating power dynamics associated with these complications involves examining the positioning of femininities in relation to hegemonic masculinity and the workings of internal processes within the category of femininity which devalue and marginalise specific kinds of femininities while assigning a privileged status to others’ (Budgeon, 2014: 321)
Recent papers argue for a more nuanced understanding of oppositional femininity – they posit hegemonic femininity, which has parallels with McRobbie’s ‘Top Girls’ (2007) – assertive and active whose behaviours actively maintain the hegemonic framework (Francis et al., 2017; Paechter, 2018).
‘Once we understand that hegemonic femininities parallel hegemonic masculinities in being constructed in relation to other femininities, not, as with emphasised femininity, as a subservient Other to a particular form of hegemonic masculinity. Recognising the possibility of hegemonic femininities and conceptualising them as working with hegemonic masculinities to
79 preserve a still patriarchal and binary gender order, should enable us to gain further and more nuanced insights into the mutual relationship of masculinities and femininities and how power moves and is mobilised between them.’ (Paechter, 2018: 7).
Paechter’s work assessed hegemonic femininity through the lens of peer relations between primary age students – it will, therefore, be essential to consider how this translates to the secondary school context, and how both emphasised and hegemonic femininity may manifest to maintain or resist the hegemonic framework.
Neoliberal complications
The narrative of neoliberalism complicates how we interpret gender performance. Neoliberalism seeped into the fabric of schooling through a shift in the purpose of education, which evolved from a Keynesian notion of wellbeing and production to one of enterprise and individual choice (Davies and Bansel, 2007).
‘Neoliberal discourse constitutes a set of relations among government, society, and the individual. This impacts not only the terms in which subjects are governed but also the terms in which they understand and articulate themselves, their lives, their opportunities, and desires.’ (Davies and Bansel, 2007: 253)
Ball articulates that neoliberalism within the school context divides into three components: market (competition, privatisation, profit-making), management (delivery systems to bring about this change) and performance (accountability, tables, ranking) (Ball, 2003, 2007, 2012; Francis and Mills, 2012). This new approach aimed to bring about improvements through consumer choice (Lingard, 2010; Angus, 2015), but instead ‘both the volume and nature of the reforms have contributed to this instability as schools,
80 teachers and young people have been required to constantly adapt to a fast- changing and turbulent environment’ (Hall and Gunter, 2016: 54). Schools are expected increasingly to act like corporations, as government policies diversify the type of school on offer for parents to ‘chose’ from (Courtney, 2015).
It is an increasingly tiered environment, where ‘professional and organisational brand, competition and rank ordering [are deemed] to be normal and necessary’ (Gunter, Courtney, McGinity and Hall, 2017: 127). The roles of leaders in schools atop this ranking are positioned as luxury and aspirational, if insecure, while those in lower positions struggle to receive the necessary recourse to funds and opportunities (Gunter et al., 2017; Gunter, 2018). The neoliberal discourse, therefore, shapes all aspects of the education landscape, from teacher to pupil. Underpinning it is data governmentality, where the scrutiny and accountability for data and results are dominant governance techniques (Lingard, Martino and Rezai-Rashti, 2013). The governance techniques are technologies of power, where data is used to regulate school through rank, and surveillance of self (Roberts-Holmes and Bradbury, 2016). These ‘politics of data’ can be disruptive to many aspects of education, as it narrows the focus of schools and staff, exacerbates inequalities, and heightens surveillance (Eynon, 2013; Selwyn, 2015; Selwyn, Henderson and Chao, 2015).
Researchers have shown how the neoliberal benefits the already advantaged, as they have more considerable financial and social resources to draw upon that can shape their choices (Ball, Bowe, and Gewirtz, 1996; Francis and Mills, 2012; Reay, 2012). This focus on the individual’s autonomy to make decisions that directly correlate with their success masks structural inequalities – it becomes a convenient narrative to apportion blame on an individual for their failure, and not the systemic injustice against all those who fell outside the category of white middle-class male (Reay, 2012). The meritocratic tenant, therefore, posited that we had entered a ‘post-feminist’
81 era. As all individuals have an equal chance of bringing about their success through their effective education choices, the argument is that the world transcended to equilibrium (McRobbie, 2009; Harris and Dobson, 2015).
‘A neoliberal discursive framework through which young women’s lives and experiences are articulated in terms of personal successes and failures, determined not by any structural forces by personal "choices," mistakes and psychopathologies are now prominent in popular culture and saturates the regulatory regimes that structure their social worlds.’ (Harris and Dobson, 2015, p 153)
This ‘post-feminism’ era within the hegemonic framework creates a complicated situation for girls – who are simultaneously assigned to be equal and inferior. This positions girls, and their femininity, to be an internal source of power, with conflicting discourses to navigate – they at the same time both a victim of, and empowered by, their femininity (Ringrose, 2007; Wilkins, 2012). Gill terms this the ‘agency pendulum,’ with girls being trapped and limited by the meritocratic ideologies that purport to empower them (2008; 2009). For girls in school, the choice does not equate to empowerment:
‘If girls are positioned as, and invested in, being seen as empowered, choice- making agents, this cannot easily be reconciled with being subject to external forces or influence...Within post-girl power conditions, we perhaps need to be able to describe the experience of pain, oppression and suffering outside the terms of ‘victimhood’ and within a framework that acknowledges capacity for agency.’ (Harris and Dobson, 2015; p 153)
Post-feminism also relies on educational data as part of the argument, that girls are now so consistently outperforming their male peers in school, that they have no further need for help or attention (Bartlett and Burton, 2016). The successful ‘top girl,’ who can navigate traditional success by continuing to maintain acceptable forms of femininity, is grounded in this ‘post-girl power’ narrative. This enactment manifests as a ‘kind of antifeminism, which is
82 reliant, paradoxically on the assumption that feminism has been considered’ (McRobbie, 2007: 130). At the same time, girls’ bodies are marketed to be attractive as within the neo-liberal context; it is normal for girls to fashion themselves into heterosexually desirable subjects (Aapola, Gonick and Harris, 2005; Allan, 2009; Gill, 2009). It is essential to understand how the tensions of femininity are navigated in post-feminism to visualise how hetero-normative behaviours are still enforced and enacted (Ringrose, 2008).
Tensions are about the discourse relating to schoolgirl femininity. An possible imbalance due to a discord between mainly traditional femininity of a ‘lady’ (submissive, unproblematic, quiet); its ‘top girl’ neoliberal equivalent and a ‘ladette’ style femininity associated in recent years with working-class culture or behaviours and seen as more brash (Jackson, 2006b; Dobson, 2014). The latter ‘mean girl’ or ‘sexy girl’ is more associated with ‘risk-taking’ deviant behaviours such as excessive drinking, smoking, and ‘promiscuity’ (Ringrose, 2011; Griffin et al., 2013). Within the school setting, stereotypical ‘ladylike’ behaviour is frequently a teacher expectation and positively rewarded (Reay, 2001; Renold and Allan, 2006; Berbary, 2012; Murphy, Acosta, and Kennedy- Lewis, 2013). This expectation effectively renders those displaying more informally valued femininity, at odds with the traditional education system (Skeggs, 2005; Thomson, 2011). To compound this, those working hard for educational success are labelled ‘boffin’ or ‘geek,’ not a highly valued social currency (Francis, 2009). As Archer and colleagues argue, working-class schoolgirl femininities are less compatible with educational success (Archer, Hollingworth and Mendick, 2010) unlike their middle class counterparts (Swain, 2000; Reay, 2006; Allen and Mendick, 2013b). Indeed, Maxwell and Agggleton’s research with middle and upper class teenage girls found an increased degree of ‘agentic practice’, which young women could wield in their relationships and romantic lives (Maxwell and Aggleton, 2010, 2012, 2014) although class and femininity are discursively involved when considering how they intersect with sexuality and race (Allan and Charles, 2014).
83
Despite background class being of considerable influence upon a young women’s experience, the scope of the thesis does not allow for in-depth inclusion of this topic but would be a useful topic for future research. However, the concept of schoolgirl subjectivities being challenging to navigate and the differing value they hold will be drawn upon to conceptualise female popularity and peer groups.
The body as the site of gender production
Situating a young person, and their body, within the construct of performative gender, is critical to deconstruct the role of power structures working upon it.
Especially considering the role of social media and the schoolyard in documentation and surveillance, the young persons’ body can be considered an artefact, documenting evidence of conformity, or subversion (Arnfred, 2011; Kanai, 2015). The body is a mechanism for exclusion or acceptance, the site where the gaze falls, and one expressly communicates internalised examination of docility (Foucault, 1977; Harding, 2004; Azzarito, 2009; Johnson, Gray, and Horrell, 2013). The body is the vector for the performance in how it embodies the ‘bodily dispositions we learn as a result of positioning’ (Skeggs, 1997: 143).
The temporal nature of inscribed gendered norms is vital to consider. How a body is gendered over time is not a linear process but is informed by ‘moments of praxis or living through these norms by the individual’ (McNay, 2000:26). Some moments or experiences will be more influential than others in forming a sense of social gender norms, or knowledge of how to enact approved norms and what choices to make. The body is not only regulated by its internal gaze, but through the actions of others upon it. The embodiment of excellence and success – academic, sporting, and aesthetic bodily achievements needs to take place for someone to be considered successful
84 by peers, teachers and other adults in their life (Renold and Allan, 2006). It is a competitive culture where bodies are ranked (Paechter, 2013), and the standards are set so high they are impossible to meet (Halse, Honey, and Boughtwood, 2007) that it creates impossible dichotomies to navigate concurrently.
The embodiment of sex into gender is argued to be a product of social and cultural capital (Skeggs, 1997). The collectively constructed gender ideal dictates what and how girls invest in to produce forms of power (Youdell, 2005). Researchers suggest that what is defined as a valued appropriate notions of femininity are contradictory and impossible to attain (Hey, 1997; Skeggs, 1997; Youdell, 2005; Myhill and Jones, 2006; Paechter, 2006; Archer, Halsall and Hollingworth, 2007; Allan, 2010; Duncan, N., and Owens, 2011; Wong, 2012; Griffin et al., 2013; Warrington and Younger, 2014). The binaries of whore/virgin; unrespectable/respectable; ladette/feminine; cool/geek; desirable/intelligent; fat/skinny are difficult discursive positions to inhabit concurrently. Girls are more ‘fixed’ to a binary position compared to their male counterparts, although it can be possible to inhabit a ‘third space’ given enough resources (Ringrose, 2007; Skeggs, 1997, Youdell, 2005; Cixous, 1986; Archer, 2007; Reay, 2001; Griffin, 2013, Skelton, 2009). Ultimately whichever subjectivity a girl aims and attempts to inhabit, there are costs and pitfalls related to each performance (Youdell, 2006).
Removing the man: posthumanism feminism In recent years, some academics have sought to reposition further the feminist analysis within a construct that does not position men atop a social apex, through removing the hierarchy imbued in ‘human.’ Post-humanist feminism sees the human as irrevocably tied to the notion of white male power and is therefore unhelpful as a context within which to challenge (Braidotti; 2018). Through ‘a serious de-centring of ‘Man’, the former measure of all things’ (Braidotti, 2013: 2), it attempts to re-benchmark feminist aspirations through the repositioning of feminism outside the traditional and
85 constraining, structure. This structure has been a valuable tool for some researchers to analyse their data, enabling them to consider more material and nonhuman components that comprise female subordination (Ringrose and Rawlings, 2015; Bozalek and Zembylas, 2016; Niccolini et al. 2018).
Within this revision of the notion of the species, space is created for alternative considerations of the body within space. Technology within feminism and the body has been furthered by Donna Haraway who attempts to dissolve the distinctions between nature and culture, and nature and technology, with embodiment of the technology into the self, as part of a Deluzian assemblage (Barad, 2007; Haraway, 2013). Researchers have found this useful when considering the specific material agents within a context (Ringrose and Rawlings, 2015), and have sought to define this form of analysis of PhEmaterialism, to reflect the feminine, post-human and material methods applied to deconstruction and interrogation (Renold and Ringrose, 2019).
Resisting the binary
It is through the notion of impossible successful femininity that access to power is curtailed (Connell, 2005). This situation is underwritten by white male privilege, which ultimately determines and defines successful gender and appropriate femininity. However, it is within these very binaries that the potential is contained to challenge and resist these ‘truths. Femininities are fragmented and haphazard, (Hey, 1997; Raby, 2005), and therefore appear in multiple guises. How we perform gender can be normalising, but also has the potential to be experimental (McKenzie, 2001; Locke, 2015).
This understanding enables multiple forms of femininities to exist, which fall outside the binary notions of other femininities. By challenging the binaries of what is assumed natural and taken for granted, resistance can occur (Kristeva, 2015). McNay concurs with this performative construct, which
86 ‘inscribes and sediments norms upon the body and permits the emergence of a subject capable of resisting those norms’ (2003: 142).
Understanding the formation of subjectivities enables resistance to naturalised gender and challenges the social narrative (Cixous, 1981). Understanding how the subjective self forms in opposition to those who claim power over it is key to resisting (Davis, 1993; Hey, 1997, Foucault, 1990). Currie’s work on Skater Girls (2009); Pomerantz and Raby’s research with Smart Girls (2017) and research on teenage feminisms, all provide examples of how our traditional norms are being resisted in favour of alternative options, using social media to resist and counter the rape culture (Keller, 2016); and joining school-based feminist clubs (Kim and Ringrose, 2018).
It is essential to recognise that resistance does not just encompass traditional protest, but should consider digital activism as a mechanism through which girls can express their agency (Retallack, Ringrose and Lawrence, 2016). Research on creating digital spaces for resistance references how participants are ‘cultural contributors and political agents’ (Keller, 2015: 431). Other research has found this to be a sub-set of peer culture, with small groups finding virtual safe spaces that expand the traditional feminist classroom, enclave, or ‘safe space’ (Guillard, 2016). These acts of expression, within ‘microstructure of power,’ (Stromquist, 1995) are essential to consider when analysing how girls navigate and resist the hegemonic framework both in school and online.
However, we must be careful not to conflate agency and resistance as seen via the post-feminist lens as Harris and Dobson caution:
‘…in post-girl power times, young women are invited to see themselves as inherently powerful; that is, a priori empowered, choice-making agents. ‘Speaking up’ and demonstrating ‘empowerment’ or ‘resistance’ are complexly entwined with governmentality and gendered subjectification processes. We have suggested that we need to interrogate the idea that girls are able to
87 resist patriarchy simply by claiming their own choices’. (2015: 152).
Resistance to dominant discourses about how to do schoolgirl femininity are vital to consider within the complex context. Schoolgirl subjectivity can too easily be positioned within a formulaic and naturalised construct and treading a path in-between can feel impossible. Girls are demanded to perform a femininity that inhabits both sides of the binary concurrently, and the consequences for failing serve to shame the body and provide an example to others. However, the contradictions within this power construct create the space from which to resist it. Particular attention will be paid to understand agency and resistance within the neoliberal context in which it is situated – in order to reveal separate ‘genuine’ resistance from articulations of the neoliberal post-feminist agency. The role of the school in this production is critical to examine, in how it tacitly and overtly sanctions particular discursive behaviours and neoliberal ideologies.
School as a site for gender reproduction and inequality
School is a complicated site to conduct research. It has multiple aims, the prioritisation of which can cause tension and contestation. It is a site where the foundations of future careers lie, where friendships emerge and where young people not only learn how to study but how to navigate and interact with each other. Young people spend a significant proportion of their waking hours within its confines, and as such, it plays a fundamental role in forming subjectivities of young people. School is undeniably influential:
‘However, much we now recognise that cultures are riddled with inequality, differential understanding, and differential advantage...nonetheless they remain from the people who live within them sources of value, meaning and ways of understanding-and resisting-the world’ (Rosenblum and Travis, 2003: 130)
88 School is the primary location where young people understand, form, and negotiate their subjective self in the process of social adaption (Fuller, 2014). This review will now consider the relationship between the role of schools and hierarchies and gender norms.
The hierarchies in education Education policy has enabled an increased focus and accountability on schools – the publication of performance tables in the 1980s, to offer parental choice, has led to a system of scrutiny and surveillance (Perryman et al., 2011; Ball, 2016; Hall and Gunter, 2016; Gunter et al., 2017). This examination has driven schools to become highly competitive sites nationally, regionally, as well as internally (Braun, Ball, and Maguire, 2011). Rank ordering is normal within the school context (Gunter, 2018).
At the heart of the school are observation and instruction. Teaching staff aim to regulate the student body to gain academic attainment. The performance of schools in this endeavour is, in turn, monitored and regulated by the government, and governing bodies. Pupils are at the heart of this regulation:
‘Evidence about performance is based on pupil outcomes, classroom observation, and personal statements. Pupils become objects and targets, and the Headteacher and senior management are publicly accountable.’ (Perryman et al., 2011)
For many, this competition and monitoring create a competitive environment academically; students are set ‘by ability’ or ranked on tests and are pushed to be the ‘best they can be’ (Renold and Allan, 2006; Paechter, 2013). Students are often compared to their peers on their academic performance, but also in how they perform on the sports pitch; in the music room and how passively they move between classrooms. They are continually under scrutiny and asked to compare themselves to each other. It is perhaps unsurprising that the competitive climate of ranking translates into informal peer cultures. The school is a site for not only teachers to monitor and rank students, but for
89 students to monitor and rank each other (Rich and Evans, 2009; Johnson, Gray, and Horrell, 2013).
Given this complex context, is it unsurprising that school can be both a site of opportunity, but also one of harm as Ortner’s research highlights how the school site can be a place of injustice and unkindness (2002). Each benefit is seemingly partnered with a negative – striving to attain academically can lead to later life success but cause significant stress and pressure in some, and educational disengagement in others. There are well-documented mental health issues amongst the many challenges young people face in school (Reiss, 2013). Developing friendships and learning social interactions can be fraught with bullying, drama, and exclusion.
It is observed in the literature that schools find it challenging to act and enforce their policies for online interactions that take place within their grounds. Although the school, as a site of learning, includes within it lessons how to use the internet (Grace et al., 2014), educational establishments have complicated relationships with their students’ online activity. Schools have targeted policies to police online activity (Vanderhoven, Valcke, and Schellens, 2009), yet researchers have found considerable variation in how they deal with situations that arise online. There is an inconsistency with how they demarcate their jurisdiction, punish abuse, educate their pupils, and up- skill their teachers to enact policies (Hasebrink et al., 2009; Pearce et al., 2011; Addington, 2013; DeSmet et al., 2015). This inconsistency may create unpoliced spaces for further inequality to entrench itself.
Reproducing gender inequality The effect of the school on gender is significant – it acts as both an influencer and an informant. It is the site where gender is sanctioned, enacted, and punished, and upon which many differences interact to define appropriate gender roles with the localised class and ethnicity contexts (Crenshaw, 2016).
90 School is perceived as a community of practice (Thorne, 1993), which influences the construction of gender and the context surrounding it. It is the site of reproducing patriarchal norms (Stromquist, 1995), not just through informal social interactions, but formal education structures.
The curriculum, for example, is heavily gendered, where the voice heard through textbooks if often that of the dominating forces (Connell, 1995). This voice is packaged as ‘traditional’ but rather reflects the white male voices instead of women, LGBTQ, and those of different ethnicities (Kim and Ringrose, 2018). Within the current climate of achievement and test-based education, Ball laments that there is little space left for discussion of diversity or exposure to multiple discourses (2016).
There is also a particular emphasis on the gendered nature of classroom interactions, where teachers favour different behaviours in students depending on their gender. For example, deviant behaviour is more permissible in males and more heavily admonished in females (Francis, 2000; Reay, 2005, 2015; Renold, 2006). Females and males are also held to account in different ways, most notably recently incidents of uniform – forcing girls to wear skirts instead of trousers; or skirts of a particular length for fear of ‘enticing’ boys (Morris, 2005; Happel, 2013). School subjects are particularly gendered as well, in particular, the concept of ‘harder and softer’ subjects which are seen as ‘male’ or ‘female’ (Skelton et al., 2006; Archer, Halsall, and Hollingworth, 2007; Wong, 2012).
It is worth remembering that such inequality lies within a postfeminist narrative – in a landscape that posits girls are successful, and boys must be the focus of intervention (McRobbie, 2007; Renold and Ringrose, 2013). More recently, the eugenics education movement, articulate that differences in class, gender, and race are more attributable to genetics rather than context. These lines of argument may begin to negatively contribute to efforts to overcome inequality if not considered carefully (Gillborn, 2016; Youdell, 2016; Martschenko, Trejo, and Domingue, 2019).
91 Concluding summary There is sufficient evidence in the literature to support the need for further research regarding how social media, gender discourses and knowledge interact within the education systems to advance understanding of the individual’s gendered self in reproducing and challenging socially constructed ‘school girl’ expectations (Davis, 1991; Hey, 1997; Weedon, 1997). There is a need for more exposure to diverse discourses to challenge and resist the hegemonic framework, which now maps as strongly online as it does offline – impacting young people countless times a day. By drawing on Foucault, Butler, and other theorists, it is hoped the research will achieve a better understanding of the day-to-day experiences of schoolgirls and contribute to the literature on gender, education, and digital sociology.
92 3. Methodology
Introduction
The research aims to uncover detailed and perceptive understandings of how young women use social media in school and how it affects their schoolgirl subjectivities. The section will outline the methodological approach taken in order to achieve this. The meaning young people place on schoolgirl femininity, and how this informs their online and in-school experiences, is currently little understood. It is an arena where politicians and experts readily provide analysis, but the young people’s voices are often left unheard. The qualitative approach of this research, therefore, aims to bring young women’s understandings of these experiences to the fore, and is outlined in the methodological approach below.
In order to explore the complexities of how peer relations and schoolgirl femininity are negotiated and contested in a digital age in school, it was necessary to conduct a qualitative exploration of the meaning and interpretation young women place on these experiences. This chapter outlines the research questions and reflections from the pilot study conducted in 2015. It then moves on to discuss the research design and sampling and theoretical underpinnings of the methodology, describing how my approach best allows for the exploration of the research questions. Subsequent sections provide an overview of the data instruments and approach to data analysis that supports these theoretical groundings. The last sections explore the trustworthiness and reliability of the approach and how this research considered ethics and sensitivity throughout the study. It lastly considers the limitations to the methodology, outlining the claims that can be substantiated by the data and those that cannot.
93 Research design
Study overview The data generation for this qualitative inquiry took place between March 2016-July 2017. It adopted an in-depth qualitative approach to explore the experiences and perceptions of 54 teenage girls aged between 12-15, across three schools in South East England. Data were collected predominantly through small group interviews, where the girls selected who joined them for the interview, in some cases opting to be interviewed alone. The study used semi-structured interview schedules to explore issues of peer popularity, friendships, and relationships, both online and offline, in schools. Although interviews took place in school, the topics predominantly related to the girl’s online experiences, with the school site discussed when it related or intersected with the digital. To support the interviews, I used the draw-and-tell, a visual research method, to help the interviewees to articulate peer hierarchies and asking them to use their smartphone both as a prompt and as an observational tool. Throughout the data generation process, I kept journals and notes of my theories and thoughts, which later informed my analysis. In the analysis, I was interested to understand how discourse shapes the experiences and perceptions of the young women I spoke with and drew heavily upon a theoretical framework around power and gender performativity to help me understand what I saw in the data. Given the sensitivity of the topic, and working with minors, I navigated several ethical issues, through seeking ethical approval, and through the study itself.
The study revolved around one overarching research question, combined with four sub-questions that informed the structure and approach of the doctoral research.
94 Research Question
How is schoolgirl femininity produced, and what are the influences upon its construction?
Sub questions 1) What are the contextual factors in which schoolgirl femininity is situated, and how do they inform the gender performance? 2) What are the prevailing discourses of schoolgirl femininity, and how are they constructed and performed both online and offline? 3) What is the role of peer hierarchies and social media in maintaining and reproducing schoolgirl femininity? 4) How are these notions of schoolgirl femininity enforced and challenged?
These research questions evolved over the first few years of the doctoral study and gained significance with the insights from the pilot study.
Pilot Study A pilot study was conducted in January 2015 to help refine the research focus on peer popularity and test data generation instruments.
One principal aim was to try a new data generation instrument: a participant diary scrapbook where participants could record their social interactions over a week and then use it as a prompt during a semi-structured interview. There had been limited research conducted this way to date, and this pilot aimed to test its feasibility and ability to generate in-depth, meaningful data, especially considering the sensitive nature of the research focus.
Pilot Design I conducted a small in-depth qualitative study, focused on how peer groups interact and create influence in a localised context. The role of the pilot study was to test data generation methods, mainly the scrapbook diary, as a
95 method for understanding the relationship between online and offline peer popularity. Four semi-interviews with girls were planned, driven by a participant scrapbook. Conceptually, the pilot aimed to explore popularity and peer networks, through the lens of class and gender. Manchester Research Ethics Committee approved the study in September 2014. The study took place in January 2015 after informed written consent was gained from the parents’, and the girls themselves.
The research aimed to answer the following questions:
1. How do pupils understand popularity in schools serving socioeconomically disadvantaged communities? 2. How do social status and hierarchy map on to online social platforms? 3. Does socioeconomic background influence the style of social media usage? 4. How do these interactions affect their educational experience?
The plan for the data generation was as follows:
a. Co-Construction: To meet each girl individually to talk through the scrapbook for around 20 minutes. We co-constructed the scrapbook by running through different ideas of how to gather and store information. Each scrapbook would be unique to the student and reflect their preferences for self-expression (written by hand, video-log, online, printing out photos, drawing). To support this, I offered them each a blank diary and a selection of materials and pens. b. Check-in I was available for the duration of the project to answer questions or ‘check-in’ with the girls. c. Interview: The follow-up interview was six days after the initial meeting, and each interview lasted 30 minutes.
96 Twelve girls were asked to take part; six returned consent forms, but only four were present on the days I was in school. Two girls preferred to share an interview; so, three interviews took place in total. Potential participants came from school staff recommendations after I requested to speak to a selection of girls from different social groupings. One teacher Sarah provided insights into the social groupings, and were she felt the girls fit into the social hierarchy. This insight proved to be reasonably accurate agreeing with the girls’ self- identification of their social status. After a partial transcription of the data, it was coded it thematically, focusing on how peer popularity manifested and affected how young people interact online and offline.
Pilot methodological conclusions The diary method, ultimately, proved to be a failure. The participants seemed initially excited by the materials I provided, but they all forgot to bring the diary to the interview the next week, thereby only filling in a few days before forgetting. This result is understandable; I was not around in school as a ‘visual reminder,’ or even to check in with them. Nezlek gives a cautionary warning when designing diary-style studies, he states the repetitive and seemingly unimportant nature of the tasks, far from the researcher, often puts off all but the keenest research participants (university students!). With this in mind:
‘[D]iary studies need to be designed with an understanding of what is realistic to expect of participants, and these expectations need to take into account the life circumstances of the participants.’ (Nezlek, 2012: 18)
I feel that the approach I took failed to account for these circumstances and that I would not consider reusing this approach unless I dramatically changed my research questions or offered sizeable incentives. Offering incentives can, however, be ethically difficult, especially with vulnerable young people, as substantial incentives can be more coercive if the incentive is so significant as to remove someone’s free will to take part. Given that I also could not change the amount of time I spent in school, it was unwise to continue with a method requiring regular in-person reminders.
97 Similarly, the pilot highlighted the challenges of sampling in schools and the necessity to ‘over-sample’ to allow for attrition. However, the pilot revealed the value of small group interviews – I noticed a difference in how the two girls interviewed together interacted with each other, and with me compared to the two individual interviews. The pair interview appeared to generate greater depth and insights as the girls felt more comfortable, and would on occasion, nudge or remind each other of something they wanted to say. Having a close friend present led them to disclose more personal information to a relative outsider, compared to the individual interviews.
Pilot theoretical conclusions Despite some methodological failings, the interview data gathered from the pilot was insightful. It played a significant role in shaping the research design by deepening my understanding of how popularity manifested within the school, and how young people conceptualised and experienced social media.
Several striking findings identified in the pilot influenced the main study: the double standard in how girls and boys comport themselves online, the difference in how popular girls used social media, compared to less popular peers, and the role of social media as a method of control. The pilot confirmed and reinforced my belief that Foucault’s work would be valuable to help an analysis of the data generated during interviews with young people.
Similarly, to how Foucault described the development of rifles in Discipline and Punishment (1977: 139), social media merely appeared to be a new way to order social control. This was confirmed that when analysing themes of power and its relationship with peer popularity and gender in the pilot, both Foucault and Butler were critical for unveiling structures and hierarchy. The pilot study also demonstrated how much change had taken place between my master’s research, even though only three years had elapsed –This time there was no mention of Blackberry Messenger, while Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook were at the forefront of the young women’s descriptions of their
98 experiences. The pilot study was fundamental in shifting the research focus towards these online/offline spaces – as it aims to understand how the online space influenced the offline school experience with regards to peer relationships and popularity.
The pilot was also valuable as a benchmark throughout the design of the study, with further insights discussed in the sections below. Research turns to the main study, and an outline of the research setting, including a description of the participating schools.
Research Setting
The study took place in three schools across the South East of England and was designed to develop rich data from across three school hierarchies and cultures. Conducting the research in this manner allowed me to understand the social practices, behaviours, and localised influences within the schools, particularly between the social groupings.
School selection In order to understand how social media and schoolgirl femininity interact, the schools selected needed to be varied in their intersection of socioeconomic, ethnicity, and gender make-up. Schools were purposively selected based upon how likely they were to add value to understanding how localised discourses inform the practice of doing schoolgirl femininity.
There were several other practical issues considered in the school selection. As I worked full time throughout the data generation, it was essential to ensure schools selected were a short train ride or drive from London. Therefore, my search was limited to those I could either drive or travel by train to within an hour. Given that I resided at the time in central South London, this left me with a wide array of choices.
99 Similarly, not working in school meant access was difficult. My links with Teach First (as an ex-participant, and an ex-employee), with education (as a Primary School Governor) and education research (as an evaluator of programs for the Education Endowment Foundation and the Department for Education) meant I had visited many schools over my career and had developed networks with teachers and senior leaders. I drew upon my network to gain access to the three schools, and by chance, each reflected a different relationship I held with education. The first school had teachers I had visited through my work in research at Teach First (Estuary Academy), the second school came through a friend who worked there whom I knew from teaching (Chingford School), and the last school came through a fellow governor at the primary school (Milner’s Academy). The schools all differed from one another in their geography and the community they served. All were mixed gender and state funded.
Despite these good connections, accessing schools was still very challenging. I approached over ten connections before reaching my three sites. Schools are busy places, so although teachers and senior leaders were generally interested in my study, converting this interest to time in school to conduct research took multiple meetings and set up visits before data generation could take place. See Appendix 2 for the initial correspondence with Headteachers.
Marrying these challenges with working full time meant I occasionally had to postpone or delay a set-up meeting, due to issues arising at work. The combination of these factors meant it often took 4-5 months of negotiation before obtaining access to a school site.
I initially intended to conduct research at only Estuary Academy, but then a third of the way through data generation, the selected school dropped out, as they stated they had received a concerning report from Ofsted and could no longer accommodate a researcher. This news meant I had to update my school recruitments strategy in order to ensure I had enough depth of data for
100 my study. Reflecting upon my experience in one school led me to sample two further schools, as I was particularly interested in how the peer groups functioned within different contexts (see Appendix 4 for themes identified in the first school and explored in the subsequent schools). I firstly secured Chingford School and then several months after that gained access to Milner’s Academy. Both Chingford and Milner’s were different from Estuary and each other – Estuary served a close white working-class community an hour from London, Chingford is situated in a semi-suburban commuter town on the London fringes while Milner’s is an archetypal inner-city London school, with a mixture of high affluence and high deprivation. The three schools are in three very different geographical contexts and these varying locations allowed me to explore popularity and femininity in a range of different contexts. In all, the data generation took place between September 2016 and December 2017 – over two academic school years and, despite the challenge and length of time it took, I was happy with the outcome. An overview is below with in-depth descriptions provided below.
The schools All names of schools and pupils have been anonymised to protect identities.
1) Estuary Academy, Medway, serving pupils from traditional low-income White British community based around post-World War 2 housing estates. 2) Chingford School, Essex; serving pupils from a suburban and ethnically diverse commuter town on the outskirts of London, with mixed housing stock. 3) Milner’s Academy, Inner-city London, serving a recently gentrified neighbourhood with large housing estates and predominantly Black African and Black Caribbean families adjacent to leafy streets with large Victorian homes and apartments for socioeconomically affluent families.
101 Estuary Academy, Medway – traditional low-income White British community This school is an academy converter, a result of historic low attainment. It reopened within the last five years, as part of the government expansion of academies and free schools. It is part of a small multi-academy trust. It is situated in an established white-working class community with the majority of local employment opportunities being low skilled or blue-collar roles. According to the Index of Multiple Deprivation, the pupils live in neighbourhoods that range from 10% to 30% of the most deprived in the UK. The school has approximately 25% disadvantaged pupils and 1% English as an Additional Language [EAL]. 12 The school was taken over in the early 2010s as its previous academic results were under 25% A*-C at GCSE. The majority of pupils come from a few sizeable post-war council estates. The school has limited ethnic diversity, and most EAL pupils came from white Eastern European backgrounds. The school is within the catchment area of grammar schools, attended by selected pupils who perform highly in their entrance examinations. Staff reflected that pupils often joined the school with low self-confidence. Its most recent Progress 8 score was below average, as was the attendance rates of pupils. These factors mean that, according to national standards, pupils did not make the desired progress during their time at the school compared to the national average. The schools’ most recent inspection was ‘Good’. School rules state that pupils are not allowed to have mobile phones turned on during the day.
Chigford School, Essex – suburban commuter town The school is in a suburban neighbourhood, with easy access to central London via public transport. It has a mixed intake of pupils, with approximately 25% classified as disadvantaged; 27% EAL with pupils coming from a range
12 All data in this section accessed from the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2015; http://dclgapps.communities.gov.uk/imd/idmap.html and School Characteristics 2016 https://www.compare-school- performance.service.gov.uk/ [accessed June 2018]
102 of ethnic backgrounds including South-East Asian, Arabic, and Black Caribbean and Black African. The local economy is mixed, with many residents commuting to central London. The area is mixed with post-war housing estates, semi-detached mid-century properties, and social housing blocks of flats. The school achieved average progress in its most recent Progress 8 scores. The school intake is mixed economically, with pupils coming from neighbourhoods in the 30% least deprived to the 10% most deprived wards in the UK. The school’s most recent inspection was ‘Good’. Mobile phones are permitted in school but must be turned off during lessons.
Milner’s Academy, Inner city London – gentrified and contrasting Milner’s Academy is an established successful academy chain in London. Its most recent inspection was ‘Outstanding’. It is situated in a contrasting neighbourhood, that typifies gentrified inner London (Zone 2); leafy roads with properties valued at over a million pounds sit side by side with council estates that suffer from overcrowding. There is an ethnically diverse intake, with Black Caribbean students and Black African students the most significant ethnic grouping aside from White British. Employment opportunities are mixed and secure, with many transport links to different types of employment across the city. The school is oversubscribed and has a mixed intake of pupils from a small surrounding area – its catchment area ranges from the 20% most deprived to 20% least deprived wards in the UK. In the most recent Progress 8, it received average; 36% of the pupils categorised as disadvantaged; 15% are EAL. Mobile phones are permitted in school but must be turned off during lessons.
Participant Sampling As I was interested in how girls performed their schoolgirl femininity, it was logical to research in secondary schools, since puberty had started for many, and they had begun adolescence. The insight was developed through my experience as a secondary school teacher and form tutor to Year 8s. Other
103 researchers also highlight that this is the age for the student when identity and gender issues strongly emerge:
‘[F]iguring out “who” we are and “who” we want to be is an urgent task as young people move from family-based to peer-orientated identities. As a time of physiological maturation, adolescence overlaps with heightened awareness of the gendered and sexualised nature of our social identities. Puberty is a time when cultural inscription of gender and sexuality are readily observable.’ (Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz, 2009: 2)
From my time as a secondary school French teacher, I observed that in Year Group 8, 9 and 10 school hierarchies were most influential in a schoolgirl’s experience. This observation led me to focus on these three age groups between 12-15 years of age, and excluding those in Year 7, as they were relatively new the school, and Year 11s, it is was a critical year for examinations and I felt that schools would prefer that I not ask for time from this age group.
For each school, I was assigned a link teacher to help co-ordinate my research (aside from in Chigford, where my friend co-ordinated). These teachers distributed consent forms and information sheets to an array of female students across Years 8, 9, and 10 who they felt were from a range of different peer groupings (see Appendix 1). The pilot study had given me confidence in teacher ability to reasonably identify broad peer social strata, also to reflect on the range of girls self-identified peer groups (see the next section for a detailed overview). In our set-up meetings, I discussed with the teachers my aim to understand the school hierarchies and asked them to send consent forms to girls from a cross-section of friendship groups and cliques from different peer groups.
Although it is typical to sample a homogenous group of participants (Kvale, 2007; Morgan and Krueger, 2013). Other research found it particularly beneficial to go further and sample friend groups when working with young
104 people (Lewis, 1992). Interviewing by friendship groups is seen to reveal peer hierarchies and groupings within school (Ringrose and Harvey, 2015: 21).This identification not only enhances understanding of group dynamics but also provides young people with security through affinity with their friends (Barbour, 2005, 2007).
Insights from the pilot study also informed this decision, where I saw the benefit of how friends bounced ideas off one another and gave each other confidence to discuss issues that may have been embarrassing or taboo. Girls self-selected the others they would interview with or asked to be interviewed by themselves. Self-selected groups of 3 were the most common, with only one group of four and three girls by themselves. (Appendix 14 for a table detailing the number of participants per interview). Providing the girls with the responsibility to select the participant ensured they felt comfortable with the other girls during the interview. This selection process also contributed to the ownership I was trying to foster, helping redress the power imbalance of an adult researcher speaking to a group of minors (Pascoe, 2012).
In the interviews, I asked the girls to draw the peer groups and hierarchies in school, and then share where they fell on the peer hierarchies, which I added to their sample information (Appendix 5 and 6). Example drawings are found in Appendix 8, and more details on this method outlined later in this chapter. As discussed below, the social status of a girl appeared to affect their experience of schoolgirl femininity more than other factors and more than the school they attended. This information led me to focus my sampling around the social status of the girl, as it was such an influence upon their everyday experience of schoolgirl femininity.
Across the three schools, four different categories of social status were identified, and these categories were subsequently used to organise the sample. Although the language was different depending on the girls’ group. the ‘popular’ group divided into two groups with a large middle group and then
105 a smaller ‘least’ popular group. Figure 1 provides an overview of the hierarchical structure typically described by the participants, alongside the language they used. The positivity and negativity present in their language highlight how differently girls conceptualise peer hierarchies depending upon their own social status and how they understand the perceptions and experiences of each other.
Using the self-reported assessment of their social status, I then incorporated this information into the sampling data, to understand the social diversity of my sample. Across the three schools, there was a range of peer hierarchies, as the table shows:
Table 1 Sample overview
Name Location Most Popular Middle Least Participant popular Popular total Estuary Medway 6 5 6 4 21 Academy Chigford Essex 3 7 6 2 18 School Milner’s Inner 1 3 6 5 15 Academy London
Overall 10 15 18 11 54
In total, there were 54 girls interviewed. Detailed sample information is found in Appendix 5. Their pseudonym, year groups, and position on the hierarchy is mapped in Appendix 6. I also added the ‘most’ popular girl if multiple girls referenced them, but they were not interviewed (their names are italicised). All girls had the chance to create a pseudonym, as part of the interview set up. The table above, therefore, represents the girls’ self-assessed location on the hierarchy they had previously drawn earlier in the interview.
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Figure 1 A diagram of the peer hierarchy across the sample schools
Theoretical sampling Theoretical sampling was a valuable tool, particularly given the constraints of the study. I had originally intended to conduct the research in one school, but after conducting interviews with 21 girls at Estuary Academy, the school said it could no longer accommodate the research due to a letter from Ofsted. After that, they refused to allow me back on to the premises citing additional pressures and staff turnover. However, although this initially provided a setback, and delayed data generation, it allowed for a first initial stage of analysis of the data to take place and provided a moment of reflection from which I could pivot the participant sampling and interview topics based upon insights from the first third of the interviews. See Appendix 4 for additional lines of inquiry. This investigation drew upon theoretical sampling to help navigate and reflect upon the data gathered so far, and how this would impact the future study.
During data generation at Estuary and initial analysis, it became clear that the differences in experience lay between social strata – the popular girls’ experience of schoolgirl femininity was broadly parallel to each other across
107 the year groups. This conclusion led me to theorise whether the similarity translated to other schools. Therefore, two new schools were selected, within the South East of England, with the aim to explore how social hierarchy and gender are experienced across different sites. I was then interested in understanding more about this social-strata-influenced experience and therefore, sampled in two further schools to understand how social hierarchies mapped the girls’ experience. I was interested in understanding how the localised gender and power networks interacted within social media, and all the schools I sampled were, therefore, different in that respect. These experiences, therefore, centred the unit of analysis on peer popularity and aided the in-depth exploration of schoolgirl femininity.
Before moving on to discuss the girls’ experiences and the methods used to capture these experiences, it is vital to situate the thesis epistemologically. The meaning the girls placed on their experience is diverse and dependent upon a variety of factors, including their unique worldview. This chapter now moves on to position the notions of truth, reality, and meaning within a socially constructed paradigm and articulates how it will conceptually approach the analysis of power, performance, and resistance.
Epistemological approach
‘Not all theories are applicable in all situations – it is important to ask whether or not the theory being utilised is appropriate for the context in which it is being put to work’ (Rasmussen, 2018: 62)
This research, as outlined previously, is concerned with understanding experiences of adolescent girls – how they form their femininity and contest peer popularity while navigating online and offline spaces. Ontological and epistemological concerns shape all aspects of the research process, informing the design through to the analysis (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2011).This section will, therefore, interrogate the theoretical approaches being
108 put to use – outlining the methodological nature of truth, reality and meaning, and conceptualising how these, alongside power, performance and resistance, shape the research.
Conceptualising truth
Historically research has been tied to either a positivist or interpretivist standpoint – the former considering the quantified nature of reality, being objective, predictable, causal, and pattern forming. The latter is inverse – subjective, diverse, and unpredictable. Where reality occurs on this spectrum affects every part of the research process. It is also essential to consider how the research focus affects the position of the research; and the researchers’ standpoint on knowledge and reality. For example, those that aim to understand the efficacy of a new medicine position themselves differently from studies like this one, which aims to understand how more invisible forces influence a person’s reality. Although arguably the effect of a pill is mostly invisible, targeting an illness that may be hard to see, the effects upon the illness are expressed in a way that can be quantified. However, the effects pill experienced may vary considerably and may manifest differently depending on a person’s viewpoint and prior experience. This complexity in how a study can be viewed highlights that the positive/interpretivist standpoints may be a false dichotomy. However, theorists such as Dimitriadis and Kamberelis have sought to clarify by situating the research in the multiple ways of reading the world, and the purpose of reading it in a particular way (Kamberalis and Dimitriadis, 2005). Biesta outlines how these approaches are functional – and should shift depending on whether it is ‘research that aims to explain [objectivism], research that aims to understand [interpretivism]’ (Biesta, 2011: 226). As opposed to a study being either positive or interpretivist, it can be both, depending on how the phenomenon in question is being conceptualised and understood. For Ramussen, this understanding highlights, ‘how the theory we use is situated, relative to other purposes of research’ (2018: 59).
109 Conceptualising reality
Reality contains both objective and subjective elements. Causality can be seen when one action irrefutably leads to others. For example, stepping out in front of a bus, can lead to death or significant damage. However, this study is much more concerned with understanding how individuals make sense of their experiences, as opposed to uncovering causal implications for their actions. This understanding places prominence on a reality created within, and formed in, an individual’s minds (Weber, 1947). The reality, and the meaning placed on their reality is constructed through social interactions. These interactions are subjective, localised, and do not fit into neat or predictable patterns. As this type of reality can only be subjectively known, understanding a person’s interpretation and construction of it is, therefore, crucial to study the social interactions. When considering the domains of experience, we must remain mindful of the many ways in which an experience is interpreted. Joseph Maxwell provides us with an example of a fight – that could be simultaneously mean different things to different actors: a joke, bullying, attention seeking, unfair or justified. It is essential to consider these multiple interpretations that may exist within one temporal experience (Maxwell, 2013).
Our domains in this social reality are all-encompassing and are considered to be all that can be experienced (Sayer, 2000). However, when understanding the domains of reality, it is essential to consider the digital – as Rich and Miah posit that reality includes the material and immaterial. So those digital representations of a body, or a conversation, should not be ontologically relegated to a lower value or experience (Rich and Miah, 2009). Selwyn also discusses the inherent understanding of digital data:
‘[P]olitical in nature- loaded with values, interests, and assumptions that shape and limit what is done with it and by whom…acknowledging data are profoundly shaping of, as well as shaped by, social interests’ (Selwyn, 2015:
110 60).
Different experiences lead to different people or cultures, placing different meanings upon the reality, they occupy at the time they occupy it. Our cultural microcosm directs how and what to see in our experience: ‘a way of seeing is a way of not seeing’ (Oakley, 1974: 27). This leads us to embrace the existence of multiple truths or realities, which is why a qualitative approach which focuses on lived experiences is pertinent to address the research focus of this study (Crotty, 1998; Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007; Greenfield and Jensen, 2010; Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2011).
Conceptualising meaning
This approach draws on the tradition of social constructionism. This approach considers the world and its reality and meanings to be constructed through social interactions. It explores the subjective understandings of peer relationships in online and offline contexts through how they are negotiated and contested. This approach leads to the meaning being constructed in different, localised ways – not in predictable structures or patterns.
These young women experience their world through immersion, conversations, and interactions with actors, experiences, and objects. Although the world upon which this meaning is placed already exists, or is ‘always already there’ (Heidegger and Hofstadter, 1988; Merleau-Ponty, 2013) elements of the world do not have meaning until placed upon it. Constructionism is appropriate for this study because it combines both objective and subjective viewpoints – it advocates that pre-existing phenomena are given a variety of meanings by the people and the cultures that have grown up around them. As Lyotard expresses, it is our consciousness that considers an object:
111 ‘[C]onsciousness is always consciousness of, and there is no object which is not an object for. There is no immanence of the object to consciousness unless one correlatively assigns the object a rational meaning, without which the object would not be an object for. Concept or meaning is not exterior to Being; rather, Being is immediately concept in itself, and the concept is Being for itself.’ (Lyotard, 1991: 65)
As an object can only be understood through a human experiencing it: a mobile phone has no purpose without a human interacting with it and creating meaning through their experiences. Digital technology is an example of an object that ‘is meaningless in itself but has a vital part to play in the generation of meaning’ (Crotty, 2013: 48).
However, this research is not just considering physical objects within the world but meaning placed on social phenomena like the interactions between individuals that take place on smartphones and in person. As Greenwood explains, these phenomena are social realities, purely created by humans that are not a product of a relationship between our consciousness and an object.
‘Social phenomena do not exist independently of our knowledge of them...Social realities, therefore, are constructed and sustained by the observation of the social rules which obtain in any social situation by all the social interactors involved...Social reality is, therefore, a function of shared meanings; it is constructed, sustained, and reproduced through social life.’ (Greenwood, 1994: 85)
Meanings are built up in layers, whether conscious or unconscious, historical or present: ‘the social word is already interpreted before the social scientist arrives’ (Blaikie, 2007: 36). It is essential to understand participants’ construction of meanings and how their interpretations lie within these layers of meaning. It is ‘gasping the frames of meaning involved in the production of social life...reconstituting these within the new frames of meaning’ (Giddens, 2013: 79). The approach helps to delve not only into a young person’s
112 understanding of how they use social media but the broader cultural and social expectations around gender that are acting upon these. In this respect, understanding culture is essential to chart the power structures that play upon people in society. It is Foucault, who says ‘my job is making windows where there were once walls’ (Foucault, quoted by Hyde: 1994: 132), declares it is in the revelation of these cultural and social structures that one can begin to challenge them:
‘It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight them’ (Foucault, 1978: 171)
The role of theory in this research is, therefore, to expose how our experiences are twisted and influenced by these structures, going beyond what people describe they say and do ‘to make intelligible why people are saying and doing what they are saying and doing’ (Biesta et al., 2011: 226). In order to unpick this relationship, one must look passed the lived experiences of the young people to see the layers of culture which shape the meanings that are given and cited by young people, beyond the socially constructed realities and experiences:
‘[T]o offer better interpretations than those generated by the social actors themselves, on the assumption that such first-person interpretations may be distorted as a result of the workings of power’ (Biesta et al., 2011: 231).
These power structures have a great ability to enact upon the lived experience but are often shrouded and invisible to the actor as they are considered prevailing norms or accepted wisdom or truths. Within social reality, power is not seen, but the effects are experienced within the everyday interactions and experiences of young people in this study (Clark*, 2005; Clark, 2010; Edwards, O’Mahoney, and Vincent, 2014).
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This research, therefore, extends the body of work that critiques organisational and social assumptions that underpin our societal order and reality (Crotty, 1998). The methods for deconstructing these truths and norms are discussed further in the next section.
Conceptualising power, performance, and resistance
In order to reveal these power structures that inform how people make sense of the world around them, it is vital to map the world in which young people experience their lives both online and offline. As the meanings they give to these are fundamentally rooted in their localised relational power and performative gender norms, Foucault’s theories on power structures are a useful tool through which to analyse their experiences. He describes power as being derived from localised ‘regimes of truth’ enacted through discourses and discursive practices (Foucault, 1980).
This research considers discourse as a central tenant to understanding the experiences of the young women in the research. Discourses are all encompassing:
‘Ways of behaving and interacting…each incorporates taken-for-granted and tacit ‘theories’ about what counts as a ‘normal’ person and the ‘right’ way to think, feel and behave’ (Gee: 2015: 4).
Discourse, in turn, shapes our perceptions and understanding of the socially constructed reality (Peace, 2003; Cook, and Hasmath, 2014; Jones, Chik, and Hafner, 2015). Certain discourses enable particular individuals to speak more ‘truth’ than others that are consequently imbued with power. For Foucault, in order to speak or enact a particular discourse, one must know what that is (1969). Situated in this discourse is a dynamic relationship: ‘knowledge linked to power, not only assumes the authority of ‘the truth’ but has the power to make itself true’ (1977: 27).
114 Understanding how the young women situated themselves in comparison to each other, the wider student body and to wider societal discourses was essential to understanding their lived experience. This approach explored how rules, statements, and systems convene and cluster around common meanings and societal values, enabling the interpretation of young women’s behaviours and actions as ‘a product of social factors, of powers and practices, rather than an individuals’ set of ideas’ (Gavey, 1997: 53). These discourses are signals – some directing away from specific ways of performing gender, while others indicate they are acceptable routes to follow. Dominant performances of gender are highlighted typically as exemplary examples of masculinity and femininity (Connell, 2009). Analysing these discourses and knowledge of gender reveals the local conditions and practices that inform how young women perform their schoolgirl femininity.
Building upon a discursive approach, the design of the research is broadly social constructionist and feminist, drawing on intersectional discourse to navigate how broader themes of gendered social control filter into teenage peer discourses (Crenshaw, 1989). It considers gender as a basic premise that shapes our life and consciousness (Davies, 1991; Kitzinger Wilkinson, 1995), exposing ways in which women are in an unequal position. Studying power relationships and considering the social positions of individuals are essential within this framework (Stewart, 1994; Gavey, 1997; Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007). Judith Butler, who will be drawn upon in the analysis, highlights the importance of revealing these frameworks:
‘[C]ultures do not exemplify a ready-made universal, but that the universal is always culturally articulated, and that the complex process of learning how to read that claim is not something any of us can do outside of the difficult process of cultural translation’ (1995: 130).
Underlying this approach is the concept that we perform gender: For example, we are continual exposure to socially constructed ways of ‘doing’ gender correctly, and these ‘gender truths’ can be both multiple and contradictory.
115 Thinking about this research through a feminist social constructionist lens allows ‘femininity’ and ‘girl’ to be constructed in discursive practice ‘as a subject able to reflect upon the discursive relations which constitute her and the society in which she lives’ (Weedon, 1997: 121). It also enables us to consider the subject from a dual position – one where the subject has the agency to choose an available discourse to take up, and at the same time is subjugated through forced subjectively by the same courses and practices (St Pierre, 2000). It is more proscription than prescription (Walkerdine, 2001). However, within this choice of discourses is the very undoing of the discourses themselves. The contradictory nature of the choices highlights that participants can enact and resist cultural forces that dominate them (Morrow and Brown, 1994).
Despite criticism by post-humanists that discursive approach does not enable a holistic and profound critique of the dominant forms of patriarchal control, both linguistically (Barad, 2007; Ringrose and Rawlings, 2015) but also from within the white male hierarchy (Bradotti, 2013), this thesis will mitigate these limitations through putting both Butler’s performative toolkit alongside Foucauldian notions of power, control, and resistance. In doing so, it recognises that resistance to power structures should be uncovered from within in order to assess their mechanisms and functionality (Pickett, 1996; McNay, 2013). Secondly, the thesis’ focus on the social, digital ,and school spaces pushes the thesis to consider the images and the objects which comprise a social media account and exposure which a young person possesses in school and online. The thesis, therefore, positions the conceptualisation of the feminine subject within a multiplicity of local and societal digital and offline contexts.
The study is interested in the influence on young women’s formation of meaning by the choices offered to them, and by localised, socially constructed knowledge. It aims to reveal the constructions that act more or less invisibly to inform their experiences of the world around them. It follows a Foucauldian
116 transition in which ‘we have to know the historical conditions which motivate our conceptualisation. We need a historical awareness of our present circumstance’ (1982: 209).
The approach additionally considers the role of sexuality and the body in discourse. The influence of gender upon the girl’s experience of their schoolgirl femininity and how they make meaning in their interactions and relationships offline/online, it a strong theme throughout this work. This perspective is, for Foucault, ‘the site of an especially dense transfer point for power relations’ (1984:116). Power and sexuality are inherently tied up with peer relationships: the use of social media, the body, and a female’s sexuality is a site of power – under the control of others. The body is the site where gender and sex are both expressed, with feminine gendered performance overlaid on to the female sexed body. These expectations upon the performance are mechanisms to subjugate, control, and weaponise femaleness.
As implied above, it is not just about having knowledge and power but ensuring compliance with its truth. Foucault here defines power as ‘forms of hegemony, social, economic, and cultural, within which it operates at the present time’ (Foucault, 2000: 75). For Foucault, the aim is to create docile bodies that submit to the regime to the truth. In Discipline and Punishment, he outlines a three-stage process for this: hierarchical observation – a gaze and the sense of always being watched, normalising judgement – the ranking of individuals on a localised scale of acceptability and examination – a combination of the other two where the self, documents and monitors its docility, and ultimately becomes a self-surveying entity (1977). However, where there is power, there exists a possibility for resistance:
‘Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart’ (Foucault 1998: 100-1).
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It is in understanding how dominant discourses maintain truths through the celebration of some and the marginalisation of others, that resistance to these power structures is exposed. Resistant actions by resisting subjectivities reflect the contextual power imbalance (Konrad et al., 2006). The research methods adopted for this study are discussed next in order to generate rich data that can facilitate analysis into these structures, regulations, and resistances.
Research Methods
During the individual and small group interviews, I aimed to build rapport with participants and therefore, increasingly explore in-depth, sensitive, and personal experiences. The data generation instruments were developed to foster trust and rapport between the participants and me consciously. This next section will outline details of the methods of data generation that I employed.
Interviews
I consciously did not want to assume that other researchers, and myself, knew what the young women preferred better than themselves. As my experience teaching taught me, friendship groups can be fickle – with friends falling out or making up during a day. As I did not want to impose upon the young women, I asked that they tell me how they would like to be interviewed – offering small group interviews as well as individual interviews. This process allowed the girls to feel most comfortable when talking to me.
Traditional data generation instruments, like small group interviews, have shown to be useful as they can take place and make reference to peer hierarchies and groupings within the ‘context of existing social relations within the school’ (Ringrose and Harvey: 21). In these circumstances, the social
118 setting with friends may better reflect regular interactions for the young people, as well as reveal small micro-cultures and attitudes that exist within peer friendships (Carey and Smith, 1994).
The majority of the 54 girls opted to interview with friends. There were 23 small group or individual interviews lasting between 45-60 minutes each. This approach was valuable as the girls bounced off each other in the interviews and sometimes spurred each other on to tell me something they might have found embarrassing. On several occasions, they became so engrossed in talking about a topic they started discussing how to solve issues that had occurred that day online. It allowed me insights into the dynamics of their friendship as well, and how they situated themselves in comparison to other groups.
When conducting research with young people, conducting small group interviews in relatively homogenous groups, in this case, single-sex of similar ages and in similar peer grouping, is shown to be very effective (Smithson, 2007; Morgan and Krueger, 2013; Ritchie et al., 2013). Due to my interest in gender, power, and feminist theory, it was essential to understand how girls position themselves compared to each other (Allen, 2004; Allen, 2005). Although there were instances of conformity (Carey and Asbury, 2012), this was valuable to reveal the social dynamics and discursive power that emerged within friendship groups, as well as between them (Duggleby, 2005; Boeije, 2010).
When conducting interviews, it was vital to consider language. Adults and children use a vocabulary or language style and slang, which is often unfamiliar to the other (Punch, 2002; Martens, 2012). These issues translate to the online media with young people having different perspectives, usages, and definitions than adults (Corsaro, 2015). This understanding led me to ask for definitions whenever girls used a particular phrase, which increased my understanding of their language, and also empowered the girls, as they felt
119 they were ‘experts’ in the situation. Throughout the interviews I built a dictionary of new words I could deploy, which aided the interviews – both used to build rapport (through humour) when I knew the definition of a particular slang word which the girls found funny and for clarification, to aid the flow of the interview.
I aimed to empower the girls to be decision-makers in the data generation process as many times as I could. It was essential to build rapport, confidence, and ‘critical respect’ when working with on sensitive topics (Gill, 2007b). It included leaving time for open discussion and rapport building at the outset, providing snacks, discussing the purpose of the interview with them, opening the process for them to ask questions before the interview, asking them to choose an alias, and watching throughout to check they were comfortable. To support this exploration into more personal beliefs and to help the girls talk about particular experiences, I also used the mobile phone as an artefact and a prompt. This method was exciting for many of the interview participants, as all the schools did not allow phones to be used in classrooms where the interviews took place. It also helped them to position me outside of the teaching staff, as I had allowed a transgression of the rules. It helped to reframe the space as a trusting one, where typical school rules (such as not swearing, not eating), did not apply.
All interviews were led by a semi-structured interview guide (Patton, 1980) that comprised open-ended questions around the primary research questions (Charmaz, 2006; Doody and Noonan, 2013). See Appendices 3 and 4 for Interview questions. This format helped the conversation cover a list of topics and to allow for exploration of key topics that addressed the research questions (Mason, 2008). The ability to remain flexible, as explore issues as they arrived, allows participants to speak conversationally and mitigate against ‘unknown unknowns,’ or topics of interest I had not envisaged would be relevant to surface (Noyes et al., 2006; Denscombe, 2008). The interviews were informal and conversational in manner. Space was left for deviations
120 and disruptions, as I wanted the girls to feel comfortable and therefore allowed space for jokes, gossip, and tangents to take place.
Please see Appendix 3 for the initial interview schedule and Appendix 4 for questions subsequently added after the initial interviews with students at Estuary Academy. The semi-structured approach allowed me to focus on the research questions but also enables them to ‘derive interpretations’ (Warren, 2002), from the ‘lived experiences of other people and the meaning they make of that experience’ (Seidman, 2006: 9). This level of control I have upon the subject matter of discussion had an impact upon the pre-existing power- relationship between the researcher and participant. It was essential to be cognisant of the issues which could arise from this imbalance – an interviewee may say she thinks I want to hear, for example, or feel pressured to answer in a certain way which makes her feel uncomfortable (Karnieli- Miller, Strier, and Pessach, 2009). This was most apparently the first time in the interview a sensitive topic, such as having sex. However, seeing that I responded in a neutral but positive and open manner, then encouraged the topic of conversation to continue, as it became normal part of the conversation. These instances were recorded in the interview notes to keep this understanding in my mind throughout the research and analysis.
Phone as a prompt and observational tool
Across the interviews, I asked participants to use their mobile phones as a digital artefact to prompt discussion. Prompts have been shown to ‘uncover unarticulated informant knowledge’ (Johnson and Weller, 2001: 491). They provided up to date information around communicative practices, posts on social media, ‘drama,’ and interactions, reflecting how these change and develop so quickly (Horst and Miller, 2006). Re-tracing participants’ ‘digital footprint’ helped document their interactions beyond and across specific applications, text platforms, and helped jog the memory of the offline interactions that ensued. This exercise helped to explore the context
121 surrounding their communication and where they were during it, mapping the interaction between offline and online contexts (Pascoe, 2012; Ringrose and Renold, 2012; Hine, 2015).
Understanding how students interacted with each other online, and how this merged with real-life, was a challenge. There are ethical concerns with how much you impose yourself on their online life (for example, adding them as a ‘friend’ on Facebook, following specific hashtags) (Pascoe, 2012) and also limitations from purely focusing on online life within the context (Boyd: 2016). When trying to understand ‘mediated practices,’ recognition and consideration of the continuity that exists between online and offline context are essential to ground meaning (Boase et al., 2004; Wellman et al., 2006; Ito et al., 2009).
The phone can also act as an interview prompt, asking questions about the respondents, the context surrounding their communication, and where they were during it (Pascoe, 2012). Content from young peoples’ phone archives was also used, with the phone itself positioned as a digital artefact.
As well as using the mobile phone as a prompt, observational data can be generated through a ‘say what you see’ activity, in which the participant describes a newsfeed or stream of information they see on their phone. In some cases, the young person showed me a photo, and I described it, in order to model the description process. The participant would use their phone for a minute or two and describe to me their activity. I would be able to see but would only be recording this data via audio. This approach is an evolution to the previous approach, which asked respondents to scroll through information stored, which provided insights into young people’s communicative practices (Horst and Miller, 2012).
Draw-and-tell
In all the interviews, I had either a mini whiteboard or pen and paper handy. Draw-and-tell developed as a way to maximise student participation in
122 research by offering an alternative to traditional data generation instruments (Heal, 2015). The method emerged from ‘draw-and-write’ activities in the health research field in the 1970s when evidence showed that children were more able to draw their feelings and emotions than verbally articulate them (Angell and Angell, 2013; Klepsch, Logie and Logie, 2014). This method helped the girls in an initial exercise when I asked about the peer hierarchy in their school. As some interview participants found it awkward or uncomfortable to describe, they found it easier to draw out the school hierarchies, and then talk me through it. Draw-and-tell also enabled them to point at the position on the hierarchy they felt they were situated, which meant they did not have to articulate ‘I am popular’ or ‘I am unpopular’ – which could have been uncomfortable. See Appendix 8 for two digitised examples of these. As Angell stated, this approach goes some way to equalising the ‘power imbalances’ between adult researchers and children: as it offers ‘each child an opportunity to subtly negotiate their own level of participation’ (Angell, Alexander, and Hunt, 2014:10 ). I did not take photos of these, as I did not want to interrupt the flow of the interviews, and often left the girls to doodle or use the whiteboards during the interview, so the diagrams were often covered over by the end.
Data Analysis
The analysis process took place throughout the research, comprising of journaling through the data generation and coding process. To support this, I drew upon a flexible theoretical coding framework capturing themes related to power, gender performativity, and control alongside the more descriptive themes. This framework was rooted in the academic and philosophical literature but was open to evolution as the data to ensure the theoretical tools were fit for purpose, and to ensure that the data, not the theory led the analysis. This approach was particularly important given the iterative nature of the data collection and the novelty of the subject matter. Below are the steps I
123 taken, which precedes a justification of the analysis approach in the second half of this section.
Chronology of analysis This section outlines the ordering of the analysis and how it intertwined with the data gathering process. 1. After each interview, which was audio-recorded, I made notes from the conversation. After each day of interviewing, I wrote a memo of the critical themes, queries, and thoughts I had throughout that day. 2. This process continued until the first school dropped out. In between this and the next period of data gathering, I transcribed the interviews and read them through, reflecting on them in conjunction with my notes. Off the back of this, I wrote a few short reflection pieces (see Appendix 10). In advance of the second round of interviews, I added lines of inquiry to the interview schedule (see Appendix 4). 3. The cyclical process of interview-notes-reflection-transcription- reflection took place until I gathered all the data. 4. After transcription of all interviews, I reviewed my notes as I evaluated the theoretical coding framework. Additional criteria were added, for example, proactive and reactive resistant acts, as that was a theme which I had seen in my data, but not within the literature and theorisations. 5. I coded the transcriptions via Nvivo, based upon the coding framework that captured both theoretical and descriptive themes. 6. During Nvivo coding, I kept a coding journal to log thoughts and reflections. 7. Upon completing the Nvivo coding, I manually broke down the codes again, sub-dividing the data to find patterns, relationships, and contradictions. I constructed mind-maps, on pieces of A3 paper. Returning to the literature review during this process helped to position the themes academically and theoretically. 8. These mind-maps of the themes helped structure the analysis chapters and build a comprehensive picture of the data that was both logical and
124 nuanced. I kept returning to the coding journal and the transcripts. 9. Upon developing the narrative structure of the analysis sections, I returned to the data, going through each theme in detail, both to bring out quotes that exemplified particular points and to understand the context in which they occurred during the interviews. 10. The analysis chapters developed slowly using a combination of offline and online tools.
Analysis methods Throughout the interviews and analysis, I engaged in memo taking to help document and chart theory development of my data generation and analysis. This process reframes analysis, away from being a ‘distinct’ phase, to an on- going, reflexive process embedded across the thesis (Coffey, Beverley and Paul, 1996). Given the iterative nature of a part-time Ph.D. , the time lapses between data generation and analysis were considerable. It did, however, create significant periods where I could reflect upon the data I had already gathered and explore ideas in later interviews, as Appendix 4 highlights.
Recording memos was a valuable tool to help ensure I did not lose ideas; connections, and theories during my research. I valued the memo process as a creative intermediary step between data generation and analysis, which took place ‘any-and every- way that occurs to you during the moment’ (Charmaz, 2014: 72).
My memo process took three distinct forms – firstly, during data generation, I kept an interview journal, where I wrote down thoughts, notes, and themes that I identified from interviews or were significant ideas for later review. I looked for patterns, disruptions, and themes in the interviews that showed how and when the girls were enacting, complying, or resisting prescribed gender ideals and what sacrifices or gains they may have experienced (Hey, 1997; McRobbie, 2000). See Appendix 12 for two redacted examples of these.
125 For particularly striking themes, I wrote short analysis documents, based upon a phrase, or a theme that I identified. For example, one was entitled ‘Keeping the Circle Small’– based upon a phrase that I had heard mentioned in related to the interviewees protecting their data, and their secrets. See Appendix 10 for a copy of this.
During coding, I kept a coding journal, where I stored identified ideas, theories, and thoughts. These three processes helped me keep track of the theories that Identified across the two years of data generation and analysis. See Appendix 11 for an example extract of this journal.
I then returned to these documents before conducting analysis, where I began to map and diagram the themes and theories identified as significant in my work. To support my analysis, I used a flexible theoretical framework around the notions of power and discourse in order to understand how peers navigate their environment and relate to one another through using mediated and face- to-face interactions (see Appendix 9). This dual-purpose coding framework helped me capture ‘ideas, beliefs, norms, discourses, reproduction of culture, and their effects’ (Ramazanoglu and Holland, 2002), as they circulated gender, popularity, and social media.
I reflected upon the themes I identified, and considered how they would inform the theoretical framework, throughout the data generation process. Subsequently, I reviewed all the memos, notes, and transcripts before developing a framework that captured both theoretical (gender, power, resistance) and descriptive themes (popularity, social media).
Exploring data through the lens of power and control in society and its expression felt relevant to the research questions around how peer popularity manifests in online and offline contexts (Bazeley, 2013). I used discursive devices that ‘put Foucault’s perspective to work’ (Fairclough, 1993: 38) and underpinned by the perspective that practices are discursively shaped and enacted.
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To help understand the data, I uploaded the theoretical framework and used Nvivo to code the data manually. Qualitative coding software is used with caution. I framed it as a tool for organisation, accesses, and retrieval of information, and was wary not be become too reliant on it as a tool for analysis (Bazeley, 2013). I used Nvivo, therefore, to conduct an initial coding through which to organise the data and understand the patterns and themes across the interviews. Additionally, this acted to test the coding framework, which was revised and developed alongside this initial exploration of the data.
Nvivo helped organise the data, and provided an initial sense of themes, particularly theme co-occurrence that I may not have seen. To reduce my reliance upon the qualitative software, I kept offline and digital coding journals, to situate my data analysis outside of the programme, to link thoughts and ideas, and to posit theories to consider in future rounds of analysis. This process enabled me to go deeper into the descriptions the girls had provided and to go “beyond the data” (Coffey, Beverley, and Paul, 1996; Silverman, 2016), making linkages with broader ideas, particularly concerning revealing power structures and forces.
After the initial Nvivo coding, I reverted to a more manual approach, digging into each theme through mind mapping, linking ideas, and theories within and across each code. I return to the transcripts when assessing the quotes related to a particular theme, to ensure the meaning and context of their speech was not lost. In this, Nvivo was a valuable word search tool enabling me to return to a particular quote and context in question quickly, or to look for a particular term. For some themes, I returned to the audio recording to understand the emotional and tonal nuance of what was being said (Kvale, 2007). This iterative and expansive process helped to unpack the themes, uncover nuance, and better review the data in conjunction with the theoretical framework. To help visualise these themes, and to understand how they related to each other and my research questions, I then drew mind maps related to the research questions, to help focus the analysis. This process
127 was a long and iterative, as I mapped the themes from the data while continuing to review the existing research and theoretical literature discussed above. Using the research questions as a North Star helped guide the research as themes were unpacked and evolved slowly. For example, the concept of popularity became considered more as a vessel for enacting idealised femininity, as opposed to a standalone concept. I believe these processes helped me both descriptively and discursively situate the data, uncovering the subject, and their more hidden subjectivity in the data (Walkerdine et al., 2001).
Unit of analysis – girls from different social strata As described in the sampling section, the original intention was to focus on the girls’ lived experience of peers, school, and social media, with the unit of analysis being the school site. However, during data generation and analysis, it became clear that the differences in experience lay not between schools, but between social strata – the popular girls’ experience of schoolgirl femininity was broadly parallel to each other across the sites. Despite being in the South East of England, the schools are not geographically close, nor particularly similar aside from having an above-average number of disadvantaged students on roll. I therefore decided that the unit of analysis would be the individual girls’ social standing, based upon their self-defined social strata (see Appendices 5 and 6 for the breakdown). Although the girls interviewed are different geographically, socioeconomically, and ethnically, their perceptions, values, and beliefs were more similar across schools than within schools; those most popular across the schools behaved and acted more similarly to other most popular girls, compared to girls within their school.
Trustworthiness and reliability
In order to place value upon research findings, the methods and approaches employed must be considered valid and reliable (Cohen, Manion and
128 Morrison, 2011). However, qualitative research rarely uses such positivist terms, which are typically used to assess how a quantitative study measures what it claims to measure, the extent to which its findings are generalisable or would be found again if replicated. These terms, which help positivist researchers pin down ‘objective’ truth, are not useful in qualitative interpretivist research, as they do not have the same goal. In order to design research that explores the multiplicity of meanings and truths that people experience, other tools and terminology are used to ensure robust research. Lincoln and Guba devised principles for high-quality qualitative research that is credible, dependable, and transferable (Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Maxwell, 2013). These will be explored below, through outlining how I generated credible data, documented my approach, triangulated the findings academically, situated the findings theoretically, and employed researcher reflexivity.
Credible data Credible research needs to ensure that the qualitative data collected is accurate for the experiences and meanings outlined by participants (Geertz, 1973) and where possible avoids relevant data being missed or overlooked (Ritchie et al., 2013).
To do this required several strategies. Firstly, developing trust and relationships with the young people was critical, to help young people feel comfortable to speak freely, and say what they think, not what they think I want to hear (Holbrook, Green, and Krosnick, 2003; Driver, 2008). Building this confidence, trust and ‘critical respect’ (Gill, 2007b) was essential to develop in order to conduct high-quality qualitative research.
The development of trust within the researcher-participant relationship requires a great deal of investment (Thomson, 2008; Broom, Cheshire, and Emmison, 2009). The setup, location, and language communicated informs how this is created. By giving girls ownership over how they want to conduct
129 the interview, with their friends, or alone, or with others, and which pseudonym they would like to be known as I help to create an environment where they feel comfortable and empowered to discuss what it means for them to be a schoolgirl.
The use of familiar language is highlighted by other researchers, and the questioning taken into consideration (Punch, 2002). However, given the age difference and experience, it would be impossible for me to know all the slang across the three schools as young people have different perspectives, usages, and definitions than adults (Cosaro, 2015). When girls’ used phrases I did not understand, I asked them for definitions to help them feel like experts and redress the researcher-researched power imbalance. I aimed to make this light-hearted and to joke that I was out of touch. This approach helped girls describe most sensitive terms such as ‘link’ (have a romantic relationship) ‘beat’ (to have sex) or ‘sket’ (a derogatory term used for girls with similar connotations to ‘slag’ or ‘slut’).
Building participant confidence is also vital to gain ‘critical respect’ when working with young people on sensitive topics (Gill, 2007b). This aim led me to use of several research tools to help empower the young people so they would share their experiences with me via drawings or images, which were less problematic than describing with words. Draw-and-tell and using the phone as a prompt were both valuable here, given the young person another outlet or support to help verbalise their experiences to me (Thomson, 2008). It helped move the methodological approach from conducting research ‘on’ participants to researching with participants by providing them additional supports with which they could articulate themselves through (Allan and
Tinkler, 2015).
Research Audit The nature of qualitative research is not to create replicable, generalisable results. Therefore even if this qualitative study were conducted again in the same manner, the findings would probably be different (Robson, 2011). This
130 conclusion is due to it taking place at a specific time and place, with young people at a specific point in their lives. Reproducing the factors is not possible.
However, despite making no claims of replication, is it still essential to leave a clear paper trail is left as to how I came about my findings (Shenton, 2004). A key component to robust qualitative research is a well-audited route from research purpose to findings. Therefore, this research methodology clearly outlines the approach I took, and the rationale underpinning it.
Triangulation Although this study does not claim general and replicable insights to other studies, it can still generate more widely applicable findings through triangulating with theory and prior research. Linking to theories, such as those of power by Michael Foucault, gender by Judith Butler and digital connectivity by Sherry Turkle and Alice Marwick, enabled me to articulate similarities and differences in their writing about how the world is formed and shaped, and how I see this mimicked and expressed in the situations I conducted research within. This understanding enables the analysis to go beyond description and replication, more profoundly and critically analyse the data collected.
Reflexivity Throughout this research, it was essential to consider my role and to assess how I influenced the entire process critically. As this research takes an interpretivist approach, it assumes there is no universality to the truth, but truths in multitudes. The researcher’s reflexivity can better explore truths through positioning the researcher within the research that is conducted (England, 1994; Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford, 1997). The researcher acts to reveal discursive practices in ‘an open-ending dialogue between data collection and theory’ (Woods, 1985: 104).
131 As a visiting adult to the schools, it was useful to reflect upon my role and my relationship with the participants. Here, the insider/outsider researcher positioning was a useful framework to help analyse my position and role in the data I collected.
Defining what a true insider or outsider means is challenging as it has various interpretations (Varela and Shear, 1999; Dwyer and Buckle, 2009; Nakata, 2015). I adopted Varela and Shear’s definition of absolute insider: first-person research. Nakata also expands this to include researchers who explore their community. At the other end of the spectrum sits a wholly removed researcher whom Dwyer and Buckle define as ‘no shared commonality between the researcher and the participants’ (2009: 54). However, the insider-outsider is not a dualistic binary but a spectrum (Nakata, 2015). I will never be considered a ‘true’ insider as I fundamentally do not share the experiences growing up in their community and am significantly older than the participants. Despite having worked with young people from low socio-economic backgrounds and my parents having both been bought up in social housing, I have had a decidedly middle-class upbringing with both parents in managerial professions. This class barrier, alongside my age and in some cases, ethnicity, prevents me from being a real insider.
In previous research conducted, I have had the fortune of knowing the students well – sitting somewhere nearer the ‘insider’ on the continuum. With the pilot study, I felt the weight of being a true ‘outsider’ and an unknown presence to the pupils. I, like researchers before me, have struggled with this, and I subsequently worked hard to develop a rapport during the interviews (Geertz, 1973; Harrison, 2008; Boyd, 2016).
However, it is vital to contextualise with the broader picture: my role within this research is one of transmission and interpretation – sharing the voices of those who participated in the research and helping to make sense of how their
132 experiences are reflective of our broader societal discourses, particularly concerning gender and power.
As a researcher drawing upon theorisations of power, performativity, and feminism, I look upon the data and my doctoral thesis with particular lenses and biases, sympathetic to uncovering inequality. This bias could influence how I question and follow up in the interviews, affect how the girls respond to me, and my interpretation of what they describe. However, I believe that my views and own subjectivity can facilitate my understanding of the girls’ experiences (Ratner, 2002). It also enabled me to harness my biases, as I aimed to discursively analyse the often-overlooked area of gender and power within the young women’s experience of being a schoolgirl, using social media and navigating peer relationships and hierarchies, (Butler, 2003).
Reflexivity then becomes necessary as a way to think through the problems of attempting to do feminist research. Feminist reflexivity is not only about investigating the power embedded in one’s research but also about doing research differently. The need to do research differently arises from the ethical and political problems and questions raised by feminists about traditional research methods (Oakley, 2016b). These questions include how to be a non-exploitative researcher, how to produce research that is useful and empowering to women, and how to do research linked with political action (Oakley, 2016a).
Given that this thesis is expressly concerned with understanding young women’s engagement, subjugation, and resistance to schoolgirl femininity. Itis. therefore, essential to interrogate my definitions of these categories. Ringrose highlights how this helps us to see outside the bounded analytical categories (2008). As this research is concerned with the interaction of power, gender, and the knowledge required to enact or resist these components, my role as a researcher is paramount to revealing these often invisible or
133 unconscious levers. This approach places my role at the centre of the research to move from descriptive to discursive analysis:
‘There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all.’ (Foucault, 1990; p 8)
It is through reflecting upon, and harnessing, my biases and feminist tendencies that I can best contribute to the furthering of knowledge in this field of research.
Sensitivity, ethics, access
Researching sensitive topics
With any study that aims to explore teenagers’ lives ‘in-depth’; it is paramount to consider that the material of interest is highly sensitive. Due care must be taken to understand how to support participants before, during, and after they engage in the research, should any ramifications arise.
Sensitive research, in this instance, is defined as accessing information around a topic which is of an emotive or personal nature with a group that are vulnerable, in this case, minors (Renzetti and Lee, 1993; England, 1994; Punch, 2002). Sensitivity does not just have implications for an ethics application:
‘[It] tends to complicate, at every stage, the usual problems revolving around technique, methodology, fieldwork, and dissemination involved in all research, and it brings unique problems of its own. The methodological implications of sensitive research, therefore, extends well beyond the issue of ethics’ (Miller and Brewer; 2003: 289).
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It was evident during the pilot study interviews with the teenage girls, who discussed topics of personal nature, for example, how they felt ‘unpopular’; the expressed meanness of the most popular girls and their hyper-feminine traits and behaviours; messages from unknown males. This data gave me insights into the sensitivity of the research that was to come, ensuring I put proper ethical and safety procedures in place through the research process.
Ethics
I adhered to the British Educational Research Association’s ethical guidelines as well as passed and upheld the standards of the University of Manchester’s Committee of the Ethics of Research. See Appendix 7 for approval confirmation. As well as observing their guidelines and expectations, the application process was a valuable experience as it highlighted and emphasised the accountable issues.
It was necessary to seek informed consent from the school, parents, and participants. An outline of the research process given in the letter, information sheet, and consent form (See Appendix 1) so the participants and their parents were aware of the research methods and aims. I used simple language to ensure they were informed of research aims and process and understood they/their child were free to withdraw from the study at any time without giving a reason. Students were also made aware they could tell another adult in the school of this without coming to me directly, which helped as I channelled the consent process through another teacher. All participants had the opportunity to create a pseudonym for themselves. The pseudonym is used in this thesis instead of their real name. This process, alongside editing information that could reveal their identity, such as reviewing their Instagram account, a hashtag or location, ensured anonymity. Data was stored on an encrypted device and in line with the Information Commission’s Data
135 Protection Act, and all participants were made aware that they could access all information I hold on them and given information about deletion dates.
The information and consent process also clearly explained to parents that their child’s education would not be adversely affected if they chose to participate or if they chose to opt-out. At the beginning of the interviews, I read through the sheet with each participant to ensure that they understand the information, before asking them whether they would like to take part. I sought the approval of the participants at the beginning of each interview and asked whether they had any questions about the research both before and after the interview. It was also important to look for signs of distress during the interview and I was prepared to offer this option again if necessary.
Child protection Working with minors means that full confidentiality is not guaranteed. Principle 9 of the Ethical Standards for Research with Child13 cites that if information that may jeopardise the child’s wellbeing comes to light the investigator has a responsibility to arrange necessary assistance or support. Moreover, having family members who work in Child Protection and have dealt with issues as a form tutor, I have an increased sense of the importance of the need to report anything concerning, however seemingly small or insignificant. Although this could lead to children feeling a lack of trust (Tisdall, Davis and Gallagher, 2009), my adherence to the school’s child protection policy, whereby adults act as loco-parentis, is outlined in the consent forms. Processes were put in place to ensure I could inform the child support workers and also have additional support the students could access (Ringrose, 2012). I ensured that I had thoroughly understood each school’s child protection policy and knew the relevant adults to report to, should anything arise. There was one incident
13 https://www.srcd.org/about-us/ethical-standards-research-children [accessed 21.09.15]
136 from the interviews that I reported to teaching staff at one school, with support from the University of Manchester, and it is discussed in the next section.
Ethics Online Conducting research into new media with youth raises additional issues that research ethics committees are less used to dealing with (Pascoe, 2012). Social media allows new ways of researching with young people, new ways of discussing, documenting and contextualising their lives. In trying to uncover how social media supports these elements, there is a danger for researchers that the boundaries become blurred between themselves and the participant, such as becoming their ‘friend’ on Facebook (Ringrose, 2012): ‘such availability can provide on-going contact, but opens up a venue for potential abuse’ (Pascoe, 2012: 80).
However, I decided that working within an institutional setting, despite making it more difficult to secure access, mediated many of the ethical difficulties which other internet researchers have faced – such as online verification; circumnavigating parental consent and the decision of whether to announce oneself as a researcher when analysing chat rooms, groups or forums (Hine, 2015; Horst and Miller, 2012).
These ethical conundrums that arise online from being an unpatrolled space used by young people within a patrolled environment at school (Boyd, 2008) were crystallised for me during the data generation with an issue that I reported to the school. The girls described and named an Instagram account that acted as an anonymous, and local, hosting site for ‘nude’ photos of girls in the nearby neighbourhoods. However, it was a private account – the only way to gain access to this account was to share a nude photo of a girl. The interviewee described believing photos of people they knew were on the account, but they were unable to verify this, and thought that someone had tagged them in a photo – implying they had a photo of them on there that they could not see.
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Given that is was not an ‘immediate’ threat, I discussed this issue with my supervisors. We agreed that I should report this to the school, which in turn should be investigated and reported to the police, as it potentially involved the distribution of pornographic photos of minors. However – given that we could not access the account to verify this, it made the report more challenging. During the interviews, I asked the girls the name of the account, which they told me. I also asked the interviewees if the school were aware of these types of accounts. They said they did not know, but previous accounts like this had been shut down in the past. In this situation, escalating to the school to follow up felt like the most appropriate action. Although I could not verify either way whether any girls I had spoken to were affected by this account. These discussions created a grey risk that I was unable to verify either way.
Photo distribution of this nature can occur as social media companies find it difficult to verify the age of the photos. Ensuring police are involved can lead to the creators of these accounts to be uncovered. I reasoned that given the potential of this account to cause harm by distributing revealing photos of minors at a local level – a potential perpetrator was potentially conducting illegal behaviour that should be reported and followed up. I therefore spoke to my link at the school and noted down the name of the account. I gave a description of what the site offered for them to follow up. From my understanding, this was then passed on to the relevant team within school to follow up who informed the police. Given the private nature of child protection cases, I do not know any further details of the next steps.
Access
Setting up the interviews Before the data generation process, I was introduced to the students and had the opportunity to talk through the participant information sheet and allowing
138 the students to ask any questions about the research and obtain their explicit assent for interview.
I highlighted to the students that their involvement in the project would be entirely anonymous, and no identifiable information disclosed as a result of the research. I also asked the girls to either provide me with a pseudonym that they would like me to use or explained I would make one up for them to protect their identity. I also asked permission to voice record the interviews, highlighting that they would be stored on an encrypted device, that I would personally transcribe and anonymised the recording. I also explained I would not use their real names on the transcript, or the name of the local area or school during the conversations, to help this. I also explained the sound files themselves would be deleted after the research has completed, as specified in the consent and information sheet. I reminded the students about the project and the time commitment, and that they could withdraw or refrain from answering a question if they so choose without giving me a reason (BERA ethical guidelines, 2015). These procedures adhere to the UN Conventions for the Rights of the Child (1995) and the UK Human Rights Act (2000), in which researchers are expected to seek informed consent from the young people.
Before the interview, it was essential to highlight that although I would treat their interview data as confidential, if anything were disclosed that made me concerned about their welfare, it would be my duty as a professional to share this with the appropriate members of staff in the school. In this incident that occurred which I documented above, I clarified with the interviewees that I would share that Instagram account name, although it did not concern them directly, it was still their account I would draw from. They understood the seriousness of the issue and the potential harm it was causing.
After ensuring that each student understood the project, their rights and my responsibility towards their safety, they then had the opportunity to ask any questions before the interviews commenced.
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Limitations
This research does not claim causality or to understand universal truths – it aims to provide a rich and in-depth understanding of how girls across three different schools formulate their schoolgirl femininity concerning peer hierarchies both online and offline. It is more interested in unpicking how gender, social media, and power inform their lived experience than understanding how replicable that experience is. Given this study is made up of 54 girls from three schools, there are multiple limitations to what this research can or cannot do, as outlined below.
Firstly, the thesis represents the experiences of a small number of girls, from their perspective. The voices of their male peers are notably absent, and in future studies incorporating both male experiences of female peer popularity, and their own experiences of popularity and doing schoolboy masculinity would be very valuable to provide a rounded picture.
Researching across three school sites allowed for interesting comparisons to be drawn, and a broader picture of schoolgirl femininity to be revealed, but it also limited the extent to which I could focus on influential criteria outside of gender. Class, sexuality, and ethnicity would all have been valuable to explore in greater depth but were beyond the scope of this study. Equally, more attention could have been paid to the teaching staff and school policies within the schools to understand how they affected the everyday experiences of schoolgirl femininity.
As an adult female researcher and outsider to the schools, there was a limit in the way I can relate to and understand teenage schoolgirl femininity. More innovative participatory and digital research methods may have aided a more nuanced understanding of their experiences. Drawing on collaborative methods to help co-construct meaning or immersing myself into their digital
140 lives by following them on social media, may have enabled me to become closer to their lived experience. However, given the constraints of conducting a Ph.D. while working full-time, I was limited by the amount of time I could spend in schools. Regarding the digital methods, such as befriending girls or observing their behaviour online, there were specific ethical reasons I choose not to take this approach as outlined above.
Overall, the methodological approach taken in this thesis enables me to gain a rich, in-depth understanding of schoolgirl femininity, and how it maps across peer popularity and social media in three schools. An explanation of the everyday experiences of these girls are explored in the following three analysis chapters.
Chapter Summary
As this chapter has highlighted, in-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews, alongside light-touch visual research methods, were used to explore how teenage girls navigate popularity, social media and their schoolgirl femininity and how this interacted with their offline experiences. It has used a feminist and power theorists, drawing on Foucault and Judith Butler, to analyse how contextual discourses around gender shape, and are reinforced and resisted through these experiences. It also highlighted the ethical challenges that arise when researching in a space that encompasses both online and offline environments, and how I planned to manage the sensitivity of the research. It lastly considered the effect I had upon the research itself, and how my biases were put to use, and what the limitations were involved in the study: what the data can tell us, and what it cannot.
This thesis will now move on to explore the findings from these interviews with 54 young women from across three schools in the South of England. The first chapter situates the analysis in the experiences of the young women,
141 exploring peer hierarchies, and social media usage within their educational establishment.
4. Introducing the contexts of doing schoolgirl: social media, school and gender expectations.
This thesis is concerned with how schoolgirl femininity is produced and shaped by micro and macro influences in their everyday experiences. This first analysis chapter explores the context in which their femininity is situated; social media, school and locally valued gender norms. It considers each aspect and the influence they have upon schoolgirl behaviours and experiences. Across the three schools, the contexts described were similar in nature and the same broad forces affected how adolescent girls performed schoolgirl femininity.
This chapter will firstly explore how the digital environment, integrated into everyday life and interactions, was integral in shaping and enabling particular behaviours and cultures to exist. It will then move on to explore the school site, firstly describing how social media created unregulated space within the school grounds, then turning to explore the social learning and actions that the schools implicitly sanctioned. The last section turns to gender and analyses the discursive practice of appropriate femininity within the three schools, illuminating that a hyper-feminine discursive practice, alongside hegemonic masculinity, is the most valued form of gender performance. This chapter situates schoolgirl femininity within the contexts of social media, school and idealised gender norms, demonstrating that Foucauldian notions of knowledge and discourse are effectively and efficiently transmitted through social media, school and investment in the technologies of the self.
142 Situating social media
“It’s more entertaining to see something go bad than to see it go right.”
Before exploring schoolgirl femininity, it is firstly important to turn to the contexts in which it is situated. This next section will outline the characteristics of social media, focusing on the behaviours and actions the online environment enables both outside and inside of school. Social media is a reflection of our offline condition; we port our biases, tendencies and preferences on to these platforms. However, the technology and digital features warp behaviour by magnifying certain possibilities for connectedness and minimising others. However, as will be described below, these tools are both positive and negative for young people, depending on a myriad of circumstances.
No divide
Across the three schools, I found evidence to support the collapsed contexts (Boyd, 2008), with the participants providing examples of how the online and offline fluidly interacted with each other. This reflects research that young people see no distinction between these spaces (Hasebrink et al., 2009; Seidman and Miller, 2013; Miller, 2016). For the young women I interviewed, this was particularly true for the spread of information, which flowed seamlessly between offline and online spaces and conversations:
It happens all the time, and you can’t have a normal conversation without bringing something up. You find things out from the social media platforms, and even if it is stuff on the news, you still talk about it, whether it’s childish or proper news that is really serious. You just still end up talking about it. Melissa, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s
143 It is not just conversations that spread online, but arguments and abuse similarly flow unhindered between the two spaces, as more peers can access the information more readily. This facilitates the speed at which news and gossip travel around, often exacerbating the issue the more it is observed and discussed by students.
Amy: There is a lot of stuff that goes on social media, like – Lena: The real arguments happen at school, and it’s like the problems that happen on social media. JH: Can you give me some examples? Amy: There was an argument at school between a group of boys and a group of girls, and on social media, there was a lot of individuals talking about the argument and what was going on and would post that to everyone; “oh my god, today was so bad I hate that person." Then that started more stuff, and by the next day, there was a massive full-blown argument in school. Lena, Amy, Jess, Year 8, Unpopular, Estuary
The collapsed context between the online and offline facilitates information flow throughout the day and evenings, creating a pressurised system from which it can be difficult to escape.
Always on
Social media enabled young people to continue conversations, gossip and drama beyond the school grounds, where previously issues may have paused until the next day. Researchers have defined this as being ‘tethered’ to the phone; and that social media facilitates their social lives to be ‘always on’ (Turkle, 2011; Drushel, 2012; Cunningham, 2013).
Monique: Social media. It just changes all the time… JH: What changed? Monique: Like the newsfeed, photos you see, always changing
144 Jamelia: Like if I turn my phone off for an hour, I get scared because, like, on Instagram and what I was talking to you about earlier [being falsely tagged in a revealing body photo] it can happen at any second. Monique and Jamelia, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
During the interviews, many girls from across the three sites referenced this incessant characteristic of social media. Smartphones facilitated sociality, helped them talk to their friends and generated enjoyment but could feel exhausting and difficult to manage. There is research that suggests this type of incessant communication may lead to less meaningful or productive interactions (Mihailidis, 2014). Social media creates a space for continual potential, potential to interact, but also potential to be shamed. The girls were, therefore, heavily motivated to keep up to date with what was taking place:
You don’t want to go online and find a bunch of messages about you… Rude messages you know, people gossiping about you and you don’t want to go in there and find out about that. Rae, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s Academy
As well as the fear of being unaware, some applications are designed to facilitate continual engagement, gamifying digital sociality, as this conversation with Melissa reflects:
Like on Snapchat, you’ve got streakers14, so you send a picture of whatever to people for a certain number of days and you’ll get a number next to the name just to make sure the score will go up. Melissa, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s
14 A Snapchat ‘streak’ is the number of consecutive days two people have communicated via Snapchat, symbolized in the contact list with a fire emoji and a number. For example, "Jessica – 123 " would mean the Snapchat user has kept in touch on the platform with Jessica for 123 consecutive days.
145 With engagement being rewarded, it has created the expectation that a user will keep their communication channels open (Couldry, 2012), which for many interviewees, felt like a significant commitment. A number of young women were aware of how engrossed they had become in social media; as Gaby lamented:
I actually regret getting into social media; I honestly do because it brings so much stress. “Did you see what this person did, did you see what that person did?” And you get dragged into other people’s business, and you don’t really want to be. Gaby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s
Keeping these communication channels open can make young people permanently orientate themselves outside of their private goings-on, which can feel exhausting. They are continually observing both the actions of others but also monitoring their own involvement online. In reaction to this incessant communication, one interviewee, Jennifer, described ‘taking a break’ and giving up her phone earlier that year. Other research has similarly highlighted that ‘going off-grid’ or a ‘digital detox’ are direct reactions against the experience of social media (Turkle, 2011; Syvertsen, 2017).
At the beginning of December, I gave my mum my phone. At first, I was like, why is my phone not in my hand? But then, I started thinking like that less, and then I wasn’t getting 100 messages in the morning, and I didn’t see who is upset today and I’ve got to see why they are upset, and I’m like not your friend. It’s good to be out of that…Being off social media you realise that’s what social media is like – because now I’ve done it, I don’t see that pressure now…Social media, it got too much. Like to have that kind of message in the morning, and who really needs that in the morning. Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Milner’s
146 The rules which Jennifer created for herself could be considered ‘practices of demarcation’, creating her own rules to switch off from digital engagement, and digital drama. As Marwick summarises, ‘networked dynamics reconfigure how drama plays out and what it means to teens in new ways’ (2011:1). It affects the how not the what. Where previously lesson time, break time and home time would allow for teenage conflicts to take ‘time-outs’, social media prevents these from happening. It has removed the times where students might reflect, ruminate or forgive, as the drama now plays out online continually, in front of a willing audience that seems only to exacerbate disputes.
Documenting
A distinctive feature of social media is its ‘persistence’ and ability to be documented (Boyd, 2015). Digital technologies have capabilities that allow the social to be evidenced and documented with ease as the screenshot capability disenables erasure of memory or evidence even from applications designed to have content disappear.
Some people share amongst themselves, they screenshot it to one of their mates on Snapchat, and then they will screenshot it, and it will go further. Tara, Year 9, Middle, Chigford
The Internet is littered with stories of ‘the right to be forgotten’, or of peoples’ interactions that will not be forgotten, all part of a collective, on-going memory. Letitia, now 15, relates how she left a social media site due to moments in her past continually resurfacing.
There was this thing about pictures. Even now, some people will think it’s funny to get those pictures, screenshot it and send it to me, which is annoying. They were from Year 7 when you do silly poses with old
147 hairstyles...They just save it, and when you get to school they say, ‘ha-ha saw a picture of you!’….’ JH: ‘You say people screenshot and send it to you?’ Letitia: ‘My friend last week, she sent it to me. They do it to annoy me.’ Letitia, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s
This shows the multimodal functioning of social media, how different forms of digital information sharing are used to capture, document and remember. Gabby described how she was shown screenshots of a girl when she joined the school. These were not just used to remind an individual of their past, but to share the actions and behaviours of others.
I saw the pictures, and they showed it to me when I just joined the school, and it happened in Year Seven. They showed me all the pictures, and it was in Snapchat groups from Year Seven. Then when you scroll down, you can see everything that they were talking about her. Gabby, Year 10, Unpopular, Chigford
Social media fortifies the longevity of the digital footprint. Documentation can take place even when the social media application is specifically designed not to be permanent. Even with features that are designed to make a photo or conversation ‘disappear’, there is no guarantee they will. However, they may give a false sense of security, especially to those who are less experienced. It is noteworthy that all the photos described above came from when girls were in Year 7 – new to the school and less experienced on social media. ‘Disappearing’ or not, social media communications are in front of an audience that interprets the actions of the producer of the content very differently from what they may have desired at the time (Boyd, 2014; Turkle, 2011). The audience at the time of publication may also differ from the audience three years later, as actions of the past are used in the present, as Letitia explains about a girlfriend being jealous of photos her boyfriend had previously liked:
148
It’s just changed the way people communicate, relationships and things like ‘why did you like her picture, like, you are not allowed to like her picture!’ and things like that.
Letitia, Popular, Year 10, Milner’s Academy
This again shows how the networked public/private is broken down, as young people potentially lose the autonomy they have over their data and content. This data is available in a space where ‘contexts are collapsed’ (Boyd, 2008) – creating a footprint that is accessible now, or in the future, available to those they know, or do not know, or will know. It is the ultimate uncertainty about who is exposed to their data, controls their data and when. Sharing content becomes ‘chains of signification across multiple contexts and actions beyond the control of the initial actor.’ (Couldry and Hepp, 2018: 153)
Protected by the screen
A characteristic of online interaction is that the communicator does not need to witness or see the effect of their message or information on the recipient. For many of the girls interviewed, this made communicating easier; they could craft their sentences, think about their response and express themselves more comfortably. Rae described how growing up as a ‘digital native’ (Prensky, 2003) meant her peers were inherently more comfortable conversing online than in real life:
Not everyone is happy to say things to people [face to face], so they use social media. Like WhatsApp has group chats where we talk about someone, but when it comes out, it’s, no, I didn’t say that. It’s just the easy way to say what’s on your mind basically… [Later in the interview]
149 …Because of how social media works, I think people are more comfortable talking through social media and think it is better to communicate that way. I would say with our generation, with all of these technologies, we can’t communicate properly anymore, and it’s all texting and finding it easier to talk that way… Rae, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s Academy
This, Sherry Turkle describes, is one way the Internet provides us with ‘short cuts’ (2011: 197). These different textual or photographic platforms offer structures and boundaries that do not encroach on the persons’ time as directly as a conversation (Turkle; 2011; Marzi, 2018). Boundaries created by these less-direct communication methods provide an increased sense of control over. This was a reason cited by Charlie about why she finds the Internet a useful medium of communication.
Charlie: If you’re really shy in school, you don’t really talk to a lot of people, when you go to social media you’re more confident talking to your friends and gossiping, but in school it’s quite different…. [Online] it’s like a second school, but you have more friends than you did before… JH: Can you tell me a bit more about why you feel more confident? Charlie: There are some things you want to tell your friends but are not really comfortable telling them face-to-face, and you don’t have to when using the phone because they can’t really judge you. Charlie, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
Charlie feels more confident potentially for the same reason we use visual research methods, as they allow children time to pause, reflect and construct an answer in a seemingly less pressured manner than a face-to-face group conversation (Gauntlett, 2006). As Turkle suggests, social media acts in a way that levels the playing field, shielding ‘the writer from the view of the reader...a place to reflect, retype and edit’ (2011: 187). The teenage years are notably fraught with high emotions and anxiety; the social media boundaries
150 afford an increased sense of control in how they express themselves. For Charlie, feeling protected by the screen enables her to feel confident about sharing more information than she would face-to-face, less burdened by the expectations of others. However, this protection is a double-edged sword, as it can lead to young people saying things that they wouldn’t in person, as Olivia and Zara discussed:
Olivia: Sometimes, things can be worse online, as people can be more mean, and they can think of things. Zara: When it’s in real life, you can say stuff back straightaway. But when you are on your phone, you have time to think about it. Olivia, Unpopular, Zara, Middle, Year 10, Chigford
This protection has created ‘short cuts’ for young people to easily and quickly vent their frustration about someone else, without the need to confront them or see the effects of their confrontation. These are called ‘indirects’, or ‘rants’ where someone complains about another person on Instagram or Snapchat but does not name them individually, as Toma and Pippa described:
JH: What do ‘indirects’ mean? Pippa: It is when you are saying something to someone without saying it to them. It’s like the context where you don’t say ‘that’s about this person’, but you can tell. Toma: I have to admit that I’m not generally a petty person, but I am surrounded by a lot of petty people...so I did an indirect because one of my friends did do something really, really bad. She could see her mistake, and I was trying to help her to see what she had done wrong, but she just wasn’t acting normal, the opposite to her. It takes a lot to get me really, really, mad to a stage where it is actually petty, so I just posted one indirect and didn’t say anything to her. I guess it’s a way of taking out your anger without talking to the person. Pippa and Toma, Year 9, Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
151
Other girls interviewed also cited ‘indirects’ as a common way to publicly share a private frustration, and how the audience views and interpret these as part of the information sharing:
Most of the popular people, if you see their Snapchat, they are always indirectly speaking about someone, but you know who it is, and then everyone likes talking about it, and all these fights start happening. Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s Academy
However, although it may be easier for the sender of the message, it does not make it easier for the recipient to digest, especially as it is shared across a publicly accessible forum, as Nellie described:
A boy… one of my friend’s exes, does a lot of these [indirects]. Sometimes, he will do a rant about my friend and sometimes about other people that I know. Then I’ll text them to ask them if they are OK because it’s really sad and everyone looks at it, and people comment on it. Nellie, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
Audience
The ability for content on social media to be permanently recorded, and for it to ease awkward or uncomfortable conversations that may not otherwise happen in offline contexts, all take place in front of a wide audience (Turkle, 2011). Private affairs are now available for public consumption. This social media audience can act as a catalyst for magnifying the social dramas young people encounter, as Olivia and Molly discussed:
JH: So, what happens when they are saying these things online because it might be a bit easier?
152 Olivia: They will mention it to their friends at the time and tell them about it or screenshot it and send it to people. Molly: I’ve been in drama where two people have got into a fight, but it’s on a group chat. When they send something, everyone sees it. Olivia: Some people will try to diffuse the situation and say ‘stop arguing, guys’, but other times you can’t say anything about it. You just have to either ignore it or just watch. Olivia and Molly, Year 10, Unpopular, Chigford
The girls interviewed described this involvement with school peers’ private affairs as something they did not choose to participate in, and in some cases, it happened in front of them without their active consent. However, not all members of an online audience are passive. Researchers suggest others attempt to exacerbate a situation by commenting or sharing it further (Marwick, 2011; A. Marwick and Boyd, 2014; Hayes, 2015). The conversation below exemplifies how the online feeds the offline content:
Molly: If people have seen it, they will go up to people to ask if they have seen the picture or have they seen this, and it will spread around quickly. Olivia: When people go around telling people, they make it sound worse than it is and then it becomes bigger. Molly: Then you hear different things, and you never know what’s true. Then you go back to the person, and it’s a whole other story. People just like to see drama happen. Zara: They like to make it more dramatic. JH: Why do they like to make it more dramatic? Zara: They find it entertaining. Olivia: Sometimes it can be entertaining, and I used to find it entertaining. Molly, Olivia and Zara, Year 10, Unpopular, Unpopular and Middle, Chigford
The drama through the screen, on social media, enables not only the perpetrator to feel more confident to act, but also enables an audience to act
153 more freely than they may otherwise face to face (Marwick, 2011; Turkle, 2011). Being an observer of drama was similar to watching a form of entertainment. They felt that some peers looked for opportunities to observe this drama, and in some cases, catalysed issues for the benefit of the watching audience.
Letitia: I don’t know, it’s quite stupid, so instead of sorting out the problem face-to-face, I’d say it to somebody else thinking I could trust that person. But then they will turn around and say it to that person that I said, and it turns into a big thing everyone gets involved in. JH: When those things happen, why do other people get involved? Rae: Because it’s more entertaining to see something go bad than to see it go right Rae and Letitia, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s Academy
This love of the spectacle, reminiscent of audiences in Roman amphitheatres, appears to transcend all ages, (Ronson, 2015), as Charlie observes:
Let’s say you got in an argument with two people, and if you continue to argue, that’s what other people want, but if you just leave it, they say you’re scared or something and talk about you online. Charlie, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
Through encouraging and provoking online disagreements to continue, the audience tries to bring itself into the limelight, to be part of the drama and excitement. There are also limited resources for young people who do not want to engage in this type of behaviour, as the strength of the peer group can outweigh any inclinations to be a more positive bystander and defuse a situation. Acting to defuse a situation would catapult that person into the limelight and the centre of the drama. The interaction between the digital and in-school audience serves to exacerbate issues and make it easier for pressure to encourage a person to act out against someone online.
154 Attention Economy
Given that the audience plays a crucial role in social media interactions, attention is a valuable commodity (Marwick, 2015; Berriman and Thomson, 2015). The girls interviewed linked their social media activity to garnering attention, as a driver for producing certain types of content:
We’re getting more attention and, like, everyone has attention now, and attention is the main thing, and people just want more and more of it…. that’s influenced by Instagram, that is one of the main things that you want is attention. Chelsea, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
This desire for amassing comments and likes can affect how young people use social media: People are really into Instagram, so they want to make sure that nobody is unfollowing them. I don’t know, they are just really focused on it, and they don’t want anybody to unfollow them. Alice, Year 10, Unpopular, Estuary
Attention is not won purely through content. Across the three schools, young women shared examples and advice on how to ‘manage’ their social media to gain the highest number of likes, comments or attention. Several gave examples of using different media to publicise another media; for example, sharing that they had posted a photo on Instagram on other mediums to generate a greater number of likes via publicising the photo to their networks:
Nellie: If I post a new picture and then resend [in group messages], people will go and see the picture on Snapchat and Instagram. Lila: I only do that on Snapchat and send it to my friends. JH: Why do you let your friends know that you are posting a photo? Lila: So you can get more likes.
155 Nellie: Comments and likes. Nellie and Lila, Year 8, Popular and Middle, Chigford
Some young people also post for others to call them out in their social media content, to generate a higher number of followers:
People on Snap ask for shout outs, so they can get more adds and more views. Toma, Year 9, Unpopular, Milner’s
Followers are essential, both in multitude but also in the ratio of following: followed for a young person; with the desired ratio being a high number of followers to a low number of following. It demonstrates a young person has high-quality content; and that they did not need to follow many others in order to be recognised. This links to the ‘effortless’ achievement, in which the attention comes to them ‘naturally’, demonstrating how authentically valued they are by their peers and followers. This links to the online performance that will be discussed in the next chapter, but now this thesis moves on to discuss the role of the school context.
School, Social Media and Social Learning
“The teachers say, ‘don’t talk in class’ but when you get on the phones, you can talk about it with your friends as much as you want.”
Social media complicates the relationship that schools have with the young people they teach. School—as the site where the online and offline interact— also complicates a young person’s engagement with their peers, as shown in the previous section. The complexity passes through young women, who are situated between and balancing the effects of both relationships. This section explores the effect of the school interaction with social media and vice versa, and how it blurs the boundaries of what is policed and what is permissible.
156 All three schools had online safety, smartphone and bullying policies. These were broadly similar, taken from the same government and charity-issued guidance. However, in one policy they differed: Estuary did not allow mobile phones to be used during school hours, whilst Chigford and Milner’s students could use phones at break and lunchtimes. This will be explored later in the section.
Unpatrolled spaces within schools
Across the three schools, young people felt that staff inconsistently policed online spaces, even issues that took place during school hours. Schools have targeted policies to police online activity (Valcke et al., 2011) yet researchers have found considerable variation in how they deal with situations that arise online; how they demarcate their jurisdictions and how they punish (Cross, 2009, Addington, 2013; Festle, 2014; De Smet 2015). This was similarly found in the girls’ interviews, the extract below highlights the inconsistency:
JH: How much stuff is fed through to teachers? Melissa: Some people tell the Head of Year. Like the incident that happened, the girl showed it to Mr Jackson, and he tried to do something about it, but he just stopped everyone from talking about it, and nothing else happened. Gabby: I don’t think teachers care. When they do show an interest, they are penalised for it. Say I went up to one of the teachers and said that so-and-so is saying this to me – like before. In Year 8 I used to get picked on, and I used to tell my Head of Year, and he did nothing but said just don’t talk to her and just don’t do this and don’t do that. It ends up being your fault and feeling that it’s your fault. It’s like they are telling you not to do this and not to do that, and they are the ones that should be getting into trouble. So it’s like you don’t what to do, but sometimes other teachers say do this and do that, then you think you might as well just leave it. Gabby and Melissa, Year 10 and Year 8, Middle and Unpopular Chigford
157 The digital space has meant school staff are bound to police and monitor a space they have no access to, a space from which they cannot gather first- hand evidence. It is an unregulated platform within adult regulated spaces (Boyd, 2007; Blair, Claster and Claster, 2015). They see the effects and cannot witness the cause and cannot monitor the space within the school where this takes place. This may serve to tacitly sanction the abusive behaviour if there are no mechanisms to either bring about prevention or resolution.
It’s like someone will start crying and then the teachers ask what it’s about, and then the teachers find out. Lena, Year 8, Middle, Estuary
This public/private space is further complicated by temporal variation. Often much of the verbal abuse and ‘drama’ takes place after school when young people are in different locations (Allen, 2014). The issues emerge in school the next day, as the students discuss what took place the evening before. Indeed, as discussed previously, the nature of social media may enable arguments to occur – providing a more anonymous space, protection by the screen and a ready audience waiting to witness the drama unfold.
If there’s been an argument over comments on Instagram everyone would have seen it, or someone would have screenshot it, and then tomorrow at school they’ll show all their friends, and it’ll just go around school, and everyone is obviously going to take their side of the argument. Demi, Year 8, Popular, Estuary Academy
This was particularly true at Estuary, where phones were banned during the school day. The girls interviewed generally felt that it did not solve the problems, it merely stopped them occurring during the school day, and the effects were simply delayed until the day after:
158 Rhian: Online, there is more verbal bullying. Brooke: It’s not bullying, but verbal arguments. Rhian: Because people still have access to their phones at home Brooke: So everything kicks off at -- Rhian: Hometime. Rhian and Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
Mia: I am on my phone before and after. Usually, as soon as I wake up and until I get to school. Then as soon as I’m out the door, I’m checking on my Instagram and on Face Time too until I fall asleep. JH: So does that delay arguments then? Faith: It can sort of. Mia: If there’s an argument one night the next day’s going to be awkward if they go to your school. Mia and Faith, Year 10, Most Popular, Estuary
However, this rule may allow for ‘time-outs’ in a way that having phones the whole time may not. Another student, Chelsea, compares two schools she attended, the first allowed smartphones in school whilst the other did not:
At my old school, I read something at break, and I’d be in a bad mood for the rest of the day. But here I can’t do that. I’ll be happy for the whole of the day, and yeah, when I go home I might be in a bad mood, but then one of these lot will cheer me up, and it’ll be fine. I think not having social media in school is probably one of the best things. Chelsea, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
For Chigford and Milner’s, the drama centred on the events that took place during the school day. Social media was used to continue conversations after students went to separate lessons or were told to be silent in class. This shows the extent to which boundaries that schools use to patrol social relations are increasingly fluid – as social media and digital interactions take
159 place both within, and outside, school (Boyd, 2007). Within school, they create unpoliced social spaces young people can navigate unobserved by the adults acting in loco parentis.
The teachers say, don’t talk in class but when you get on the phones you can talk about it with your friends as much as you want, like gossiping….There was once an argument on social media between two people in the class one day…Like if they don’t want to hurt someone by speaking and going up to them and say, ‘this is what I think of you!’, people tend to do it online. Charlie, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s
The multiplicity of digital spaces also makes it challenging, as the example below exemplifies how multiple social sites can be used to subvert teacher attempts to monitor student behaviour and minimise abuse:
Lila: There was a fight in a maths class, and someone filmed it, and she got into an argument with the boy, and they weren’t friends for a while. Aimee: The teachers got involved, and she didn’t post it…. Lila: No. But there was a fight with B and A, and someone filmed and put the whole thing on Snapchat, and they got in trouble. Lila and Aimee, Year 10, Middle, Chigford
School staff are not immune to exposure on social media; as students at Chigford described:
A few weeks ago, the Headteacher got hit with a bag of flour and it was shared on an account that has millions of followers and got a lot of abuse. The boy was excluded permanently, and people were egging him on to do it Molly, Year 10, Unpopular, Chigford
Outside, they afford the conversations and relationships to continue into the evening, allowing young people to reinforce or contest friendships, which can
160 be brought back into the school grounds the next day. What takes place inside of schools flows outside, and what happens after hours online directly affects young people’s experience within school hours. The boundaries of the school are increasingly translucent for both students and staff.
Social Learning in School
Although the girls cited some instances where teachers stepped in to minimise the harm to students, as so much of the drama took place in a separate space, students frequently did not feel teachers could do much to assist in minimising the issues.
I’ve seen it happen on social media, and I have heard about it in school. I hear people getting upset about these exposing accounts [a tool for shaming discussed in Chapter Six]….I’ve never reported it to anyone at school because I didn’t think there would be a point and thinking what would the school do. I don’t know if anyone else has. Alice, Year 10, Unpopular, Estuary Academy
Another example, where a popular group in another school was bullying Jodie, she did not want to involve the school. This serves to tacitly sanction the behaviour if there is no perceived mechanism to attain justice.
Jodie: In another school, a group of girls made a fake account about me a couple of years ago, and their sort are horrible and, like, bully quieter girls. JH: How did that make you feel? Jodie: It wasn’t great, it was really hard to go through it and then come to school like nothing was wrong, because I didn’t want the school to find out, and it got to the point where the school did. JH: Why did you not want the school to find out?
161 Jodie: Because I didn’t want more hassle. So if they found out, it’s more hassle for me because they’re like “You snitched” and all of this. Jodie, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
Social media here blurs the boundaries between peer groups across the school. In this example, Jodie was targeted by a group of popular girls in a different school and social hierarchy. This meant that not only did the bullying occur in a different temporal and geographical space, but it was also perpetrated by girls subject to a different set of school rules. In many of these examples, the jurisdiction is unclear, schools; police and parents sit upon the outside of the digital world, receiving only second-hand past-tense information. This inconsistency may tacitly sanction abuse and bullying, in allowing it to go unchecked. It shows how the interaction between social media and school is complicated, fragmented between different temporal and geographic locations. This heightens the importance of preventative measures and mechanisms for reporting issues, so the accountability and consequences are clearer.
School pressure and social media
Schools as institutions are heavily hierarchical – students and schools are ranked by performance, and it is perhaps unsurprising that these translate to an informal culture of ranking peers by power and status, which will be discussed in Chapter 5. Several students highlighted that the ranking system in place was stressful, and paradoxically led them to go on social media to try and escape the pressure, seeking solace from a formal hierarchical system by accessing a platform dominated by informal peer hierarchies and pressure (Müller, Stanoevska-Slabeva and Meckel, 2017).
Gwen: Social media for me is more of an escape, because I’m always doing these tests, and people are always testing my intelligence, like teachers, and comparing us to each other.
162 Ruby: Tests treating you like, dumb. Always saying you need to see where you. Tests are more pressure than social media. Gwen: Yes, school is more pressure than social media, and when I told my teacher, did you know that tests, the pressure increases because of tests. She was just like, I think all of you kids are just getting soft. Gwen and Ruby, Year 9, Middle, Milner’s
These comments relate to work on the ‘datafication’ of education, where the scrutiny and accountability for data and results trickle down to the pupils. The high-stakes data and the hierarchies they inform are dominant governance techniques (Lingard, Martino and Rezai-Rashti, 2013). They can be seen as technologies of power, where data are used to regulate school through rank, and the pupils within, as Gwen and Ruby articulate (Roberts-Holmes and Bradbury, 2016). These ‘politics of data’ are strikingly reflective of the metrics- driven informal peer ranking culture, outlined in greater detail in Chapter 5 (Selwyn, Henderson and Chao, 2015).
Social media also added pressure to young people inside a lesson, as they become distracted by the drama that has taken place online. It is a disjointed interaction, which only surfaces from social media into the offline school space if there is a distinct disconnect between the discursive practices online and offline, as Demi describes through her friend being exposed for editing a photo:
Demi: Even that might not be you and, like, it happened to one of my group friends. She got tagged in a photo and got Photoshopped into it, so it looked like her, but it wasn’t. That causes trouble in school, and it would just go around the school, and people are sniggering, and you’ll be walking past, and someone will make a comment quietly. Then you think people will be sitting there in class thinking of saying it behind you. JH: How does that affect schoolwork?
163 Demi: It just makes you not want to be in school, and you can’t concentrate on your work because you’re sitting there and concentrating on what they’re saying behind you. Demi, Year 8, Popular, Estuary
Given that this takes place on a different plane geographically, temporally and physically, teachers and schools find this area difficult to police (Boyd, 2008), students are left unmonitored to interact with each other, and those responsible for their wellbeing are left to see only the consequences, not the actions. When adults fail to appropriately monitor abusive behaviour, particularly around the performance of gender, it reinforces the acceptability of highlighting schoolgirl femininity ‘failings’. This tacitly communicates and condones the policing of gender, validating the notion of a ‘successful’ performance. School policy should be mindful of what their actions, or inactions, serve to informally reinforce.
School and social media complicate the young person’s experience of both of these contexts. It is the site where the online and offline intersect for young people, which increases the type of pressure young people feel from each. It is a space of a cyclical nature: actions offline are documented and discussed online, and tensions magnify online where it is easier to write down phrases and words that it would be difficult to say face to face. These issues then spill over into the offline world the next day, when peers are faced within each other, to discuss the events from the night before, and document offline drama as the cycle repeats itself.
Alongside the behaviours social media enables in, and outside, of school, it is now important to consider the expectations of young women to perform schoolgirl femininity in this context. This chapter now turns to explore how gender is performed and valued in school and online. Across the three schools, those at the top of the peer hierarchies exemplified and strived to maintain the most appropriate form of femininity: hyper-femininity. The
164 chapter explores the ‘truth’ underpinning this valued form of femininity, and how power and knowledge are enacted to normalise hyper-femininity. It lastly turns to the discursive practice required to enact this performance: the investments in the self and the rules through which hyper-femininity is produced both in school and online.
Valued Femininity
“Types of girls you want to look like, you know, those public figures.”
When considering how girls enact appropriate schoolgirl femininity online and in school, it is essential to consider how gender is valued in the context. Given that social status was synonymous with an ideal production of femininity, it is crucial to interrogate the truths that are being told to the young women, which are in turn discursively enacted in school and online. For the three schools, which served a high proportion of lower-socioeconomic families, the type of appropriate femininity described was a ‘hyper’ form of femininity, which was accompanied by risk-taking behaviours (Paechter, 2006; Allan, 2009, Reay, 2010; Ringrose, 2013). This is not an effortless task: significant investment and time were required to perfect the hyper-feminine performance. These investments are the application of discursive practice – the techniques and rules that demonstrate one knows how to be a schoolgirl who has power and status (Foucault, 1972). Within this context, correct performance is the ultimate expression of power and knowledge – they work together to produce an optimally functioning hetero-normative hegemonic system and society.
This section firstly defines the localised truth of what ideal femininity means in the context of the three schools and then interrogates how this form is constructed as ‘true’ by exploring those who exemplify the correct discursive practice of femininity. It then spends time exploring other requirements of this gender performance: risk-taking behaviours and investment in the practice –
165 the techniques to achieve an effective discursive practice of appropriate femininity.
Defining hyper-femininity
The descriptions of idealised gender production closely allied to previous definitions of hyper-femininity, an investment in physical attractiveness through overtly feminized practices (Ridgeway, 1991). This ‘dramaturgical, glamourized femininity’ (Paechter, 2006: 6) or hyper-sexy femininity (Ringrose, Tolman and Ragonese, 2019) relied on investment in beauty regimes and brands to exaggerate parts of the face and body. Jaz described how this form of femininity is very influential, whilst scrolling through her Instagram feed:
‘Look…It’s like everybody has to not look the same, but similar designer brands or have the same hair… eyelashes, fake nails, make-up, lipstick.’ Jaz, Year 8, Middle, Milner’s Academy
This significant investment in beauty regimes relates to previous researchers’ findings relating to a type of femininity sometimes related to girls from lower socio-economic backgrounds which included significant investment in beauty regimes, glamour and sexualised clothing on to the body (Warrington and Younger, 2014; Francombe-Webb and Silk, 2016). As discursive gendered practices of teenagers reflect the mainstream portrayals of women, this hyper- feminine performance of teenage girls can be seen as the inscription of dominant, cultural norms upon the body (McNay, 2000).
‘My best friend, Emma, she wears loads of make-up and gets loads of likes, she’s very much focused on herself and wearing loads of make-up…doing her eyebrows and mascara…like the types of girls you want to look like, you know, those public figures.’
166 Chanel, Year 9, Most Popular, Milner’s Academy
The type of femininity described above emphasises the value placed upon significant beauty regimes and make-up, as Chanel attributes her friends’ status to her glamorous femininity. She then goes on to relate her friend’s feminine performance with celebrities and high-status figures, highlighting that the mechanism to achieve this type of status is through the adoption of hyper- feminine beauty regimes. In her explanation above, Chanel can be seen to be sharing the ‘truth’ about the correct discursive feminine practice.
This truth of appropriate gender roles, particularly the hyper-feminine position, were exemplified by celebrities, the media and advertisements (Mendick, Allen and Harvey, 2015). Examples were given of Nicki Minaj, Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian. As gender performance is localised and restricted to the choices available within the context, this type of femininity was tied to the most popular – who enacted and embodied the most appropriate localised forms of femininity (Hey, 1997). They held the knowledge of how to be popular and the power to evolve it. In enacting this femininity, the most popular can be seen to signal that hyper-femininity is an aspirational norm that others should strive to achieve (Butler, 1993).
[The most popular] dress in the clothes that everyone wants, like all branded and expensive and always have nice hair, always going to the hairdresser getting their hair done and highlights. Ellie, Year 8, Popular, Estuary Academy
This idealised femininity is similar to that described in Archer’s study where students produced glamorous working-class hetero-femininities, combining elements of Black, urban styles and hyper-feminine sexy clothes, make-up and hairstyles (Archer, Hollingworth and Mendick, 2010; Stanger, 2019). Warrington distinguishes the symbols of female popularity as glamorous, hyper-feminine as well as interests in celebrities, fashion and boys (2014.)
167 The body is central to the hyper-feminine performance. There is also a particular focus on the body, with clothes to reveal and accentuate:
Jamelia: It’s about the make-up and just shorts and bras. Natalie: It affects people because they wish they had that figure of a certain person… for example, like Kylie Jenner. Jamelia and Natalie, Year 10; Popular; Chigford
Across the three schools, the ‘hourglass’ figure was highlighted as the pinnacle of attractiveness, which echoes the celebrities that the girls highlighted. This, alongside investments in glamorous femininity, comprises the regime of truth about valued femininity – those who have particular features, and invest in particular beauty regimes, are more likely to attain the status (Foucault, 1980).
Nellie: Big is good for your bum and your boobs. Aimee: Yeah, like a big bum, that’s good. But if other bits are big, or you’re not big, it’s not. Nellie Year 8, Popular, Aimee, Year 8, Middle, Chigford
The hourglass figure appeared to be valued over and above other elements of hyper-femininity, potentially as it was so difficult to attain. This discursive practice focussing upon the body serves to entrench gender inequity, by being a further vehicle in which to objectify a girl and hold her to an unattainable standard:
JH: So, have you ever felt pressured to take photos in a certain way? Jennifer: Me, I think there is pressure if you don’t have bum or boobs…Even if she [a girl] has a pretty face, she has to have bum or boobs. Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Milner’s
168 These truths of femininity were shared via the school-based and digital practices of the most popular, in which they articulated discursive ideals that contributed to the idealised hyper-feminine performance. Comparison to particularly hyper-feminine celebrities demonstrated that the style and behaviours that both the most popular enact are most valued, exemplified in how the most popular girl at Chigford School is described:
Maddison: I think she is the most known girl in this school. Ashley: Even people that don’t go to our school are like, it’s Jenna, isn’t it? I’m like, she is just a 15-year-old girl, and she isn’t Kim Kardashian. Maddison: She does look like Kim Kardashian… Maddison, Ashley, Karmel, Year 10, Most Popular, Chigford
This focus on achieving an impossible hourglass shape (that celebrities in some cases have had surgery to acquire) was the locally valued truth of hyper-femininity, prized above other investments. This was articulated through social media and in school, with a performance that transcended both mediums. These regimes of truth, therefore, have components that are more or less valued and give those who can better ‘tell’ the truth greater status (Foucault, 1997).
Digital hyper-feminine truths: the role of influencers and social media celebrities From the most popular girls to celebrities and media, many sources signalled the ‘truth’ of ideal hetero-normative femininity (Foucault, 1994). Highly gendered displays of the body are reflected in mainstream media portrayals, both online and offline (Döring, Reif and Poeschl, 2016). The celebrities, micro-celebrities and influencers referenced by young people signalled to other students about how to perform gender (West and Zimmerman, 1987). Kim Kardashian is known for embodying ‘excessive’ femininity, and famous for the association of her work with her body (Mendick, Allen and Harvey, 2015).
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Celebrities have amassed millions of followers with whom they share allegedly personal, non-crafted content, ‘a commodification through intimacy’ (Berryman and Kavka, 2017: 307). Social media has redefined the consumer/producer relationship, as all users produce content, as well as consume that from those they follow. This production/consumption relationship is not binary – but a spectrum, from those who produce content for a large number of consumers to everyday individuals who produce content for a small number of consumers, and a growing number of ‘influencers’ who sit within the middle of this space. Social media has given birth to the rise of these micro-celebrities, locally well-known Instagram users who present themselves in a similar style to celebrities (Senft, 2013; Marwick, 2015b).
For many of the girls interviewed across the three schools, Kardashian’s hourglass body shape and style meant she was held up as an aspirational figure and model of glamorous hyper-femininity. Influencers, those who had over ten thousand followers, were also viewed as discursive practitioners of idealised femininity. Their status was demonstrated through their ‘authentic’ production of aspirational femininity (Marwick, 2015b). Their subjectivities appear able to harmonise the savoir and connaissance of the hyper-feminine discursive practice: knowledge of what it comprises and knowledge of how to enact this (Foucault, 1969). It is an aspirational production of femininity that situates them within the conventional notions of gender, luxury and celebrity (Marwick, 2015b; Banet-Weiser, 2012).
Social media builds an image for people to look a certain way, and for people to have a certain amount of friends…you’ve got to put on make-up and put on this facade that you are like everybody else, but you are your own individual person….The Instafamous, everybody has to look like them… To have the same designer brands or have the same hair, eyelashes, makeup, nails. Rae, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s
170 Consuming the content of influencers and celebrities on social media shaped how young women crafted their femininity both online and in school. Exposure to this form of idealised discursive femininity drives emulation (Perloff, 2014) – young women are more exposed to perfect hyper-feminine portrayals, but are also lead to believe they are more attainable, as those within their local sphere attain influencer success. Power is maintained through this fairy-tale authenticity and encourages users to constantly attempt to improve their own appearance (Banet-Weiser, 2012; Foucault, 2002). It causes continual comparison and emulation that positions the discursive practice of the schoolgirls within the normative gender roles. This can be seen through those who emulate this performance most effectively: the most popular girls. Enacting similar practices to those practitioners of idealised femininity enables the most popular in school to become ‘influencers’ in their own right, with their own following (Khamis, Ang and Welling, 2016). This is evident in the comparisons between girls in school, and influencers, who are framed similarly by Naz and Angelique.
Naz: She is like a belly dancer, and then this girl Chantelle, she has two dimples, they have both got two dimples basically, Malu and Chantelle…and their body is curves. Angelique: So, their body is like boobs and bum. Savannah: Yeah…. curves. JH: Would some popular boys post about that? Naz: Yeah, and just post that she is pretty and stuff. Some girls will automatically think that they have to look like that for the guy to recognise them and like them. Naz, Angelique and Savannah, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
Through association with the influencer Malu Trevejo, Chantelle’s production of femininity is held in similarly high esteem. In this association, Malu’s production of femininity feels more attainable as it is emulated by someone from their school. This purports the notion of attainability through false
171 authenticity and frequent exposure to multiple examples of the same type of femininity. Exposure to the ‘repeated stylisations’ (Butler, 2004) of ‘relatable’ influencers made their status feel attainable – their savoir and connaissance of how to perform gender were so widely modelled on their social media (Foucault, 1969).
Gabby: It’s like these Instagram famous girls… JH: Can you give me some examples? [Gabby unlocks phone and opens an Instagram profile] Gabby: Her name is Riley Cole; her Instagram is @ttrc, and there is a girl called Kensa, @6azelia…. Melissa: Another one; her name is Jordan, and I don’t know her surname, but they look the same. JH: So, they have fake nails, fake eyelashes… Gabby: Make-up, lipstick Gabby, Year 10, Middle; Melissa, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
Influencers appear more relatable to the young women whom I interviewed, often living in similar neighbourhoods, of a similar age, or interested in similar things. To compound this, photos of the girl’s world, their friends, themselves, were interspersed on the same newsfeed as influencers and celebrities: their lives are digitally entwined. Photos from Malu or Kylie Jenner sat side by side with photos from girls in school or their own content. This creates an authenticity by association: the proximity of influencer content to their known content increases the authenticity of the former. These examples of idealised forms of femininity were, therefore, normalised, interspersed with the everyday social media activities of their friends and peers.
Many girls interviewed spoke of the effect of influencers upon them, that regular exposure to their content, and peer validation of influencer content, increased their desire to emulate these girls, who were often only a few years
172 older than them. Natalie and Monique discuss the most popular girl in their school, now considered an influencer.
Natalie: She is very stunning. With her followers, she has got 15K or something, and she is in this school, and she is only 15. Monique: I don’t really know her, she is gorgeous. Natalie: I don’t want to judge her. I want to be one of them girls. Natalie, Monique, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
Through their perceived reliability and fairy-tale authenticity, influencers play a role in maintaining and standardising idealised heterosexual feminine gender displays. These are the standards upon which young women build and curate their online subjectivity. It is through emulation of these ‘peers’ that young women reproduce the culturally dominant hyper-feminine ideal.
Pippa: I feel that girls have a need to be pretty in our society and they [influencers] have a really big impact on girls our age and we want to be like her and be as pretty as her. It’s all about the make-up and filters where all of that stuff comes in. I don’t think boys necessarily understand, because I guess they say that she wants to look pretty to get a boyfriend and wants to have attention. But it’s all to do with self-confidence because a lot of girls our age don’t have that and are insecure. Toma: The society that we live in, if you are not pretty then you are just not confident in how you look. But the majority of the time, you could be pretty, but not pretty because of the way that people act and because you don’t get attention from certain people. Pippa and Toma, Year 9, Unpopular, Milner’s
Celebrity and influencer emulation reproduce discourses of hyper-femininity that are valued within the school peer networks. This model of ideal hyper- femininity became increasingly influential as girls developed from childhood to adolescence. Faith and Leyla, in the most popular group in Year 10 at
173 Estuary, reflect upon the rise of hyper-feminine sexualised ways of looking and the difference they found between primary school and secondary school:
Leyla: Pretty was just natural, like the face. Now it’s more about the make-up and just shorts and bras, contact lenses. Faith: Yes. Like a big bum, cleavage, and flat stomach. Leyla and Faith, Year 9, Estuary Academy, Most Popular
For the most popular, the process of undertaking these hyper-feminine displays is an exercise of power, being able to enact the hyper-feminine ideals appropriately. The truths that the girls attempt are those of adult women, which positions the girls in a discursive limbo – where they are not yet old enough to be considered an adult legally but are persuaded to enact subjectivities that draw on adult sexuality and hyper-femininity. Their sexualisation is also more restricted and negative due to their being considered ‘under-age’ – researchers have shown that adult hyper-femininity is concurrently considered empowering and condemned (Renold and Ringrose, 2013). This sense of empowerment can lead young women to see the value in attaining a more agentic version of themselves. The girls below shared a story of how the most popular girl revealed her age on Instagram:
Maddison: Now everyone says she looked older when she was 12. She looks older than she actually should. Ashley: She put in the caption on this one, from 12 to 15… and people were like, you are 15, what! [Karmel shows JH the comments] Karmel: They are like, you look like you are, like, 21! Maddison, Ashley, Karmel, Year 10 Most Popular, Chigford
The girls placed a value on looking older than they appeared, as they were more authentic in their engagement with adult hyper-feminine practices. The patriarchal framework creates this discord being the discursive position of
174 idealised adult and teenage femininity – in many ways reflecting the long history of patriarchal control over women, where centuries ago girls would have been considered available to be ‘owned’ (married) once they began to menstruate. This impossible positioning of the teenage women/girl as both innocent and sexy serves to position those who attain an ‘adult’ sexuality as a marker of independence (Duits and van Zoonen, 2006) whilst concurrently positioning the female body as consumption for the male gaze (Mulvey, 1975; Tolman, Bowman and Fahs, 2014; Tolman, Davis and Bowman, 2016). The patriarchal structure, situated in this history, sexualises teenage girls, objectifying their bodies through promoting the value of the ‘adult’ hyper- feminine performance.
These displays, therefore, become gratifying, as they attribute their status to the successful enactment of adult hyper-feminine traits. There is self-worth to be gained through correctly engaging in hyper-feminine discursive practices, with girls citing that it gave them the confidence. This is reinforced by the consumerism of Instagram, with the production of femininity tied to improving the appearance and self-worth (Banet-Weiser, 2014). Chanel, one of the most popular girls, highlighted the enjoyment she found in these beauty routines and dressing styles associated with more agentic women:
I like getting my nails done. I like feeling grown-up because I just think that body con dresses make you look or prettier…. I like to dress a certain way…Crop tops and I like shorts. I like things that show off my legs and my stomach…and it’s probably because I’ve seen a lot on social media and my mum likes to dress like that as well. Chanel, Year 9, Most Popular, Milner’s Academy
Many of these practices, in dressing and make-up, result in teenagers looking and feeling older than they are through a practice that objectifies their subjective self. This desire to engage in these hyper-feminine discourses is encouraged by media and localised practices, which value the femininity of
175 female celebrities, and local influencers. These can be seen as technologies of the self, operations over the body that aim to bring about a transformation to attain a state of happiness or perfection (Foucault, 1978). The aim of this hyper-feminine practice differed depending on the girls’ social strata – the popular spoke of feeling empowered by practising agentic adult hyper- femininity yet others contradicted this standpoint, arguing that the aim was to attract the male gaze:
Sophie: Let’s just say they don’t wear the most clothes. Jodie: They’re quite revealing photos and not something that we would post. Not completely topless but cleavage and pulling their shorts right up and lifting their tops up. Neave: Sort of asking for boys to come and like it. Sophie, Jodie, Neave, Year 10, Middle, Estuary Academy
Correctly dressing the body was a central tenant to peer inclusion and integration, and ‘legitimates a sense of belonging and wellbeing.’ (Warrington and Younger, 2014: 153). It reflects the demand for girls to be heterosexually desirable subjects (Gill, 2007a; Allan, 2009). However, enhancing the outward subjectivity to align to localised ideal versions of femininity is not universally available for all. It is a discursive practice that is restricted and restrictive. Those who wield social power are better positioned to enact the knowledge of hyper-feminine practices, as their practice is sanctioned and supported by others who are also socially popular. Those who enact this knowledge/power authenticity are in a better position to access and practice than those who do not hold the same status. As Sana and Jade suggest, this ability to engage in hyper-feminine practices differs depending on social status.
Sana: If a girl was to show herself in a bikini on social media, boys might comment something nice, but then they might say negative things like she’s flat.
176 Jade: It depends who you are, and it depends on how your reputation is as well. If you are lower down, people, they think less of you and you’re not allowed to do that. But if you are popular, it is like normal. Sana and Jade, Year 8, Middle, Chigford
Social status enables certain girls to invoke unspoken rules and practices of acceptable femininity that those less popular cannot appear to interpret (Currie et al, 2008). Hyper-femininity appears to manifest across the most popular groups in the three schools, combining excessive use of make-up, adoption of fake or enhancing products such as eyelash and hair extensions, and fake tan, and wearing particular brands and clothing which reveals parts of their female body (Paechter, 2006). These ‘repeated stylisations’ of the body solidify the more ephemeral concept of what it means to be do successful schoolgirl femininity (Butler, 1990).
However, performing hyper-femininity is multi-faceted, and involves behaviours that engage the young person in more adult narratives: engaging in what are considered risk-taking behaviours.
Taking risks Alongside perfecting the outward appearance, to perform successful schoolgirl femininity is to engage the hyper-feminine body in more risk-taking behaviours, associated with maintaining social status, such as sexting and drinking. The most popular girls, and their hyper-femininity, are associated with ‘risk-taking’ deviancy (Griffin et al., 2013). Ringrose also found that being considered ‘sexy’ through hyper-feminine acts is associated with risk-taking behaviours such as drinking and smoking (Renold and Ringrose, 2013). This discursive practice again misaligns with legal concepts of adolescence, engaging in these activities is considered illegal, and reflects normative and idealised feminine behaviour practised on reality TV shows like ‘Keeping up the with Kardashian’, ‘Love Island’ or ‘The Only Way is Essex’.
All they care about is going out smoking, drinking, having sex.
177 Tara, Year 8, Middle, Chigford
This form of gender performance reflects the ‘ladette’ femininity within a highly glamorised body that is considered ‘sexy’ or ‘mean’ (Jackson, 2007; Renold and Ringrose, 2013; Sanders, 2015). Within school, this performance was also associated with disengagement in class, as the hyper-feminine sought to stand out:
You have to wear branded things, and you have to be a bad girl, because that’s what’s kind of trending right now, like be rude to authority and teachers…. But it makes you more popular if you talk back to the teacher. Gwen, Year 9, Middle, Milner’s Academy
This quote suggests that the hyper-feminine performance can also be at odds with the traditional education system, as girls find it difficult to be appropriately feminine and enact a studious student persona (Warrington, 2014). It appears from Gwen’s explanation that the aim of this is to gain attention and perform femininity to become ‘known’. Livingstone and colleagues suggest the higher the desire for metric-driven approval; the more clouded the young person’s judgment can become around sharing risky information (Buckingham and Willett, 2013; Livingstone, 2014). Brooke and Rhian also discussed how the most popular girl in Year Ten at Estuary, Chennai, engaged in sexualised online behaviour. In the discussion below, they are looking through her Instagram account:
Brooke: That is Chennai. Rhian: Her boobies are out JH: So that photo has 1910 likes right now. Brooke: So this was a bit revealing. Rhian: So she is in her knickers and a little crop top…. So a lot of really revealing! Brooke and Rhian, Year 10, Popular, Estuary Academy
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The implication from Chennai’s social media content is the greater the bodily exposure, the greater the social media engagement. This reflects the research that found that young people who had or valued high social status were more likely to engage in other online risk-taking behaviours, such as sexting and watching porn (Vanden Abeel et al., 2014; Walrave et al., 2015). In terms of drinking and smoking behaviours, these often took place at parties – which the most popular girls documented on social media, showing how they engage in risk-taking behaviours outside of school. Social media is a vehicle for displaying behaviours outside of school, which, combined with hyper-femininity, maintain a high social reputation. This was similar across the three schools, predominantly involving the most popular girls in the year groups:
High heel shoes, parties, and it’s not necessarily alcohol but things that a proper adult woman would be doing in their 20s like having wine in a swimming pool, but you’re 15. Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s Academy
When asked about the types of photos they uploaded to Instagram, many of the popular groups across the three schools referenced parties. Social media provided an opportunity to display risk-taking behaviours that would otherwise have been unavailable in school, such as drinking. It also relates to an agentic practice – a power through enacting more ‘adult’ behaviours.
JH: What do you post on Instagram? Nellie: Probably pictures of myself, selfies or pictures of parties, and videos. Nellie, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
It has also been argued that social media does not display the whole self, so makes displaying more risk-taking photos appealing, as the audience is not exposed to the real-life consequences of the behaviours (Turkle, 2011). Social
179 media also enables peers to witness this risk-taking discursive practice via shared content, exposing a wider audience to the content can help reinforce social status. It also exemplifies how the power/knowledge of social status is constructed from multiple simultaneous acts of hyper-feminine and risk-taking behaviours. The performance is multifaceted and in-flux. It shifts according to the audience within the context to refine and validate the practice. Discursive hyper-feminine practice cannot be performed in a vacuum but is required to be displayed to an audience to maintain and reinforce its value.
Investing in the performance You’ve got to get the perfect picture… Melissa, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
The idealised gender norms purported by local influencers, celebrities and peers can be impossible to attain. Significant investment is required in order to maintain a hyper-feminine discursive performance. These can be interpreted as technologies of the self – transformative operations upon the body to attain pleasure in a correct discursive practice (Foucault, 1988b). The beauty regimes girls undergo to perform femininity appropriately can be excessively time-consuming. However, effective hyper-feminine discursive practice does not appear to harmonise with a studious student persona (Warrington and Younger, 2014), as Chanel’s description outlines:
I used to wear contacts….that was last month. I had a talk with my mum about it, and she said you don’t need it. Every day coming to school I was consistently late just putting them in. Chanel, Year 9, Most Popular, Milner’s Academy
The majority of expressions of hyper-femininity take place in a space that can be accessed from school, but it is not within the boundaries of the school gates: social media. On this platform, girls can express their hyper-feminine self by posting photos and recording their performances of hyper-femininity.
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I prepare a selfie like, not prepare one, but make sure the lightings right and make sure my eyebrows are all fleek [attractive] Faith, Year 8, Most Popular, Estuary Academy
These preparations are often purely for social media, as the young women craft their image, and engage in hyper-feminine beauty regimes, in their bedroom. The body in this circumstance can be considered an artefact, documenting conformity to the idealisation notions of schoolgirl femininity (Kanai, 2015). These actions can be seen as truth games, rules by which the truth about the idealised hyper-feminine performance is produced (Foucault, 2003). This extends the possible time in which hyper-feminine discursive practice can take place, both in the preparation of content, and the evidential dissemination of the hyper-femininely produced body. This time enables those most popular to craft their digital schoolgirl hyper-femininity, through observation of idealised discursive practice and assimilation and production of similar techniques.
Monique: I don’t understand why people take so long just to put on make-up, and they just wipe it off. Natalie: Some girls put on make-up just to take a photo and then wipe it off. Monique and Natalie, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
In some senses, the bedroom now provides a private space where girls can curate and perfect their gendered performance available to their school peers via social media. The girls described what felt like a ritual, using social media to access YouTube videos and make-up tutorials, practising the techniques and documenting their schoolgirl hyper-feminine performance on social media. In some ways, these videos can act as policed guidance, an expression of the technologies of power, purveyors of appropriate discursive practice, which polices individuals through examples of what to do, and what not to do. These led to correct enactment of the technologies of the self,
181 where girls objectify their schoolgirl feminine subjectivity (Foucault, 1978; McNay, 1992; Riley, Evans and Mackiewicz, 2016). As well as conducting specific beauty regimes, capturing the performance is also essential. These endeavours on smartphones take a significant amount of time, both in the frequency of engagement, and in the preparation necessary:
When you do your make-up, you have to get the perfect selfie, like you have to take 50 or so just to get the perfect photo. Then you delete all the ones that you hate, and you keep the one that you like. But I could never take a good one, so I just delete all of them Jamelia, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
Exposure to a vast number of crafted images from celebrities and influencers raised the expectations for the quality of the images produced for social media. They are objects of desire to live up to (Marwick, 2015b). Social media provides readily available examples of idealised hyper-femininity, which was used to benchmark against their own content. This exposure serves to transmit the knowledge of idealised discursive practice, reinforcing the prevailing gender norms. Bearing witness to others photos, such as the influencers and other very popular students, adds pressure to this performance to ensure that their photos are of a particular standard, which is readily available to contrast against:
People expect too much…People expect you to be a certain way. It’s like you have to take 50 selfies or so just to get the perfect photo. Leyla, Year 9, Most Popular, Estuary Academy
Given the regular exposure to ‘examples’ of idealised femininity via social media, the decision-making process around a photo being ‘good enough’ can be time-consuming. Building on Goffman’s analogy of the stage, they strongly consider the audience in their decision-making or their perception of the audience’s reaction (1959).
182 I feel like it takes me two hours to decide whether or not to put a picture on Instagram because whose going to like it and who won’t and how I’ll feel if this person and what I have to take a picture of to make this person like it... I think what would he like me to put on Instagram. Katie, Year 8, Popular, Estuary Academy
The time investment described above demonstrates the extent to which the decisions relating to hyper-feminine practice are policed through broader technologies and power – in that their actions focus on appearing correctly in the eyes or ‘gaze’ of others (Foucault, 1977). Friends are critical to helping predict the reactions of others and to judge whether a photo is worthy of sharing. Friends can be viewed as actors, as they are situated on the same stage and they, therefore, comprehend the context and their approval is a precursor to acceptance from the audience (Goff man, 1959). They seek advice about the extent to which their discursive practice harmonises with expectations around idealised gender performance:
Because my friends I hang around with are popular…I check with my friends before I post Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Milner’s Academy
The schoolgirl femininity that is portrayed on social media for school peers is not crafted in real-time but edited through a series of consultations with the self, and with friends (Fu et al., 2013). There are outward choices available to adopt if they wish to be considered appropriately feminine or be considered successful in their schoolgirl femininity. However, the word ‘choice’ is used loosely—the ability to adopt particular styles of gender is restrictive—funnelled through a narrow tunnel of acceptability. The choice is, therefore, more proscription than a prescription (Walkerdine, 2001). These can be seen as transformative operations upon the body to attain benefit by situating it better within the hetero-normative system of appropriate hyper-femininity, a product
183 of policing, self-surveillance and learnt behaviour (Foucault, 1977, 1978; McNay, 1992; Henderson and Hendersont, 2007).
Chapter Summary
Social media has been shown to alter how young people perceive the world around them, affecting their interactions with both peers and school. It acts as a lens through which particular behaviours are magnified. Drama is intensified yet accountability for these abusive actions is reduced
The school site in which these take place complicates how young people interact with staff and peers; social media has created an unpatrolled space within the school which school staff can neither monitor nor control. These are the spaces where particular behaviours and norms are tacitly sanctioned by schools through their inaction. School and social media interact haphazardly upon a young person on a multiplicity of levels. Drama unfolds online and offline cyclically, with drama being bought into school and processed in real- time the day after it has occurred online. This can exacerbate issues between peers and increase exposure to heightened forms of femininity and gender production that would not be permissible within the school grounds. Young people now have unfettered access to the home lives of others and can witnesses the extent to which girls engage in hyper-feminine behaviours, influenced by the most popular and influencers. These reflect the localised truths of feminine value, and that a sexualised exposed body is the most valuable way to perform gender within the attention economy.
However, the young people in school are held to account differently from the seemingly effortless hyper-feminine performances of the celebrities and influencers. The authentic fairy-tale femininity raises the standards of acceptable gender performances whilst simultaneously making them more impossible to attain, as the girls are held to account offline in school, unlike those they follow. Significant investment is needed, through the technologies of the self, to attempt to harmonise their position (Foucault, 1997).
184
This thesis will now build upon these contexts to consider the peer hierarchies and how they manifest in school and online. It unpacks schoolgirl femininity through the discursive practice of popularity online and in school, which is closely entwined with hyper-feminine investments. It will similarly consider the role of other peers and males in the validation of this practice, and then analyse in greater detail the role of male peers in reinforcing patriarchal double standards. As, despite the differences the contexts of social media, school and gender create, they are ultimately tools that refract our offline biases and inequalities.
185 5. The role of peer hierarchies, social media and male peers in maintaining schoolgirl femininity.
Introduction In Chapter Four, this thesis explored the overarching aspects that influenced the girls’ everyday experiences and how they interacted: social media, school and gender expectations. Within these contexts, this thesis now turns to the systems in place to maintain appropriate gender performance through exemplification and validation. It explores peer hierarchies, social groups and how peer popularity acts as a vector for appropriate gender production: hyper- femininity is a form of power over others. It then turns to the discursive practice of popularity online, and how the most popular reinforce their position via appropriate digital practice. The chapter explores how this knowledge and power, tied to the hyper-feminine most popular, is ratified online and in school. Social media metrics are used to validate the appropriate production of femininity online, which is rewarded by positive social media engagement and ‘influencer’ status.
Authenticity is crucial for effective production: the ability for girls to both understand what hyper-femininity is (savoir) and enact it appropriately (connaissance) through investment in the technologies of the self, as described in Chapter Four. Those most popular are in the best position to balance and produce both elements of knowledge as social hierarchy, and privilege informs and validates gender production. It is questionable whether this is actual authenticity, which has been shown to be a fairy-tale in Chapter Four, or more an expression of the power infused into the performance that is beyond reproach from less popular peers. Still, the label of authenticity is provided to bolster the validity of the performance, which masks the source of the power itself.
Although those most popular appear to possess the power to enact femininity, the action of doing so paradoxically places them in a position of subordination
186 to male peers. Popular male peers arbitrate which form of female gender production is most successful and valuable and ultimately dictate hyper- femininity. Hegemonic masculinity, therefore, underwrites the female social order, with peer popularity acting as a tool through which patriarchal truths are conveyed.
Peer Hierarchies and Popularity
"So, different people are worth more than some other people."
It is crucial to understand how the girls experience peer hierarchies across the three schools, and how this interacts with their performance of schoolgirl femininity. During the interviews, they discussed what it meant to be popular and described peer hierarchy in their school, the peer groups, and where they situated themselves within the network. This section will describe the structure of popularity and the social groupings from most to least popular. Popularity, it will be argued, is a vector for transmitting traditional gender roles – whereby those most popular enact their power and knowledge of hyper-femininity to reinforce the truth that hyper-femininity is the most valued way to do schoolgirl femininity. Foucault’s framework of power as capillary and relational is useful here, as the interaction between power, knowledge and truth will be explored through the social hierarchies in the three schools. It is a social hierarchy to allow those with the highest status to enforce and exemplify ideal discursive gender practice: the performance of the hyper-feminine subject. This relationship between the most popular and the rest of the student body is imbued with power, exemplifying the capillary and relational nature of popularity.
Peer hierarchy
Rhian: So, different people are worth more than some other people. Brooke: It comes back to the popularity thing.
187 Rhian and Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
Despite popularity being ‘heavily context dependent’ (Francis, 2012), the peer structure described by the girls across the three schools was broadly similar and consisted of four social strata: the most popular, popular, middle and unpopular. Girls from the three schools, when asked, all drew similar models with four layers, as seen in Figure 2 and Appendices 6 and 8.
It was in how girls from different peer groups described themselves and each other where there was significant variation. For example, the most popular girls across the three schools were more similar in their descriptions than with girls who were less popular in the same school. To demonstrate the variety of descriptive language used, Figure 2 below shows the different social echelons alongside all the terms used by girls to describe them. These comprise derogatory, descriptive and complimentary terms.
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Figure 2 A diagram depicting peer hierarchy language
The girls were all asked to draw the social hierarchy diagram and then situate themselves on the chart. This helped understand where the girls felt they were positioned and can be seen in Figure 3.
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Figure 3 Interviewees self-reported social status by pseudonym and year group
Peer testament is a key endorsement of social standing; there were several instances where interviewees did not want to state their popularity but preferred a peer to validate their status, particularly if it was high. This relates to the notion of popularity, and the hyper-feminine performance being authentic, which will be discussed later in this chapter. This peer validation acts as a tool to verify the most popular’s social standing (Read, 2011). The conversation between Lila, a middle student and Nellie, a popular student, exemplifies this authentication process:
190 JH: Where would you guys fit in? Lila: I’m just normal. Nellie: I would get someone else to say that for me that and I wouldn’t say that myself. Lila: She is, like, a popular one. JH: Why is it difficult to say where you fit in it? Nellie: Because it’s what other people think of you and it’s not really what you think about yourself. Lila and Nellie, Year 8, Middle and Popular, Chigford
Given the variety of words that are used to describe the different social groups, it is important to understand how the groups see themselves and how others describe them. These are identifying labels, used to designate a social location of both the self and others (Currie et al., 2007). The next section, therefore, follows a ‘lived versus observed’ structure, outlining the experiences of those who inhabit a particular social echelon, as well as how others perceive that particular group. It works down from the most to least popular groups.
Group 1: The most popular
So, if you want to be popular, you have to be the subject that you want everyone to talk about. Charlie, Year 8, Milner’s Academy, Unpopular
Sat atop the social apex is a small group of girls who are considered the very most popular. They are often defined as being ‘well known’ outside of school, as well as inside. Other researchers have defined this group as ‘Elite’ or ‘Top’ (Hey, 2001; Dytham, 2018; Duncan and Owens, 2011). Those most popular were synonymous with the ‘perfect’ form of femininity. The most popular girls were the ones that enacted the ‘best’ way to be a girl in school, who also acknowledged that they were known for being so popular because of their
191 gendered looks and behaviour. Chanel, a gregarious student from Milner’s Academy London, whom her peers classified as most popular, explains the distinction:
You have got the people who are more known out-of-school, and the people who just socialise in school. The people that are known out-of-school, they get the most comments and the likes. Chanel, Year 9, Most Popular, Chigford
Social media metrics are used by Chanel to describe those most popular; their digital footprint mirrors their high offline status. These young women are very influential within their school, particularly their year group and those younger than them. Monique in Year 10 at Chigford High, part of a group that situates themselves as the second most popular group, describes the most popular girls have the most substantial role in setting fashion trends and behaviours in school:
They might see her [Jenna] with these types of clothes and go out and think, let me try that. The people that aren’t so well known, they will say, “did you see what she was wearing last Saturday?”…Then, like, they are copying her. Monique, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
Within a school-based peer-hierarchy, the most popular act as tastemakers, evolving and approving specific fashions, actions and behaviours. Within school, those at the top of the peer hierarchy have a similar status and reputation as celebrities. With, on average, over four thousand followers each (see Appendix 13 for a breakdown of self-reported followers), social media served to validate their offline status, as the number of likes and comments they accrued on their social media content was a tangible metric of status. The discursive practices of the tastemakers were then enacted in the school by other pupils, spread through their relational networks to influence decision- making and opinions. It is worth remembering that this influence is within the
192 ‘normative forms of gendered visual self- representation... of a semi-public digital subjectivity’ (Ringrose, 2011: 102). Chanel exemplifies their role of trendsetting:
JH: Are those contacts [contact lenses] to see? Chanel: No, for different eye colour. It was like a grey/blue, and then all of a sudden everyone else started getting contacts and the Year 7s were getting them. Chanel, Year 8, Most Popular, Milner’s
Brooke and Rhian, from Estuary Academy in the second most popular group, felt that their position rendered them less able to influence others. They were also more affected by the attitudes and opinions of other peers.
Rhian: Yeah, like a little headband or something. If I wore a headband and people kept laughing at it, I would probably throw that headband in the bin. JH: What about those that are more popular if they wear a headband? Rhian: Everyone else would wear it. Brooke: If a popular person wore a horrible headband, people would say that’s so nice, but it’s not. Rhian and Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
This quote demonstrates that those who are most popular concurrently wield the greatest social influence and dominance over others (Adler and Adler, 1998; Mayeux, 2014). The power/knowledge dynamic reinforces their position through evolving what holding power through discursive gender performance means (Foucault, 1969; 1977). Fashion here is an example of an action to reinforce their status, through evolving a particular trait of how to discursively practice the ‘truth’ of popularity and femininity. This ability to influence others, through evolving the truth of appropriate hyper-femininity, is not a passive process. Maddison, Ashley and Karmel, part of the most popular group in Year 10 of Chigford High, describe how being the most popular goes beyond
193 outward appearances. This conversation follows the drawing activity, where Ashley drew a diagram like in Figure 2 above.
JH: So, where do you fit? From what you’ve described it sounds like you’re the more popular? Ashley: We talk to a lot of people. We’re well known. JH: Where would you place yourself on the ladder…? Karmel: Top. Maddison: It’s only a few people at the top. We can sit here and say we’re popular and at the top of the ladder because we’re good looking, but that’s not it. It’s still down to the way you act…. because we’re upfront with everybody. Some of the girls in our year don’t like it; they think we are snaking it. But the boys like it. Maddison, Ashley and Karmel, Year 10, Most Popular, Chigford
Abbie, a most popular girl in Year 8 at Estuary Academy, similarly describes this attitude: Most of the other girls hate us as we are confident and if we are to say something, we will just say it.
This assertive and confident behaviour actively reinforces their position, through directly confronting others. Both groups of most popular girls reference similar traits despite attending different schools: being outspoken and popular with boys. This finding relates to work on ‘ladette’ culture, ‘wild girls’ and ‘masculine’ traits; such as acting tough, being loud and overtly heterosexual (Jackson, 2007; Dobson, 2014; Page and Charteris, 2017). It can also be seen as enacting hegemonic femininity, actively maintaining the current hierarchy and order that values the hyper-feminine gender performance (Francis, 2016; Paechter, 2018).
However, the attitude that both Maddison and Abbie describe reinforces that the teenage understanding of ‘popular’ means anything but consensually well-
194 liked (Duncan, 2011; Paechter and Clark, 2016). Across the three schools, the most popular girls were described by other groups of girls negatively.
JH: What distinguishes your group from the higher group? Brooke: Well we are kind of nicer than those— Rhian: The popular bitches. Rhian and Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
Ellie, a popular in Year 8 Estuary Academy, describes why she does not like the most popular group as:
Stuck up, horrible. Most of them are trying to pick arguments, and this person said this, and that about you and this person said this and that.
Similarly, Jodie and Neave who feel they are in the ‘middle’ in Y10 at Estuary Academy, describe the most popular group:
Jodie: They’re not like horrible, but they’re not the nicest at times. They think they run the school and want to be better than everyone else. JH: Is this girls, boys or both? Jodie: There’s a group of boys who run the school and the group of girls as well. JH: How would you describe them? Jodie: Snobby JH: What does snobby mean? Neave: It could mean, like, they look down their noses at you as if they’re better than you. Like to make you feel that you’re not good enough because you’re actually being yourself at school.
For teenagers, the concept of popular strays from the adult-definition of consensually well-liked to be a term that means most powerful (Parkhurst and Hopmeyer, 1998). This finding is supported by several decades of research,
195 Adler and Adler found that perceived popularity was not held by those who were most pro-social but those who have social influence and dominance within the class (1988). For the most popular girls, being well-liked by peers is of lower importance than being ‘respected’ (Flores-Gonzales, 2005; Cohen et al., 2006). Two interviewees at Milner’s Academy preferred to use the label respected rather than popular:
Rae: I wouldn’t say popular, it’s just people that are well respected. Letitia: Like they don’t do things to make themselves look silly. Rae and Letitia, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s Academy
This respect, the power derived from being most popular, or respected, insulates them from admonishment from peers. Naz, Year 8, a self-defined ‘middle’ popular student at Chigford School describes: It all depends on ratings. If you were popular, no one will really say anything, but if you are like middle, then people will say something about that.
Some research suggests that being respected by peers helped the most popular enact more aggressive behaviours without consequence (Kuryluk, 2011). Being the most popular comes with the ability to seemingly act more freely within the school without fear of bullying or reprisal.
Group 2: The popular
Compared to the most popular group, the second most popular students were described by others as being more pro-social and approachable. This is apparent in how Tara, a ‘middle’ student, described their Y9 peer hierarchy diagram at Chigford High:
That’s like the top level where all the popular people are at, and a level underneath where you can join them sometimes if you are cool with them. Then there is a level [indicating the bottom group] here, where you know them, and you talk to them, but you don’t chill with them.
196 Tara, Year 9, Middle, Chigford
This pro-sociality was confirmed in Estuary Academy by Rhian and Brooke, self-defined ‘popular’, who felt they were approachable compared to the most popular peers in their year group.
We are more popular with other groups than they [the most popular] are and they are more popular within themselves, like the averages and the nerds they are more likely to talk to us if they want to ask someone. Rhian and Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
This concept of popularity draws more heavily on the idea of socio-metric popularity (Parkhurst and Hopmeyer, 1998), an earlier construction of the concept that defined the popular as those who were most well-liked by their peers. This system was based on peer evaluation of whom they liked and disliked, those who received the most consensual approval were considered most popular (Coie et al., 1982). Although no formal nomination process took place, the language that the middle and least popular girls used to describe the second most popular was much more favourable than the most popular peers, citing they were more social and more approachable.
However, as described above, within the context of young people’s experience of school, those who are most liked are not who are most popular. This social acceptance is markedly different from popularity – an index of social visibility and power (Mayeux, 2011; Houser, 2015). Rhian and Brooke, second most popular, described feeling intimidated by the most popular girls, and far less confident in their ability to influence peers. In the extract below, they discuss the consequences of acting differently to the norms set by the most popular.
197 Our group finds that hard if someone started laughing at us…if someone would be laughing at us we would be like, we would be more insecure, and we would never do that again. Rhian and Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
In this, the second most popular group are distinct from the most popular. They are not high enough in the hierarchy to set the discursive practice, nor are they as insulated from admonishment. They do not possess the power or respect that is reinforced by the judgment of others (Duncan and Owens, 2011; Warrington and Younger, 2010).
Given their less dominant position, the second most popular may draw on other resources to strengthen their status, such as emphasised femininity concepts – being ‘nice’ (Reay, 2001; Francis, 2017). Rhian and Brooke situate themselves as a nicer, but still popular, peer group. They are also aware of the conflict that exists between themselves and the most popular girls. Rhian and Brooke describe how the most popular girls’ behaviours cause them to moderate their own:
They are so rude to everyone. Even, like, I’m quite confident. But when I’m around them I just will not speak because they will just laugh at what I said. Brooke: Or they will just slag you off to other people. Rhian and Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
The popular appear to define themselves in opposition to the most popular. For Ellie, Katie Demi, Year 8 in Estuary Academy, self-defined ‘popular’, conflict with the most popular girls was caused by their pro-sociality.
Ellie…because there’s kind of like, obviously, the really popular girls and then there’s like, the people who would say aren’t the most popular girls. Katie: And we’re kind of like that…
198 Demi: Not a lot of those people [most popular] like us, but it’s because we’re just, like, we try and be mates with everyone.” Katie, Ellie and Demi, Year 8, Popular, Estuary
These second most popular girls, despite having lower levels of social influence, still display many of the characteristics of the most popular; ‘attractiveness’ (Merten, 1997); ‘being beautiful but not too smart’ (Roeser, 2008: 119) and fashionable, loud and popular with boys (Duncan and Owens, 2011). It also ties into Page and Smith’s definition of popular: ‘they are perceived as feminine, flirtatious with boys, and /or sexually promiscuous. They seek to control their peer groups and are more covert than overt in their relationally aggressive behaviours.’ (2012:16). The most popular appear to view the popular as competition, whilst the popular appear to feel attacked by the most popular, unable to match their confidence and aggression. Jennifer, a popular Year 9 at Milner Academy, describes this sense of being watched by the most popular, and how it affects her behaviour:
Because you don’t want to post something and people say horrible things about you; I check with like five friends before I post it. Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Milner’s
The second most popular group are high profile, and visible, but do not have the most popular’s ability to influence. In some ways, their status near those most popular causes the top social group to view the second most popular as a threat. These ‘confident’ behaviours described previously could be enacted to specifically prevent the second most popular group from usurping their position. The second most popular descriptions of their social standing relate to how they differentiate from the most popular, and how they felt watched by that group – a reflection of the control that the most popular wielded over them. However, their position enabled them to perform a successful schoolgirl femininity that was more accepted by peers – navigating an awkward position between being popular and being liked.
199 Group 3: The middle The largest group within the peer hierarchies at Chigford, Estuary and Milner’s Academy was the ‘middle’– they were not considered popular, nor overly targeted or ostracised like the bottom group. These were perceived as ‘everyday girls who exist outside of significant high-status cliques’ (Page et al., 2017: 5).
We’re in the middle, like, we don’t run the school like the popular group. Sophie, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
The concept of a ‘normal’ or middle group ties to Kinney’s early work on peer groups and peer culture (1993) and with Milner’s categorisation of ‘normals, regulars, or average students’ (2006: 43). This ‘middle’ group of peers also exists across all three schools, those who are neither popular nor unpopular. Lila and Aimee at Chigford, when drawing their diagram, describe the middle as those who look up to and follow the more popular students:
Aimee: There is the popular and in the middle, there are the people who follow popular people, like normal people. Lila: They are people who hang around with the moist [unpopular] people, and sometimes they hang around with the popular people. Aimee: They are more like normal people in the middle. Aimee and Lila, Year 8, Middle, Chigford
In general, those in the middle conformed to and were influenced by, standards and trends set by the popular students (Pronk, 2010). Many girls in the middle described this as trying to ‘fit in’. For some young women, this conformity helped them become less noticeable, and by virtue, less victimised in school – Gabby actively chose to conform and follow the more popular groups in order to feel more socially accepted:
200 I don’t think I have to, but it’s got to a stage of wanting to. Before I would just get bullied 24/7 and I’ve changed my image to other people but still stayed true to myself as to who I want to be. It’s like however old you get there is still that certain question of I don’t do this to fit everybody else, but I want to fit myself. Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s Academy
This conformity may be why other researchers have found ‘normals’ to copy similar traits ‘seemingly ubiquitous among more dominant groups’ (Paechter and Clark, 2015: 458). Their motivations are not to accrue social status but to avoid derision, a mechanism to navigate peer relationships and fit in with their more popular peers (Pronk et al., 2010). It is within this dynamic performance that ‘normal’ girls must choose between being girls deemed “OK” by their peers rather than “weird or different’’’ (Currie et al., 2006: 422). Gabby felt being an ‘unknown’, or ‘normal’ student inevitably led to focusing on the more popular students, due to their social influence and visibility within the peer hierarchy purpose (Mayeux, 2011):
You get dragged into it. It’s not because you want to, it’s just because the people you are hanging about with are talking about it all the time. Then you just end up talking about it as well. I wouldn’t like to think that people are talking about me, even if it was good things. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the way I am, but I would just like to keep my business and what is said between my little group. Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s Academy
Although there are still elements of ‘drama’ within these ‘regular’ students, it is generally seen as taking place just between friends and not with the explicit purpose of gaining or maintaining social status (Palacios and Berger, 2016). Their focus on the most popular ties with Clark and Paechter’s research on ‘cool’ primary school girls who were ‘frequently fascinating to other children’
201 yet ‘distrusted and feared’. (2015: 6), and, therefore, the drama centred upon the lives of those most well-known.
Trying to be popular Within this ‘middle’ section of the peer hierarchy, the majority of students appear to passively follow the norms set by the most popular students and the gossip that revolves around them. However, examples were given across the three schools of girls who tried to actively improve their social position through enacting behaviours associated with the most popular group, such as aggression and more risk-taking behaviours.
I would say some averages they feel that if you need to be popular, you’ve got to be mean. So they try to be mean. Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
These ‘wannabees’ are seen as an easier target, an outlet for students to criticise the most populars’ behaviour, without directly referencing the most popular (Paechter and Clark, 2015). Charlie, a shy unpopular Year 8 at Milner’s Academy believes these girls are drawn to popularity, as it is exciting, and value the status of being well known:
Yeah, some people want to get friends and want to be involved…. [they] want to be part of them and want them to notice you. Some people think they can’t be noticed unless they’re popular. Charlie, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s
This relates to Bresland’s work on the social costs for ‘wannabes’, in which they argue that girls with high popularity goals, who are nonetheless unpopular, have negative experiences with peers (2018). This substantial investment in the most populars’ discursive practice isolates these middle/average students from the rest of their similar status peers (Paechter and Clark, 2015). It reflects earlier references to authenticity, and the
202 importance of peer recognition and nomination to validate social status (Read, 2011). In this way, the wannabees can be seen not to be able to perform a popular subjectivity – although they know the structural discourse of popularity (savoir), they do not have the status to know how to enact a successful schoolgirl femininity (connaissance) (Foucault, 1969). As peer popularity is a form of relational power, an individual’s status compared to their peers will ground them in a particular group, irrespective of the discursive practice they attempt to enact. Lena, Year 8 at Estuary, explains that some middle groups also use social media as a vehicle to be considered more well-known through increasing their social media metrics:
One of my friends became obsessed with the amount of followers they have, so how many people were following them, how many friends they have on there, and how many people like their pictures... she was just trying to be more popular. Lena, Year 8, Middle Estuary
Those who are deemed inauthentic receive particular admonishment. They are held up as flawed as they attempted to enact a discursive practice that only the most popular can attain. Popular girls at Chigford highlight the consequences for those who attempt to enact a similar discursive practice to Jenna, the most popular girl in school, but fail to attain this fairy-tale authenticity. They use terminology to ostracise the girls’ schoolgirl femininity, associating it with negative sexual behaviour. It is a method of shame and punishment for those who cannot perform the hyper-feminine gender performance within the validated social boundaries.
Natalie: [People] try to be like Jenna and people get caught out for it. People call them slags, prostitutes, sket. JH: What does sket mean? Natalie: Slapper, slag, easy to use. Jamelia: They will get called out for it.
203 JH: Who calls them out? Jamelia: Just people in general, boys, Natalie: And girls as well, girls hate them as well and are rude to other girls for no reason Natalie and Jamelia, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
However, Faith, a very popular Y10 student at Estuary, discusses with her friends, Leyla and Mia, how her increased social status took a dramatic change in both how she looked and behaved.
Faith: Yeah, because basically, being honest, in Year Seven and Eight I wasn’t who I am now, I was more... Mia: Weren’t you like a tomboy? Leyla: Yeah, you liked football Faith: I don’t know, I went through some massive change, and I changed my Insta, I started my followers from scratch, and it was like ‘woooosh’ [Faith makes a rocket movement with hand]. So quite weird and it felt different after I went through this change. Now everyone knows me as this girl that’s confident and gets along with the lads and all sorts. Faith, Leyla and Mia, Year 9, Most Popular, Estuary
Evidence suggests that it may be easier for younger students to change their school identity, as it becomes increasingly fixed as they progress through secondary school (Cairns, 1995; Kroger, 2010). However, this success is not guaranteed, admonishment for trying to act popular can link to the authentication of popularity – and shows that acting in a way to increase popularity can be difficult when the individual does not wield any social power to protect themselves from admonishment. This position as a ‘wannabe’ is precarious and isolating, which leads others to scapegoat or victimise. In attempting to enact the hyper-feminine discursive practice, they try to adopt the hallmarks of those most popular without having the necessary social
204 dominance for protection (Svahn and Evaldsson, 2011; Paechter and Clark, 2015, Sondergaard, 2012).
Group 4: The bottom group
The group that was described as lowest on the social hierarchy was typically felt to be insular, their characteristics and behaviours often framed as inverse to the popular. They were frequently labelled as ‘moist’ by others, a derogatory generic term for anything considered ‘uncool’, yet self-defined as ‘outsiders’. In previous research, they have been referred to as nerds, geeks and outsiders (Currie et al., 2006; Mendick et al., 2010). This group was at the margins of youth culture, looked down upon by some and celebrated by others.
As an inverse of the popular, their peers often described them engaging in activities that were not socially approved. Drawing on Arendt, Francis argued these unpopular students are seen as pariahs and serve to regulate more popular peers through seeing the consequences for not complying with the behaviours stipulated by the most popular (2009). A core component of the most popular’s power is threatened by this disengagement: they relied on the underpinning assumption that everyone else aspires to enact their discursive practice (Paechter and Clark, 2015). Nellie describes this group on her social diagram:
There are moists, and that is bad, that’s people like in the library, ICT room and the chess club. Nellie, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
Their peers in other groups generally believed they engaged in unusual activities but reflected that they actively chose not to follow the school’s social mores:
205 It’s a bit like all video games and really weird stuff, and I’ll still speak to them and just get along with them and make conversation with them. At first, they were all just quiet…. They are just happy not being popular. Rhian, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
They were also described as looking physically different, often not maintaining the same clothes or beauty regimes of more popular peers:
Tara: They don’t care about their appearance. Sana: Some people don’t really wash their hair, and it’s greasy, and that’s not just the boys. You can just tell by looking at them, and they don’t give a damn about their appearance. Or, if they do they don’t really do it right, and they are different to us. Jade: That’s the moist people…and that’s why they are in that group Tara, Jade and Sana, Year 9, Middle, Chigford
The description above highlights the precariousness of the outsider position. In rejecting a position of hyper-femininity and behaviours that are established by the most popular, they risk marginalisation from all peer groups (Currie, 2006). However, girls who identified within the lowest social group defined their position differently. Amy, Lena and Jessie in Year 8 felt that they did not act counter to or against the socially accepted norms, they acted outside of them:
Amy: We are in a group ourselves, and we are the ones that kind of like don’t care what they look like. Lena: We get looked down on a lot, but we don’t care, because it doesn’t matter. Jessie: It’s all about personality and not what you wear. Amy, Lena, Jessie, Year 8, Unpopular, Estuary
206 Across the unpopular group, there was a general belief that they chose their position outside of the normative school culture, and a position where they reflected in their gendered performance of girlhood (Currie et al., 2006). Similarly, they appeared more comfortable discussing less socially acceptable traits than their peers in higher social status groups, such as their intelligence or being made fun of.
The group I hang out with get titled as the ‘weird people’, always joking, and we can be intelligent. And we don’t really take our actions seriously, and it’s like joking around. Toma, Year 9, Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
These girls described themselves in terms that can be seen as a ‘form of oppositional counter-discourse’ to the rules established by the most popular (Paechter and Clark, 2015: 7), using humour to deflect critique (Allan, 2010; Harding, Ford and Lee, 2017). They formulate a subjectivity that is built upon a collective difference that redefines success, discussed later in Chapter Six. They also display a ‘hyper-reflexivity about their position’ within the school (Reay, 2015). For Charlie, she felt uncomfortable with the activities that were required for popular or middle group girls.
I’m not very popular in my year because the things that you have to do in the year to be popular is not really very nice sometimes. Because some people feel like they have to do those things to get friends and you’re judged in what you do in school by other people Charlie, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s Academy:
Being able to act in a way that is not allied to that of the popular groups may be afforded by such a low social standing. Researchers found that this pariah status led to those least popular being excluded and ultimately ignored (Svahn and Evaldsson, 2011). It shows that maintaining a level of social standing within school is an active process, where young people are
207 continually behaving or appearing in ways that are approved of by the wider peer group – a discursive practice that is continually in flux, as those at the top continue to redefine and evolve what it means to be socially acceptable. These will be discussed more in Chapter Six as it relates to Foucault’s normalising judgement, and the fluid ranking system within peer cultures.
The position of a young person in the social hierarchy affects how they interact with peers and use social media. This chapter will now move on to explore how peer popularity manifests on social media, and how those most popular discursively practice a hyper-feminine performance in order to validate and reinforce their status.
Practising Peer Popularity Online
“Those moist people post on Instagram what should be saved for Snapchat.”
Across the three schools, those at the top of the peer hierarchies exemplified the appropriate forms of femininity in school and online. This section now outlines how this performance of popularity is practised online, to publicise and perform successful schoolgirl femininity. It then moves on to analyse the ways in which their school friends, male peers and outside influences covertly and overtly validated this performance. The school site also alters the role of the audience – as the schoolgirl feminine performance is not just online but needs to harmonise with their offline schoolgirl persona. It shows that this process of performing gender, in school and on social media is a messy, ‘complex and dynamic configuration of flesh, other bodies, discourses, practices, ideals and material objects’ (Lupton, 2014: 6). Schoolgirl femininity is subject to different expectations from schools and peers, both online and offline, whilst remaining within the boundaries of their authentic offline self at school.
208 The proper way to publicise
It is not just about performing successful schoolgirl femininity, but ensuring the performance is documented. Social media here is a vehicle for sharing the discursive practice with those in school, and further afield, that is generally unavailable during the school day as the requirements are often in conflict with school rules (wearing revealing clothing, for example).
Data distributed online can affect behaviours, sense of self-worth, relationships and opportunities (Lupton, 2016); and there are particular strategies to maximise the value of gendered production. Given the importance of social media in forming idealised schoolgirl femininity, and the value of others within this process to orchestrate appropriateness, a publication strategy can feel essential. These techniques can be seen as young people enacting the technologies of the self – performing procedures and formulas that help cultivate their digital self into the most acceptable form possible (Foucault, 1988; Martin, 1988). These are techniques that permit social media participants to affect the reception of their performance by accentuating the quality of their content:
The popular people get more likes, and they will have less posts, and it will be a good post, like really good quality or have really good pictures. Aimee Year 8, Middle, Chigford School
As well as posting the ‘correct’ photos, knowing how to behave appropriately on different applications is essential to publicise the hyper-feminine performance. Enacting the correct discursive practice is context-specific and needs to take place on the correct platforms in order to be deemed appropriate. It was a crucial component of publicising the self. A number of the most popular girls admonished the less popular for their incorrect use of social media:
209 Those moist people [a derogatory term] post on Instagram what should be saved for Snapchat. Karmel, Year 10, Most Popular, Chigford
This could be considered as ‘knowledge’ of how to be popular: the capacity to use social media to enhance the hyper-feminine performance, the savoir and connaissance (Foucault, 1969). The popular students could be considered ‘full participants’ of how teenagers use social media, and can, therefore, arbitrate proper social media etiquette; ‘full participants are able to act as definers of reality’ (Paechter, 2006). These continual micro-actions on social media reinforce the appropriate ways to use social media, creating a ‘blueprint of general method’ (Foucault, 1977:138):
The moist people post moist things… like them in their snap back [baseball hat] and post that and them not wearing designer clothes, and then posts with their moist friends. Chanel, Year 9, Most Popular, Milner’s
However, as Milly and Lily describe, they prefer not to post content about themselves, preferring to document their life around them. These actions distanced the girls from the traditional discursive popular practice, focusing their content away from the objectification of their bodies, resisting the normative behaviours inscribed by those most popular. These resistances will be discussed in greater depth in the next chapter.
Milly: I think throughout the whole year group, if they see a picture, they’ll comment like, "you look really good", "really pretty" and stuff like that or things along those lines. Lily: It depends, because my group, we don’t really post pictures of ourselves…. We post pictures like a sunset, or my sister or my dog or something. Milly: I don’t, like, do any pictures of just me, because I just don’t do that. Milly and Lily, Year 9, Middle, Milner’s Academy
210
The most popular, due to their status, could also publish other elements on their Instagram, not just photos of themselves. This is an example of the Foucauldian knowledge-power relationship: power has a transformation effect on knowledge (Foucault, 1977). Those with the most social status are in a position to share content that varies from the traditional hyper-feminine performance without reprisal. For example, posting a song lyric or a quote where a less popular girl feels they could not do this on a platform in front of their school peers:
Compared to those [less popular] girls, I post things confidently, like putting a song on there [Instagram] and you’ll see people like and comment on it….They [nerds] might post “ooooh, I went to the Science Museum today!” Faith, Year 10, Most Popular, Estuary
Less socially popular teenagers are limited in how they choose to express themselves on mainstream applications compared to their more popular peers. During the interviews, they in no way seemed unhappy with using Tumblr and other less mainstream applications, extolling the benefits and freedoms of these spaces. However, as Orb describes, they are ‘limited in their ability to be heard in a way that they choose’ (2005). Dominant and subordinate voices possessing different means of communication can link to the concept of Group Muting Theory, posited by Ardener in 1975. It is used to explain how ‘vocalisation is different as a consequence of unequal power relations between the dominant and subordinate’ (Gardener and Gardener, 1975). In this way, the most popular girls can be seen to enact hegemonic femininity, actively maintaining the patriarchal gender order on social media, which valued hyper-femininity above all other forms of content.
211 Authenticity
The intersection of social media and school increases the accountability young people are held to; a fine line has to be walked between online accentuation and offline authenticity that is not simple to harmonise. There are constraints upon the young women to enact a hyper-feminine performance that is bound within offline realism. This authenticity of the content is crucial when young people regularly interact both online and offline (Balick, 2013). This is not easy to balance – as investments and time taken to curate photos do not harmonise with everyday offline schoolgirl femininity:
Sometimes you see someone’s picture, and then in real life, they don’t have that size boobs and put on make-up to make them look better, in school, they look completely different. Jessie, Year 8, Unpopular, Estuary
The motivation for curating an authentic self is felt both online and in school. It is a pressure felt by young women in order to realise successful schoolgirl femininity (Read et al., 2011). Rewards for good performance, such as status and respect, are gained through online metrics but also in the offline context within the school grounds. The reverse is also true: realising the impossible hour-glass figure of most valued hyper-femininity can lead some young women to be called out for falsifying their photos:
Like my friend she had a picture of her—you know her mirror selfies —and they would look at the bum and say, ‘nah she’s stretched it to make her bum look big’. Naz, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
Girls are, therefore, striking a delicate, impossible balance between enacting a perfect hyper-feminised self that is also viewed as authentic. This curation of a perfect performance of hyper-femininity becomes less attainable as girls
212 are held to account offline in school. Authenticity is a pre-requisite of the aspirational production of femininity on social media of influencers, and those that emulate that style of production (Marwick, 2015b). Yet, unlike celebrities, and influencers who are never seen in person, schoolgirls are held to account offline. This adds pressure by creating a significant divide between the online hyper-feminine performance of those who are not held to account offline, and the young people who are. As discussed in Chapter Four, the false intimacy, frequency and proximity of influencer content reinforce the pretence that their perfect hyper-feminine performance is attainable, which produces a ‘fairy-tale’ authenticity. It is an example of how the digital and physical intertwine to intensify the environment in which schoolgirl femininity is produced and performed. Although research has argued that there is ‘no divide’ between the two, the online-offline here has a symbiotic relationship – one space directly impacts the other. Young people are held to account in school for actions online as the layers of digital and non-digital social interactions inform and interact with each other (Enyon, 2017). These interactions are both temporally and geographically complex and dependent upon the extent to which a young person fails to balance their digital and in-school subjectivity. This interplay between spaces also aids young people to assess the extent to which their peers’ content is grounded within reality, who subconsciously contribute to increasing the expectations upon the schoolgirl feminine performance:
I look at girls on certain things, and in school, and be like no, it’s not real. It’s too fake; it’s too much make-up. When you see some girls take their make-up off of their face and you think ‘who is that?’. That’s not the same girl; it’s just too fake. Monique, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
The disconnect between performing hyper-femininity and witnessing the performance of others relates to the Foucauldian concept of knowledge, connaissance and savoir (Foucault, 1969). Here the subject understands the construction of hyper-femininity, as an objective observable on social media,
213 but cannot adequately modify themselves through their own savoir to attain this standard. In this unattainable standard is where the patriarchal power lies. The inability to harmonise these two types of knowledge is, therefore, reflective of, and contributes to, their lower social ranking within the school.
Madison: And some people post more revealing photos to get more likes. Karmel: Yeah, some people put photos on like bums and cleavage to get more attention. They do it to make themselves feel pretty Ashley: Some are really ugly, and they put a picture on Instagram, so they can like them. Then more people look at it, and you think you’re more popular, but you’re not. Ashley: You just have your boobs out with a push-up bra. Like there’s a girl, Kirsty, who put on Instagram…what did she put? Madison [scrolling through her photos]: She put a picture of her lips and captioned it "Blow job lips". I’ll show you a picture. I took a screenshot because I thought it was so funny. You just don’t do that. Madison, Ashley and Karmel, Year 10, Most Popular, Chigford
As the girls know the content producer both online and offline, the girl referenced above did not adequately situate her performance within the realms of authenticity. As Madison describes above, the girl was too overtly sexual in her photo, as to appear fake, and, therefore, opened herself to derision. Authenticity and status here are closely related; those who are the most popular project a more coherent authentic self (Lamb, 2016). In the example above, Kirsty did not have the power to enable her to harmonise her knowledge/savoir of correct hyper-femininity with knowledge/connaissance of how to correctly enact the subjective positioning, a ‘wannabe’. This imbalance of power and knowledge in her discursive practice left her open to scrutiny and derision from those more popular than her, who were better able to define the hyper-feminine performance.
214 This action by the most popular to police the discursive digital practice can be seen as hegemonic femininity, an active hyper-femininity which contributes to the masking of inequalities through assertions of power. This creates a complex situation when these girls are positioning themselves as powerful, but are, at the same time, at the behest of male approval within the hegemonic framework. Validation from peers, high-status males and outside influences continually demonstrates the need to continually consider their own performance. The real and imagined audience, therefore, reinforces the discursive practice of popularity online and in school. This chapter will now move on to explore this validation process online, and how social media intersects with the school to reinforce the most populars’ standing.
Validating the Performance
“Look how many people like my photo! It must be a really good photo of myself.”
This next section demonstrates how the correct investments and discursive gender practice are validated online and explores how value is ascribed to social media metrics in order to ratify appropriate gender performance. Quantitative metrics demonstrate how idealised schoolgirl femininity translates to positions of power and status. It exemplifies how the social privilege of the most popular reproduces and informs gender norms and how this performance is rewarded in school and online.
Validation via peers
The hyper-feminine performance is validated quantitatively and publicly – the number of followers or engagement through a ‘like’ or ‘comment’ is visible to the girls and their audience. Although popularity is hardly a new phenomenon, social media has enabled it to be concretely and objectively measured, where previously it was subjective. It precisely communicates to the content creator the extent to which they have correctly enacted the discursive practice. It is
215 through feedback that the performance is valorised (Skeggs, 2000). The body is a vector for the hyper-feminine performance, positioning and repositioning itself to achieve the correct discursive practice, and with that the greatest social status:
Janine: Followers give you status….you get more likes on your pictures, and that gives you status. Chelsea: When you get a lot of likes it’s like "Yeeeeeeees!" JH: And what happens if you don’t? Chelsea: They get deleted straight away, I’ll post it later saying it deleted itself. Janine: We’re telling trade secrets! Shannon: It’s best when you get home from school and upload a picture from school because that’s when everyone comes out of school and straight on their phone. Janine: They get deleted straight away, and I’ll post it back later saying it deleted itself, so people see it in different time zones. Shannon: But it’s kind of upsetting when people don’t like it, and that’s a bit sad. Janine, Chelsea, Shannon, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
However, these metrics are not purely personal data but available to their audience and peers. Followers and outside observers can monitor the extent to which they can invoke the correct gendered knowledge-power procedures of the schoolgirl femininity through likes and comments on social media. These metrics offer specific feedback on how well-liked, and, therefore, how well-produced, the gendered performance is, enabling the poster of the content to receive an acute understanding of the acceptability of their photo. Audience interaction, such as liking or commenting, further validates particular practices. It is within this valorisation process that specific femininities are devalued and marginalised, while others are celebrated (Budgeon, 2014). It causes young people to edit their content based on audience engagement,
216 enacting a practice of self-surveillance to ensure they fit into the normative behaviour.
Lily: If you post something, and then – and this goes back to Year Seven, and you see people who have over one hundred likes, and you only get two likes. So I don’t feel comfortable in seeing that people have more likes than me and I didn’t have as much. Milly: If I put a photo of myself I’m, like, what someone says I don’t look nice, or I’ll take that picture down because I’ve got no views or just don’t like it anymore Lily and Milly, Year 9, Middle, Milner’s
Hyper-feminine performance can generate a high social reward. This social status and sense of self were closely intertwined, and engagement with a post was gratifying for the young women interviewed. They looked to their audience for judgment about whether their content had worth.
It’s like “look how many people like my photo”, it must be a really good photo of myself. Mia, Year 10, Most Popular, Estuary
This may relate to findings from the Office for the Children’s Commissioner suggesting social media may be more harmful to girls compared to boys, as they are more reliant upon such approval (Patalay, 2018). These may be effects of the heterosexual matrix – a reflection of the inequitable relationships between men and women (Schippers, 2007; Butler, 2004). Greater importance is placed upon these metrics for girls as they are under greater scrutiny to perform their schoolgirl femininity. As validation particularly relates to the exposure of their body, and the body is the principal site for gender inequity, they, therefore, experience the validation process more keenly than their male peers. Acceptable schoolgirl feminine subjectivities were narrowly defined and utterly scripted, and the boundaries heavily policed. This
217 imbalance reflects the broader hegemonic framework, positioning girls in a more subordinate position as the content they produce has greater implications for their experience both at school and online. Given this relationship between content and validation, girls often attributed their social media engagement to their sense of self.
Gwen: I don’t think it’s to get likes, but you want the satisfaction that someone liked your photo. Even if you post a bad photo and they like it, that feels good. Nina: It’s like a self-esteem thing. You post things about yourself when you are not feeling that great about yourself, or you feel really good about yourself. So telling somebody that I’m feeling really nice about myself, and I really like the way I look and confident in myself. Or, I don’t feel really confident, can you just tell me I’m pretty or something like that. Gwen: I feel like girls are more, like, I don’t know, that girls care about it a bit more. I’m not trying to be sexist, but girls just care about Instagram more and care about posting selfies and looking good. Gwen and Nina, Year 9, Middle and Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
The social media metrics contribute to how power flows between peers in school to form hierarchies. Those with more engagement have greater status and, therefore, more influence over others. In many ways, this can be seen as rendering visible the ‘force relations’ whom, for Foucault, operate in localised contexts, and ‘constitute their own organisation’ (1990: 92). Validation through likes and comments publicly demonstrates where the most power is situated in a peer group and in what form femininity is most appropriate in the context. Followers, comments and likes are signals of status that act to reinforce the power of the recipient, and, therefore, they are of significant value to the more popular girls in school.
Taylor: “Have people commented on it?” That’s all I care about, how many likes and comments JH: Why do you like getting them? Taylor: It’s the attention...
218 Abbie: It makes me feel special. Taylor and Abbie, Year 8, Most Popular, Estuary
Metrics were perceived as a viable and attainable method to enhance status and sense of self. Metrics demonstrated power; the product of this power was influence over others and respect from peers. The formula to receive and maintain this external validation was clear: a hyper-feminine performance. The feedback that girls received encouraged them to continue producing content that maintained their status. Through metrically accrued feedback, girls refined, repositioned and negotiated their performance of hyper- femininity to craft a subjectivity that is most acceptable and valued by their peers:
JH: You mentioned some people posting more revealing photos, do you know why they do that? Tara: To get attention. Sana: But if you felt that you were less popular, then you do it to get up. Tara: People just do it because some people say nice things to them, like “You have got a really nice body”, and then they’ll post a picture which is more of their body….it’s to make yourself feel better about yourself. Jade: If people write stuff about you, you are going to get more confidence. Tara, Jade and Sana, Year 9, Middle, Chigford
Lena: Y9: They allow anyone to follow them to like their pictures. So if it’s a girl at our school, they will post with the least clothes on without being accused of being naked and in underwear… Amy: To get a lot of likes it’s like boobs out, butt out and look at me. Lena and Amy, Year 8, Unpopular, Estuary Academy
The appropriation of more hyper-feminine techniques led to an increase in metrics and, therefore, social status. There was a drive for more followers, and social media engagement, as this has shown to accrue benefits beyond
219 social status for the young women who can enact successful schoolgirl femininity, as the next section outlines.
Rewarding the hyper-feminine performance
The motivation to perform hyper-femininely is not just driven by the self-worth achieved when a wide number of peers positively engage with their posts, but the reward many followers bring. Brands and companies target young women who could be an influencer with over a certain number of followers. The influencer advertising is prolific and increasingly common – social media stars are flown around the world to take lifestyle photos of particular places or with particular objects, with the aim of encouraging their followers to buy to try to emulate their way of living.
As the most popular girls are recipients of influencer product placement, they receive merchandise if they have over ten thousand followers. This can be seen as a reward to young women who perform hyper-femininity well and a motivation to other schoolgirls to adopt hyper-feminine social media behaviours, aspiring to reap the ‘influencer’ rewards.
Natalie: Sometimes, I just look at videos of girls and they are just pretty, and I look at myself and think for God’s sake I wish I was them... Jamelia: …She has got 15K or something… Natalie: On her Instagram, she gets free stuff so she can promote things. Monique: She gets free clothes, so she will probably just be a model. Natalie, Monique, Jamelia, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
Some of the most popular girls across the schools had over 10K followers; one was cited as having up to 30K. Once a certain number of followers are gained, account holders begin to receive products and merchandise from companies, looking to advertise to their followers.
220
Gabby: In Year 10 I’m not sure, because on my Instagram I’ve got about 4000 and that’s a lot, but not compared to other girls that are in my year, and they have got 30000, and that’s just like normal to them. JH: Can you tell me more about these followers? Gabby: Because you want to have all the followers and free things getting sent to you like all the girls get that face stuff and get money off things and get certain clothes from certain places. JH: So brands contact them? Gabby: Yeah, or they get someone from Adidas contacting and asking them to model for them. I think it’s people wanting that. So, you don’t really care who is following you; you just keep accepting, accepting, accepting. Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s
Through this product placement strategy, companies and brands sustain the idealised gender norms and maintain the heterosexual matrix. For the girls, influencers and the most popular had all achieved status through hyper- feminine performances – and the companies had, therefore, rewarded them with free products and experiences. This further encouraged girls to adopt hyper-feminine behaviours, revealing photos of their body, in order to gain enough followers to be rewarded through influencer status. It links to broader societal values – demonstrating that external organisations value those who can enact an idealised gender performance. It is also an example of the reach of capitalism, and how it influences the micro-actions of teenage girls on social media in pursuit of profit and consumerism. However, the power these influencers have over others also reflects the male tastes and engagement with content. This chapter will now turn to analyse the role of male peers in the discursive practice of hyper-femininity.
221 The role of male peers
“Boys, boys, boys… just want boys to like their photos."
When exploring how the validation of idealised gender performance online and in school, it is vital to consider the role of high-status male peers. This final section highlights the social privilege of the most popular girls in school and how their practice of popularity serves to reproduce traditional gender roles. Their power is relational, constructed in opposition to girls who fail to attain the authentic hyper-feminine performance. However, when assessing their status in greater depth, the role of high-status males becomes clear – in the relationship between the most popular males and females, the former holds a greater ability to arbitrate idealised schoolgirl femininity. This section explores these asymmetrical power relations, considering how the most popular value male social media attention, how males have more power to validate the female performance and the way they assert their status through social media tools and techniques that further entrench female students into a subordinate position.
Targeting male validation
The content of the photos is central to a correct hyper-feminine performance: those documenting the body appear to garner more value than those just of the face.
They’re quite revealing photos…Not completely topless but cleavage and pulling their shorts right up...sort of asking boys to comment and like and stuff. Jodie, Year 10, Middle, Estuary Academy
The focus on the body is driven by male peer engagement; their approval on social media content is more influential than that of female peers. This reflects the patriarchal structure in which these actions operate, and the body as a primary site for gender inequity to be expressed. It is was felt to be more
222 important to receive likes from male peers as opposed to female peers, and males valued the body over the face:
Ellie: If more boys or girls will like it depends on what picture, boys like more photos that are revealing and girls, like, I don’t know if it was just a picture of your face. Demi: Not saying I do it, but if you put one of your body it gets more likes. Katie: If you have less clothes on, people find that more attractive sometimes. Ellie, Katie and Demi, Year 8, Popular, Estuary Academy
Working within the patriarchal structure, girls can seemingly increase their power, or status, through excessive exposure of their hyper-feminised body. There is, therefore, a pressure to accentuate parts of the body, in order to achieve a high-quality hyper-feminine photo, and achieve active participation from the male section of the audience in the form of likes and comments. Young women styled their body in a way they hope an audience will respond to, using photo editing applications to accentuate the hourglass shape. These are methods used to ensure the photos match the preferences of the audience, and that they situate themselves in a position to achieve external reassurance from their audience (Chua and Chang, 2016; Gardner and Davis, 2015).
Molly: Like pupils, on Instagram, sometimes people edit their photos. Olivia: Yeah, to make their bum look bigger. Molly: Yeah, just unrealistic body types, and it makes people insecure. Olivia: Yeah, sometimes you can see. Sometimes they bend it, and it pushes everything. Olivia and Molly, Year 10, Unpopular, Chigford
Photoshop for pictures if you want boys to comment, and say you don’t have a good bum, so you pose in a way and your bum looks big, or you use Photoshop to make it look bigger. Aimee, Year 8, Middle, Chigford
223
These actions to Photoshop images so that the body is more compatible with idealisation notions of femininity can be interpreted as technologies of the self – a transformative operation on the body which attempts to bring about positive outcomes (Foucault, 1988). In many ways, actions taken by girls to enhance their bodies are attempting to attain the hyper-feminine discursive practice. It is an attempt to harmonise the connaissance of appropriate gender performance with the savoir (Foucault, 1969). In other words, the girls are creating the conditions to correctly perform idealised and hyper-schoolgirl femininity, and, therefore, accrue validation from male peers. This requires harmonising both the knowledge of the conditions of hyper-femininity (savoir here is knowledge of the hourglass body shape on the correct social media) with the knowledge of how to enact it authentically (connaissance of how to craft the body in the correct way) (Foucault, 1969). It is at these moments of discursive discordance that the online spills into the offline, as the failure to appropriately edit photos becomes a topic of conversation and gossip in school. The offline comparison to the online is typically a silent partner, used to baseline girls’ performance against their offline self. When there is a divergence between the two they become an offline target as explored in the next chapter.
Peers at the top of the social hierarchy determine whether such a performance is correct. High-status males, in particular, can sanction when this is done correctly, and, therefore, play a more significant role than high- status females in determining localised gender truths.
The differing value of validation Although metrics are valuable in frequency, the largest numbers equating to the most significant status, the quality of the engagement is also a significant factor. Power can be sought from gaining engagement from other high-status peers, particularly males. It reflects the relational nature of power, where one party has more considerable influence over the other, so although the most
224 popular peers have power, they are subjugated to popular male validation (Connell, 1997; Bartky, 1988). This is evidenced when the most popular discuss male peers’ social media engagement.
JH: So, who are the boys that, if they have you a ‘like’ on your photo, would give you more status? Maddison: … They’re quite rated at this school… Karmel: They are mostly Year 10s though, they’re older…Year 11s. Ashley: A Year 11 was commenting on a Year 8 photo, CarlagirlX is her name, and I was like whaaat? Maddison, Karmel and Ashley, Year 10, Most Popular, Chigford
The value of positive engagement from popular males is of higher value than more engagement from lower-status peers. Therefore, one strategy to gain more metrics is to develop photos based on the historical likes and comments of the most popular boys in the school. As often, engagement from a particularly popular peer is worth more than engagement from those with lower status (Boyd, 2014). This is because they are perceived to hold the knowledge of correct gender performance and, therefore, better arbitrate idealised femininity.
Abbie: I only care about the comments Taylor: It depends who it is, if it is someone who is really rated... if it’s a good looking boy!’ Izzy: I pay more attention to the comments. JH: What kind of comments?
Izzy: Emojis and stuff like ‘eyes’ and ‘fire’...and heart eyes. Abbie, Taylor, Izzy, Year 8, Most Popular, Estuary
This targeted strategy changes the relationship between the audience and the content. Although research suggests that the audience is ‘imagined’, these are specific actions targeted at one or two influential members of an audience,
225 influencers themselves, which the girl is aiming to please (Balick, 2013; Ramsey and Horan, 2018). Girls react to feedback online and offline, forming their performance around what they perceive to be most appropriate and status worthy.
But there are some girls, who weren’t really on Snap in Year 8 and suddenly now they are boy crazy whereas before they weren’t like that. Now they are like boys, boys, boys… just want boys to like their photos. Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Milner’s
‘Who’ engages in the material is critical to the external validation of content as male approval carried greater weight. It meant that securing male attention was most readily achieved through hyper-feminine performance. Power can be observed in this interplay by tracing the force relations between high-status female and male peers (Foucault, 2000). As force relations can be seen when an outcome or action occurs between two parties, high-status males appear to wield greater power as the high-status females are influenced to act and behave in a particular way.
It’s like, ‘I want the boys to notice me’. I think this generation of boys is like that. They don’t go, "That girl’s got a lovely dress on, I’m going to like her" it’s like "She’s showing her cleavage. I’m going to like that." Neave, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
This statement from Neave demonstrates how the objectification of the body is crucial to gain validation from high-status male peers – her language suggests the body is removed, or separated from the girl, to be a ‘thing’ for consumption by the male gaze (Tolman, 2013). Popular males are particularly influential in this process of objectification. Their influence as an audience moves beyond what previous researchers have described as ‘potential’ or ‘imagined’, to one that is tangible and active (Boyd, 2014; Chua and Chang, 2016; Turkle, 2011; Perloff, 2014). It is an audience with whom they interact
226 daily in school, and after school on social media. Girls can see the previous content popular males have engaged with, targeting their posts by emulating bodily procedures, styles and poses that the boys have previously liked. The historical data of what types of schoolgirl femininity are liked and disliked is visible and readily available. Covert copying of previous posts that high-status boys liked is a strategy to ensure they are adopting correct discursive practice:
Katie: I feel like it takes me two hours to decide whether or not to put a picture on Instagram because who’s going to like it and who won’t and how I’ll feel if this person and what I have to take a picture of to take this person like it... I think what would he like me to put on Instagram? Demi: It’s awkward to talk about, but I think what he likes and then if he would prefer me to put a more revealing photo... Demi and Katie, Year 8, Popular, Estuary Academy
High-status males, through their privileged position, are influential in determining the most valuable forms of bodily focused hyper-femininity in which the girls craft their schoolgirl femininity. These examples show that they wield relational power over the girls, as the girls focus on crafting a performance that is appealing to them, based on their prior social media engagement.
Validation through feedback on the hyper-feminine performance In this relationship above, the high-status male is passively influential – their previous content preferences are read and interpreted by girls seeking validation. They can also be actively influential: sharing the truths of their ideal femininity via social media and in school. Girls described how they shared content, typically on Snapchat, giving their opinions on how girls should present and style their bodies to be considered attractive. These posts contributed to the repeated stylisations of the female body that their female
227 and male peers were exposed to – which set standards for valuing hetero- normative gender performances (Butler, 2004; McNay, 2000).
On their Snapchat, they will be posting about girls and how they want their girls to look. Like, I socialise with him in school, and he is fine in school, but on social media, I think everyone puts up this thing that they want to be cool or something. So, they will post a picture of a certain girl and say, "how I want my girl to look". She has a bikini on. Girls, I know how they will feel, “do I have to look like that?” or “I should have that shape?” …. like we are only 13 years old and what do you expect from me! …These people, they will be trying to fix themselves up to make sure that they look good, and they have to look this certain way. Chanel, Year 9, Most Popular, Milner’s
In this example, high-status male peers use social media to inform hyper- feminine performances. They are enacting their position of social privilege and relational power to stipulate the truths of idealised hyper-femininity. This power is also enacted online more than in school, as Chanel alludes to the boys being ‘fine’ in real life but are different on social media. Social media has magnified gender inequality by making male preferences more readily available. Where previously they may have been limited to offline conversations and magazines, boys can now more easily comment directly upon a girls’ gender performance. Their voice is both more widely available and personal. These online actions reflect the offline power imbalance between the most popular boys and girls, reinforcing their offline position at the top of the social apex.
For those who can correctly perform the male-sanctioned hyper-feminine discursive practice, the rewards are gained across the digital and school space. Not only do they secure approval online, but they also gain attention and status in school:
228 Most of the boys out of Year Eleven, all of them, have tried to get one of us. If they like you [on social media], they will talk to us more and then all their friends come and be with us every day. Ashley, Year 10, Most Popular, Chigford
This interaction creates an unusual relationship with the Goffman ‘actor/audience’ – social media here enables the audience to shape the actor, through publicly available feedback to other actors and the actor themselves. The audience, here, is less ‘imagined’, but instead has specific tastes that are accessible to the actor – preferences that can be seen in their historical social media engagement as well as their direct feedback. This happens online, as well as offline, within the school. This feedback is not only positive but also negative. When the discursive practice fails, social shame ensues, which is discussed in the next chapter. Peer interactions in school and on social media interact to reinforce or punish discursive practice, as those with the most power seek to maintain their hyper-feminine schoolgirl femininity.
Chapter Summary
This chapter has outlined how popularity is used as a vessel to reinforce and maintain traditional gender norms, with a hyper-feminine gender performance being idealised as a counterpart to dominant dictatorial masculinity. It charted these power and knowledge dynamics, mapping how they interact between the online and school environment. It shows the capillary, relational nature of power grants some have the authority to produce and dictate successful and unsuccessful forms of feminine performance.
Power has been shown to flow relationally through the social hierarchy, affording those atop the apex the ability to dictate and emphasise the particular discursive practices that are most valued. Social media is a tool to magnify the intensity and validity of the hyper-feminine performance, affording high-status male peers the ability to arbitrate and define valued schoolgirl
229 femininity. The semblance of authenticity in the hyper-performance is crucial, as young women are held to account offline for their investment in idealised hyper-femininity, seeking power through achieving ‘perfection’. It is, however, a paradox. The gender performance that enables girls to be the most popular concurrently has reduced them to a subordinate position to their male peers.
This chapter has focussed on the reward for effective discursive practice and the self-worth and status that can be accrued. These rewards motivate girls to enact a gender performance that reinforces traditional gender norms but is not the only mechanisms through which the patriarchal system is supported. The next chapter will move on to discuss the disciplinarian techniques used to create a system of fear through surveillance and shame in school and online. It will focus on the actions of those with the most power, both male and female, who actively punish and shame those who fail to conform to the standards. It lastly explores the resistances against this dominating ideology – and the techniques young people use to extract themselves from the seemingly monolithic digital and in-school structures of power, knowledge and truth.
230 6. Regulation of, and resistance to, schoolgirl femininities
Idealised hetero-normative discursive practice does not just regulate through validating gender performances, but sanctions those who fail to meet the standards. The last chapter described how this performance is rewarded and positively reinforced by peers, popularity and wider society. This chapter will explore how the prevailing discourses of popularity and femininity are enforced, regulated and challenged.
The chapter will analyse how power is maintained through systems of control that aim to render the female student body docile in which she performs a self-regulating schoolgirl femininity that strives to comply with the appropriate standards. It illuminates the ignoble methods of punishment and shame deployed to regulate and enforce these prevailing discursive practices. It argues that hegemonic femininity, alongside hegemonic masculinity, actively patrols gender norms transgressions and maintains the double standard using social media tools to objectify and shame the female body. The school is a modern-day panopticon; in which smartphones act as surveillance, ready to capture and share any failures to perform appropriate femininity and distribute through various tools to shame.
The next section explores how the combination of validation and regulation online and in school produces unachievable and contradictory standards, which girls feel continually pressured to attain. It argues that performing a successful schoolgirl femininity is unattainable; girls face either social shame or social exclusion depending on their choices. Social media here serves to heighten the inequitable treatment of boys’ and girls’ bodies and sexuality, but in doing so reveals the contradictory discourses underpinning them. The chapter will lastly turn to how this unattainability creates the opportunity to challenge the patriarchal norms – exploring how girls understand the contradictory discourses of schoolgirl femininity, and spaces they demarcate in order to enact alternative resistant subjectivities. These resistances are
231 collective, yet partial and subtle, formed within a peer culture of surveillance and shaming. This thesis then argues that these small resistances form the foundations from which girls will more fully resist and challenge later in life.
Regulating schoolgirl femininity
“You take a picture of yourself and you can see something that people aren’t supposed to see.”
Those who wield social power and status are endowed with the ability to police and enforce the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. To achieve a ‘regulatory ideal’ (Butler, 1993), hegemonic masculinity and femininity capitalize on social media to police gender production, ensuring patriarchal norms are maintained. Young people are pressured to perform hetero- normative gender through a suite of mechanisms that lead them to fear the consequences of not fitting in. Power and knowledge act to enforce the standards they set through a ‘strict regimen of disciplinary acts’ (Foucault, 1977: 138). The disciplinary acts aim to produce bodies that willingly conform to the standards set by the most popular, who channel traditional gender norms. In this, bodies reinforce the discursive apparatus of power and knowledge (Courtney, 2016). Smartphone and social media are effective tools to create self-observing ‘docile’ bodies that sense they need to conform to the normative expectations (McNay, 1992). Foucault’s writing in Discipline and Punishment here is valuable, as his theorization for creating docile bodies through a three-stage process can be seen through the everyday lived experience of the girls: Hierarchical Observation, Normalizing Judgement and Examination.
Creating docile bodies
The smartphone can be seen as a tool for surveillance of others, and the self, to control the body (Butler, 1993). The three-step process was evident across
232 the three schools: hierarchical observation through smartphones and normalizing judgment on social media combine to lead to young people to examine their own behaviour; the epitome of docility.
Hierarchical Observation The first step is Hierarchical Observation, whereby girls articulated that they felt observed, or potentially observed, by those around them. It is a form of visibility that leaves them hyperaware of others (Krips, 2010; Courtney, McGinity and Gunter, 2017). Foucault uses the panopticon as an analogy for Hierarchical Observation (1977). Designed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century, the panoptical style prison was designed in the round, with a watchtower at the centre, designed to hide the observers from view. This led the prisoners to feel they were always, potentially, being watched. This potentiality renders the subjects into ‘a state of consciousness and permanent visibility’ (Foucault, 1977: 201; Courtney, 2016). Aimee, Nellie and Lila describe an account which documented behaviour to share amongst the student body with content provided by other students, each student possessing the ability both to capture non-conforming behaviour and to be featured on the profile:
Aimee: There is also this thing called ‘Hellobants’, basically it is this Snapchat account and it’s an Instagram account too and it is a funny account. People do stuff and send it in…. Nellie: You can bait out someone with secret or a picture of them… Lila: … There might be Instagram ones where you send them, and you tag the person in it, so their name comes up as well as their picture Aimee: It’s not bad up to an extent... Lila: …But I wouldn’t want to be on it. Nellie: I think a lot of people think it’s funny until they are actually in that situation. If you send photos and people are laughing about it… Nellie, Lila and Aimee, Year 8, Popular and Middle, Chigford
233 ‘Hellobants’ compiles digressions made by students, used to embarrass them if their behaviour is outside the normative expectations. Each student-with- smartphone possesses the potential to record and disseminate the actions of others. This renders students aware that their behaviour in school could be captured at any moment. Students enjoy yet fear the spectacle, as Lila describes that she, ‘wouldn’t want to be on it’. This fear is reinforced by past examples of students being captured and shamed anonymously. Neave shared a story of her friend being clandestinely captured to posted:
Someone else took it, but the way that she looked in the picture, she looked like she didn’t know the picture was being taken. It looked like she was getting changed…one of the girls must have taken a picture of her and sent it to a group of people…. So they must have sent it to one of these streakers [a Snapchat feature where you get points for continual message exchange with a friend] and one of the boys must have screenshot it and must have made a page and posted on it. She didn’t know until I sent it to her. Neave, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
Neave demonstrates how all peers with phones have the potential to take images and distribute them to a wider audience. The message to other students in this story is clear: every student possesses the potential to document and distribute photos with the school body via social media. Students who are either captured by a smartphone, or who hear the story of this taking place, are rendered into this state of consciousness in front of their peers.
Rachel and Letitia describe another technique to compound this ‘permanent visibility’, a school-wide hash tag called ‘#grouprates’, a phrase you can follow to see photos from that school, which asks for the student body to rate the photo out of 10 in the comments section. This rating system heightened students’ sense that they are not only observed but also judged.
234 Rachel: There’s like group rates, so... someone has to like take your picture and put it on the group where people rate out of 10, but it can get quite offensive and sad. Because people will say you’re ugly and it’s rude...
Letitia: Some people take secret pictures of people and put them up there... Rachel: As jokes I would say. Rachel and Letitia, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s
This hashtag serves to publicly rate the students, in how they dress and act. Students, therefore, are not only shown that they are continually observed, but are placed upon a scale of acceptability. The effect of this process is dependent upon status, where the most popular students use it to reinforce their reputation whilst those less popular are used by the tool as examples of incorrect or deviant behaviour. Through communal #grouprates, they witness acceptable forms of doing and being – establishing the ‘truth’ through discursive practices (Foucault, 1977). The #grouprates reminds students of the gaze – that what they do and how they look in school is continually monitored and judged.
Normalising Judgement #Grouprates are used by more popular peers to enact normalising judgement – creating the scale upon which students are ranked by publishing the most valid forms of gender performance. As the Year 10s explain, those who want to be or become more ‘visible’ take selfies and post them for others to rate:
Rachel: Yeah loads of people do it [put a photo of themselves on Group
Rates… If people like the picture they are putting themselves out there.
Letitia: People do it to get attention.
Rachel: Yeah, that’s the whole point to see if they can get more followers Rachel and Letitia, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s
This second component of creating self-examining docile bodies is to rank individuals upon a localised hierarchy, which comprises an arbitrary cut off between acceptable/unacceptable: ‘a normalizing gaze establishes over
235 individuals, a visibility through which one differentiates and judges them’ (Foucault, 1977: 184). This process demonstrates how those at the top, who fully participate in the discursive practice, define the reality and identity of others (Paechter, 2006). The cut-off point is always in flux, dependent upon the behaviour of those at the top of the hierarchy – remaining acceptable continually needs to be negotiated. The most popular can be seen as accruing validation on #grouprates, and therefore shifting the standards of acceptability in school and online. This rating system establishes the ‘truth’ through discursive practices, as well as punishes those who fail to comply (Foucault, 1977). As Gabby explains, her behaviour is altered by what she perceives others do not want to see, hyper-aware of their gaze:
It’s like when you get older it gets more into depth. When you’re younger, like an ugly picture of you from year six, that would be on the page or if you’re pulling a funny face…. But as you get older, people start to see things that they end up regretting and it gets more into depth. Like, if you take a picture of yourself and you can see something that people aren’t supposed to see… Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s
Gabby demonstrates how she is hyper-aware to ensure her behaviour in school and online sits above the line of acceptability and how her behaviours from the past will have a long digital shelf life. Those most popular arbitrate what students are ‘supposed to see’ and hold the power to say what you should or should not like: ‘Knowledge linked to power not only assumed the authority of ‘the truth’ but has the power to make itself true’ (Foucault, 1977: 27). Chanel’s description of ratings exemplify how these discursive practices are defined, and how localised rankings are maintained and evolved:
Chanel: Like there will be a picture… And they would rate people. So they will post a picture and saying, ‘rating girls time’, and then they will post another picture saying this person and rating it out of 10… Like 3.5, you are really ugly.
236 JH: Then what do they do? Send it to the girl? Chanel: They post it. They won’t send it to you, they just post it on Instagram and you would see it. If it’s a good thing you would be happy, but some people get put down by it. JH: Then what happens once it’s on Instagram? Chanel: Then loads of people will see it and they will just be like, “Oh yeah, I agree with this one” or “I think that is a bit low”, or something like that. Or there would be comments saying this is wrong or this is right. Chanel, Year 9, Most Popular, Milner’s
Within each school, students are actively being ranked on a scale and metrically compared on social media to their other peers. It reflects a culture of ranking that exists more broadly within the formal school culture, as described in Chapter 1. Unlike national school rankings and test results, this peer scale is localised, reflecting the shifts in locally exercised discourse (Foucault, 1980). This process enables those in power to enact and define the approved forms of hyper-femininity, through documenting gender performance they value:
It’s like out on the street or something and you see a girl with a crop top and really short shorts, so you know what’s going to happen. Boys are going to try and…well… boys have a tendency to take pictures and not let other people know that they are taking pictures. So say you see a girl walking down the street with a crop top and really short shorts, boys have a tendency if they see it, they will take a picture and put a comment and post on social media. Zara, Year 8, Middle, Chigford
Within this peer culture, ranking is imbued into the culture, both academically and socially. Normalising judgement, therefore, appears normal. It comes together with hierarchical observation, concurrently acting to control the schoolgirl body and gender performance. These two disciplinary techniques
237 aim to create a body that is ‘docile’– an obedient object that self-regulates, following the sanctioned methods of being.
Examination Steps one and two converge to create self-surveying bodies that actively regulate their behaviour in order to conform practices: deliberate practices in self-production (Hall, 1996). The language of ‘examination’ was pervasive, a conscious altering of behaviours due to disciplinary forces within the school and on social media (Foucault, 1997):
Obviously there is going to be times where I am going to be like ‘he is ping [attractive]’ but I think we all know how to restrict ourselves and know where the boundaries are. I think some people haven’t learned that yet, and they don’t know the consequences. Jamelia, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
As Jamelia describes, her behaviour and actions are cautious, as she thinks about the consequences with her peers. This statement shows how she monitors her behaviour, the product of feeling both observed and compared to other peers. The girls outside the most popular group, in particular, were aware of how they had to act to prevent them being exposed or called out in front of the wider school body: their bodies become ‘self-committed to relentless self-surveillance’ (Bartky, 1988: 81) and adopt particular feminine practices (Kanai, 2015). Gabby highlights how she learnt to monitor her behaviour to predict what will be considered acceptable within her school:
You can see it happening before it happens, so you avoid yourself from doing anything… I know that at the end of the day, I know that if my mum ever found out that I posted something on Instagram that I shouldn’t have, she would be so disappointed in me. I wouldn’t want that to happen and that would just bring me to heartbreak…so you limit yourself. Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s
238 Girls hyper-aware of the consequences of their actions were particularly cautious on social media, fearing to post content that would be judged harshly. This inequity in expression reflects Ardener’s Group Muting Theory, where certain individuals are less able to express themselves in front of an audience, as to do so would be to leave themselves open to wider scrutiny and judgement:
It’s not that I haven’t got anything to post, but I feel bad sometimes if I do. The other day I went to see a musical and it was really expensive for the tickets, and I had loads of pictures and I didn’t want to post them. Milly, Year 9, Middle, Milner’s
Girls self-policed their online and in school behaviour by anticipating the reaction of their peers. Being of a lower social status restricted their ability to express themselves as they would like, and made them more aware of their behaviour in front of the student body.
Alice: I’m really careful what I post, and when I delete photos it’s just because I don’t like it. JH: And what has led you to be careful? Alice: I see what happens to the other girls and I don’t want that to happen to me and I don’t really think about posting stuff that could be risky. Alice, Year 10, Unpopular, Estuary
For many less popular girls, their self-examination makes them cautious and restricts their behaviour on mainstream social media and in school. The examination stage is at the intersection of power and knowledge for those most popular, where they have created a system that reproduces the most valued forms of gender, subjugating those who do not produce this to lower social status. Prevailing patriarchal norms underpin this system of control, and the creation of docile schoolgirl femininity that ascribes to the hyper-feminine performance. To reinforce their position, male students, and the most popular
239 girls, deploy tools that act to reinforce the patriarchal inequity and solidify the female students subordinate position.
Enforcing patriarchal control
“Boys ask for nude photos all the time they are not called slags….”
As student behaviour is heavily regulated within school by staff, social media creates a space where the peer norms can be more freely enforced online within school. The digital environment enables patriarchal norms to be reinforced, positioning girls in a subordinate position to their male peers. These are acts of power expressed in micro-interactions that serve to reproduce and normalize the objectification of girls’ bodies. The first example is the use of emojis and the second is the inequitable distribution of sexually revealing photos of both boys and girls, which reinforce the double standards related to the perception male and female sexuality.
Both examples serve the tradition of male hegemony and the social privilege that this affords, enabling high-status male peers to arbitrate and sanction schoolgirl femininity.
Emojis embodiment of patriarchal norms
The body is a key component of appropriate discursive practice, compounded by the use of emojis, small digital icons and images that are available on all smartphone keyboards. These are used hetero-normatively by the majority of young people to represent and reinforce the hegemonic framework – it is used to either describe the female body or male approval of the female body. The body portrayed through images of fruit – ‘peach’ and ‘cherries’ are used to signify quality female body parts, emblematic of the hourglass figure. Whilst a phallic emoji, the aubergine, is deployed to show the effect of the content – this action visually asserts the male body on to the female social media
240 content – a display of hegemonic masculinity. The emoji language enables young people to describe sexualized body parts without needing to name them or be specific. It is an example of a ‘short cuts’ (Turkle, 2011) in which social media, and the protection of the screen, makes it easier for young people to engage in an eroticised conversation. Pictorial descriptions of sex organs and sexualized body parts are visual euphemisms that distance the young person from the scientific or informal verbal or written language, which they can find awkward to use. Through this lens, the emoji language can be seen to magnify the hegemonic framework, facilitating the objectification of the female body and the legitimacy of patriarchy (Connell, 1995):
JH: You mentioned earlier that some of the most popular girls get comments on their photos, what kind of comments are they? Jade: “You are pretty” and that sort of thing. JH: Are there emojis for those sorts of things?
Sana: Like the heart eyes and aubergine one.
Jade: People use them in a different way, say you have got a peach emoji saying you have got a nice bum….a water one as well JH: Is there any other one?
Tara: Cherries for boobs JH: So a girl’s body is turned into fruit? Jade: Yes…. without saying boobs and bum, it’s like a code for it
Sana: Fire is one…. you’re hot. Tara: I would say that the fruit ones are more only for the girls, but boys when they post something, obviously they get comments as well but it would be the fire emoji or they might use the gun15 or the money emoji and things like that. Tara, Jade and Sana, Year 9, Middle, Chigford
15 Now replaced with a water pistol https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17278902/google-dumping-pistol-emoji- watergun-microsoft [accessed 01.05.19]
241
Emojis are used to describe parts of girls’ bodies, reducing them to a passive objectification. Male peers deploy emojis relating to their body, such as the phallic symbolism of the aubergine and splash of water, but there are no emojis that girls use to describe the male body, only ones which infer generic approval such as ‘fire’. The emojis are appropriated in this context to inscribe dominant culture norms upon the body (McNay, 2013). In this sense, the teenage males appear to be able to exert power to objectify the teenage body, using a symbolic language afforded to them, which serves to reinforce the heterosexual matrix in school (Schippers, 2014; Butler, 2004). There is no reverse available – girls can make generic sexualized comments but lack the language to objectify the male body in the same way.
JH: Do girls and boys comment in a similar way? Nellie: Yes, kind of, boys will just put an emoji. They will put a pair of eyes or something
Lila: Or heart eyes. JH: What do the emojis mean? Aimee: It’s like they are close but it doesn’t mean that they like you, they like you as a friend basically. JH: Which ones, the eyes? Aimee: Yes the heart eyes is saying that it is a nice picture and it’s nice. So is the pair of eyes. JH: Are there any emojis that means different things?
Lila: And aubergine. Or a peach emoji. JH: What does that mean? Lila: The bum. JH: So they are ways to describe body parts?
Nellie: Yes, and aubergine and the splash of water.
Lila, Aimee, Year 8, Middle; Nellie, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
242
Males use emojis to actively symbolise body parts – they can deploy their emojis to simulate their own sexualized body and deploy emojis that convey girls’ sexualize body parts. The language denies girls a voice to describe the male body. This culturally accepted communication reinforces their subordinate and passive position: they can receive emojis to describe their bodies yet are limited in how they can describe male bodies in return (Schippers, 2014). These pictorial images have been appropriated through the hegemonic framework and maintain the hetero-normative patriarchal positions for girls and boys online. The girls are rendered more passive through a lack of language available to them (Payne, 2007; Paechter, 2006). These are double standard discourses normalized through social media (Dobson and Ringrose, 2016) which reflects the subordinate position of the feminine gender performance.
Nudes and Dick Pics
Sexually revealing photos of both male and female bodies, described as ‘dick pics’ and ‘nudes’, were another mechanism by which inequitable power relations between boys and girls were reinforced, predominantly through the differing consequences that were attached to the photos of the male and female bodies (Salter, 2015, 2016; Vitis and Gilmour, 2017).
Dick pics are described as ‘user-generated visual content involving the display of male genitalia’ (Paasonen, Light and Jarrett, 2019: 1) and in recent years have been documented as becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Indeed, almost every girl interviewed (52/54 interviewees), across the social groups, had received an unsolicited dick pic from either someone they knew or did not know, in some cases more than once:
JH: So they send a photo? Tara: Yes. It is very disturbing.
243 JH: How often does that happen? Jade: A lot…. Then when you have random requests and you are thinking where the hell did you come from! Sana: Boys are a lot more open, and they will show you things that girls don’t want to always know. JH: What does it feel like when you receive a photo like that? Sana: The first time I received one like that I was like what! Tara: I jumped and got scared. JH: When was the first time you got one? Jade: Year eight and when they [boys] are starting to change a bit with their hormones. JH: Do you know them in person? Tara: Yes. They go to our school. It’s awkward when you go past them…. Jade: I was talking to this boy at the school, and I knew him since nursery and he has changed so much. We were talking for two months…Then he sent me a picture and I was just like whoa!! I ignored it and he was like, ehh?? I said I didn’t like things like that. Tara: If a boy does that and you don’t respond, then they get offended by it Tara, Jade and Sana, Year 9, Middle, Chigford
Unsolicited distribution of male’s sexually revealing photos is pervasive and considered a cultural norm in school. It reflects the patriarchal order around what the male sender believes the relationship between themselves and the recipient to be – males are active senders and females are passive recipients (Ringrose and Lawrence, 2018). The deployment of sexually revealing images, therefore, reinforces the power dynamics between male and female students, positioning the former as relationally dominant.
Girls described receiving one to be surprising, shocking or scary: a form of harassment (Paasonen, Light and Jarrett, 2019). This act serves to place them in a position where they do not feel comfortable, reinforcing their weak position (Hayes and Dragiewicz, 2018). As the conversation below outlines,
244 the girls associated these photos with other non-consensual sexual abuse, violence and assault.
JH: So guys send you photos…? Monique: Yes. Jamelia: It will be people who are on your Instagram and it’s quite scary. JH: So they are people you don’t know? Monique: Yes. Natalie: Like this one who was scary and he was 25. Jamelia: Someone you don’t know is very scary. JH: Do you feel targeted? Natalie: A little bit. I have seen these different things on the Internet and a girl got raped because they went to meet this person, so it’s like how you have to be safe and think about the situation. Jamelia: It’s not just people you don’t know, it’s people you do know as well. You can go and meet them and they can ask you how have you been. Then they can ask you for one thing and they can switch and try and break you. It’s scary. Natalie: You can’t control it, because you don’t know in a way because you know these people. Jamelia: You feel like you know a person until they don’t get what they want. Monique, Jamelia and Natalie, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
In many ways, dick pic distribution reinforces aggressive male desire, as girls are seemingly powerless not to prevent receiving a non-consensual photo. Instances were shared of pictures or videos coming up on the phone, when at home with parents.
Amy: I accidentally got one in the middle of a conversation. Lena: I was scanning through pictures my dad saw it, and he was like laughing at it, but he wasn’t really happy because he saw that I was really stressed out. I got so nervous when I was trying to explain to him and showing
245 him the pictures and messages, and saying see, I didn’t want it, and he was like okay, I know you’re not that kind of person so calm down. Amy and Lena, Year 8, Unpopular, Estuary
Rhian: I got a video once of a boy wanking himself off. JH: Did you know him? Rhian: Well I knew of him, like, from other people. He is quite popular and people know him and he went asking my mates Brooke and Amber for pictures and stuff and he would send random videos to me and my mates of him wanking himself off. My mum at the time was sitting next to me, and luckily she didn’t see it. I was expecting it to be whatever…. not…that Rhian, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
Although some girls found it hard to understand why boys would send them these photos, others rationalised that it was part of an exchange, where the boy would offer a photo first in the hope of receiving a sexually revealing photo of the girl
They send them first, so they can get stuff off you because they don’t care whether you get baited or screenshot it; it is all about the girl. There is a bit of a difference with boys but if it was a girl that has done something like that they would make a big deal out of it. But with the boys it will happen and everyone will talk about it and it will die down and tend to forget about it. Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Milner’s
This photo exchange exemplifies the inequitable position between girls and boys in school as regards their bodies, as the boys can act more freely to distribute photos of themselves as there are so few consequences (Salter, 2015).
246 Gabby: If a girl asked to see a dick pic, she would be called a slag or whatever. But boys ask for nude photos all the time they are not called slags…. JH: Have you seen that happen? Gabby: When I came to this school, some boys dick-picked a girl and she obviously got made fun of. But the boy didn’t – he still got made fun of but it was mostly the girl that was being targeted. Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Milner’s
For girls, the consequences of their photo being distributed are much higher, and the value of their photos increase. As well as receiving photos, girls are solicited by male peers to send nude or revealing photos of themselves via direct messages [DM].
That is the worst thing, social media nudes. That is the worst thing, boys asking for nudes. You talk to someone, you get to know someone “Hi baby, live down the road from me. I didn’t know them but it’s nice to meet you. We’ve got the same followers, we’ve got the same friends. Nice talking, send me a nude.” Straight away, you’ll say no then you’ll never talk to them ever again. That is the worst thing; nudes is the worst thing Janine, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
As well as using it to encourage an exchange of sexually revealing photos, there were instances when girls were blackmailed by being accused to asking for a dick pic. The example below shows how one girl was blackmailed by a boy claiming to have evidence she asked to see a dick pic, and that he would share this with the student body if she did not send a nude photo of herself:
Lena: Boys at this school, they’ll go “girls want this”, and you go “I don’t want it”. They go around saying you asked for it and they wouldn’t let you see it. They go around saying you asked for a picture of my...whatever….
247 Jessie: For instance, something happened today and someone was accused of saying “yes”, and because the people that they were in the group with were having an argument with her, the boy that said, “she said “yes” so I’m going to post it on Instagram, for everyone to see”. So they threaten to put it on social media. That happened today. Lena and Jessie, Year 8, Unpopular, Estuary
The boys in these examples can be seen to request sexually revealing images, and send their images unsolicited. In doing so, they reinforce their position of social privilege which positions them hegemonically as strong, aggressive and assertive males (Schippers, 2014; Connell, 2013). They enact their privilege to assert their sexuality upon others without consequence, as the student body overlooks their actions.
Social media has enhanced the ability for males to assert a patriarchal position of power over females. Through the appropriation of emojis to objectify girls’ bodies, and the inequitable consequences for sexually revealing photos, the hetero-normative practices and truths are supported. These practices are seen as inevitable to the girls interviewed, integrated into the everyday culture in school and online. These actions implicitly serve to reinforce traditional hetero-normative gender regulation, ensuring that female students remain in a subordinate position to their male peers. For those that fail to combine hyper-femininity and docility into their schoolgirl femininity, tools to shame exist to publicly punish.
Shaming schoolgirls
“She got exposed, and now everyone knows she’s a slag basically."
A sense of shame often emerges when an understanding of who we are, mismatches the understanding of how others perceive us. It can be used to
248 manage the peer social hierarchies, as peers seek to ostracize and punish those who they believe fail to navigate the appropriate standards. This shame is heavily tied to female sexuality, the body, and the impossible double standards that young women must navigate: being viewed by others as hyper- heterosexual, but not engaging in their sexuality.
Shame is a tool used by those with the most power to highlight the failures of others and ensure they feel responsible for their missteps. As Foucault describes, it is the mechanism for memorializing the wrongdoing, to ‘mark the victim: it is intended either by the scar it leaves on the body, or by the spectacle that accompanies it, to brand the victim with infamy’ (1977: 34). There were two principal reasons to shame; firstly a failure to enact a schoolgirl feminine performance that harmonized offline and online and the second was the exposure of the body. The language used to shame reveals its misogynistic diktat: shame is not given, but revealed. In ‘exposing’ schoolgirl bodies, or calling them out to be ‘catfish’, girls are positioned as fundamentally flawed; the process of shaming merely reveals their true selves. Through shame, truth is revealed, a truth that they are unable to enact the proper discursive feminine practice.
Failure to perform femininity: catfish
The term catfish is used informally to describe a process by which an individual ‘tricks’ someone online into believing that they are someone they are not. This word is often associated with scams, and a popular MTV series, where presenters confront individuals who are purportedly scamming another individual into a relationship under false pretences. This term has been appropriated in the school ground to describe a girl whose online and in school performance of gender do not harmonise. It used to infer that their online profile is inauthentic:
249 There are a couple of girls in my year that don’t look the same as their Instagram profile and they get called a catfish, but it’s not to the extent where it’s a different person. It’s still the same person but they just look very different. Melissa, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s
Enhancing and crafting a hyper-feminine photo of the made-up face and body with large hips, breasts and a narrow waist was part of the culture across the three schools. However, this performance has shown to be unattainable, requiring significant investment from girls in order to achieve this, predominantly through beauty regimes and photo editing. For girls who fail to strike a balance between authenticity and accentuation, peers call them out and question the discord between their online and in school personas. Naz, Angelique and Savannah describe how their heightened performance of gender online leaves them open to criticism from male peers in school:
Naz: So you put like bare [a lot of] make-up on for Instagram and then in school you don’t wear as much make-up, and they basically say you look different to your pictures…I don’t know if you girls get that? Angelique: Yeah, they call you catfish. It’s because, you know, the boys and stuff on Instagram…. want people to see that picture and stuff, but it looks different to what you look now because we are not wearing as much make-up as who we are impressing in school? Savannah: Then outside of school you want to look pretty for boys and stuff. Naz, Savannah and Angelique, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
Social media allowed girls to practice hyper-femininity but also left them open to criticism when they did not perform the same in school. Social media and school are again interacting when there is an issue with appropriate discursive practice: catfish is used to articulate the social mores of the school. For those who edited their photos in an attempt to attain this discursive practice, but were ‘caught’, mechanisms of shame existed. These punished those who failed to balance hyper-femininity and authenticity; the internalisation of
250 examined behaviour (Foucault, 1977; Azzarito, 2009). Tara, Jade and Sana discuss the consequences of failing to attain the ideal body type online:
Tara: That’s acceptable to post it [body selfies] if you have got nice boobs or a nice bum, but if you haven’t… Jade: ….you Photoshop it. A lot of people say that as well, that it’s been photoshopped and that’s not how you are in real life. Tara: There has been arguments like someone screenshot it the edge of her hip and they saw that it was Photoshop. She was up here [indicating on the diagram ‘popular’], she is popular still, but her reputation has gone because of what she has done with the photo editing. Sana: People use the word ‘ratings’… so they don’t really rate her any more. They don’t respect what she has done. Tara: There was a picture taken of her and somehow someone got the real picture, and then she posted one on Instagram that she had photo-shopped. People screenshot it and put them both together. Tara, Jade and Sana, Year 9, Middle, Chigford
The example given by the students demonstrates that being caught editing photos can lead to public shame, humiliation and affect social status. The body is the principal target the enactment of knowledge and power (McNay, 1992). The girl is being punished, publicly held to account for the ‘fake’ photo, and publicly admonished for behaviour deemed unacceptable. Her inauthenticity also had consequences in school, as she lost social standing. It expresses the impossible discursive practices that are purported through influencers, popular male peers and the most popular girls. It shows that the route to increase social status, via the hyper-feminine performance, risks public shame. This failure is viewed as an ‘abnormality’– for those who depart, even slightly, from portraying an authentic hyper-femininity (Foucault, 1977).
251 Failure to be sexy and sexual: exposing the body
The second enforcement of the double standard is to actively shame the heterosexual body, and punish a failure to be both sexy, and passive. This takes place when a sexually revealing photo of a girl’s body is distributed amongst the student body, ‘exposing her’. Like an archaeologist finding a long-lost settlement, being ‘exposed’ implies that a morally flawed character trait, which has always been there, has finally been uncovered. The body is an artefact, documenting this evidence of failure (Kanai, 2015; Thiel-Stern, 2009).
Demi: [Discussing the longevity of nudes] If it is a girl and you cross something out it is still there. Ellie: One of our closest friends she has done that, but he never asked her. She done it out of the blue and he wasn’t expecting it, because she liked him that much. But it just goes too far because now everyone has got them. JH: How did everyone get them? Katie: She said that you can screenshot if you want, so he screenshot all of them, and then they got into a big argument and he sent them around and now everyone has got them… Demi: Now there is a big wrong impression about her. JH: What is that wrong impression? Ellie: That she is easy and will talk to anyone and she does. She has had loads of boyfriends. Ellie, Katie and Demi, Year 8, Popular, Estuary Academy
Nudes were more often shared on Snapchat, as girls sensed this was a safer method, as they would seemingly ‘disappear’ after one view. However, photos were often screenshot and distributed the next day at school, with girls being publicly shamed for exposing their body. This example exemplifies how the school site and social media interact: when there is a discursive practice deemed irregular. Their bodily exposure is tied to a language of failure, that in
252 revealing the body, a flawed element of her schoolgirl femininity is revealed. The exposed body is associated with weakness, an inability to be appropriate and control their sexuality:
People will come the next day, just showing people what was on Snap of what a certain person said. Everyone will just be looking at the girl thinking, why were you posting videos like that, and why are you half-naked. Monique, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
The most popular girls play a distinct role in the normalisation of female sexuality as a character flaw. They enact hegemonic femininity to maintain their position atop the social hierarchy by chastising those who fail to perform their gender appropriately:
A girl in year eight, called Emma, sent pictures to a boy and he screenshot them and he sent them to his cousin. Then his cousin sent them to other people, then got sent to other people and it just went on and on, then she got exposed and now everyone knows she’s a slag basically. Maddison, Year 10, Most Popular, Chigford
Girls’ sexuality was constructed in opposition to male sexuality: a visible and easy target to take aim at, whilst male sexual behaviour was seemingly invisible unless socially desirable (Johnson, 2005). The potency of this gendered double standard was particularly obvious to girls who described this dynamic. They were held to account for their sexuality, a prominent feature of their rank and normalised judgement, in a way that male sexuality was overlooked. This was fuelled by the notion that female sexuality was expected to be docile, passive and hidden (Foucault, 1978; Sandra Bartky, 1988; McNay, 1992). This inequity was evident in the experiences shared by the girls across the three schools:
253 Rhian: If boys send photos then they are cool, not with their lads, but people don’t say things like “Oh My God” and people ignore it, but if a girl sends a photo it’s “you slag”, “you whore”, “you are asking for it”. Boys are just as bad, but they don’t get the hate for it. JH: How does that make you feel? Brooke: Like we are in the wrong for everything we do and even though we don’t do it, but if people are vulnerable, then boys do beg saying, “oh babe you’re pretty”, and obviously girls will get swayed into doing it…but most boys do have respect for girls
Rhian: Most boys do NOT have respect for girls...
[Brooke protests by providing examples of male students] Rhian: OK, not most, but some. They’ll be nice to you until they ask for a revealing photo. Rhian and Brooke, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
Sophie: They’d be classed more of a lad because they got sent a picture of a girl, and if a girl was to get sent a picture of a boy and show people, they would be like “Look at you slut having that picture.” Neave: So you get judged. Sophie and Neave, Year 10, Middle, Estuary
The contradiction between being sexy and sexual is explicit – where girls are asked to be revealing, but passively. It is a false dichotomy: they are expected to be desired by male peers, who request revealing photos, but are not expected to engage in desire themselves (Cixous, 1986; Reay, 2001; Griffin et al., 2013). Sending a photo of themselves positioned them in a proactively sexual role. To actively engage in sexual activity is to be considered a failure – girls are morally implicated for their behaviour, ‘slag’ and ‘sket’ were used to describe girls who had actively engaged in sexual activity.
Angelique: Yes, say a girl does something and the boy will call them a slag or something like that. When a boy does something no one will call him a slag.
254 I’ll give an example there. Say a boy beat yeah- it’s like having sex and when he beat it that hard. That’s calm… the boys praise him, boys praise him and that’s calm. JH: So calm is good? Naz: Yeah, and when a girl beats they call her a slag. Angelique and Naz, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
The consequences for a girls’ photo are long term, with negative indictments upon her sexuality and reputation. Girls interviewed, particularly the older year groups, were hyper-aware of this accountability, and potential long-term impact upon their social standing and reputation. It demonstrates the impossible position that girls are placed in to perform schoolgirl femininity – where they must be heterosexual, but not act upon it, a passive object to be desired, but show no feelings of desire themselves. This first method of shaming the sexually revealed body takes place on group chats and in school whilst the second can reach a much wider audiences.
Displaying shame: slag groups
Across the three schools, a similar type of shaming tool was referenced – Slag Groups. The first was a private account, which acted as a library of sexually revealing photos:
Shannon: It’s what they do afterwards with the nudes – like ‘Estuary 2K Slags’ they post nudes then tag the girl in it.... it’s a bit wrong. Janine: And worrying, like you just want to see who’s on the account in case you’ve got yourself muddled up, even if you’ve never sent things before Shannon and Janine, Year 10, Middle Estuary
On Instagram, people that will make up slag pages and the girls that have sent the revealing pictures to boys and they just put it on the pages and expose everyone and I know quite a lot of people who have been exposed.
255 Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Milner’s
Photos of girls that are deemed ‘too revealing’ are, at the same time celebrated, chastised and memorialized on ‘exposed pages’ – private accounts on Instagram where, in order to gain access to the account, a viewer needs to share a nude photo. These are holding pages of ‘too revealing’ photos, often entitled ‘XXX Slags’, to reflect the geographic location. Across the interviews, girls explained that exposed pages did not just individually shame, but created a culture of fear around their bodies. On an individual level, being submitted to such a system creates an internalised self- surveillance: individuals concurrently regulate themselves and watch others for lapses in regulation, termed the collective gaze (Foucault, 1977). This language of regulation can be seen in how girls admonish other girls for their failings in the truth games they are all attempting to play:
Maddison: Girls who post revealing photos? We call them sluts. Ashley: Yes, but boys don’t get as much hate as girls, they get ratings for it. If they have sex with a girl they get ratings. But if a girl has sex with boy they’re called sluts. Karmel: But if you don’t have sex with a boy you get called frigid. So you can’t win. Ashley: Boys don’t get screen shotted either I don’t think. You never see a boy page. Essex slags, or Dartford slags, you never see something based on boys, it’s always slags.
Maddison, Ashley and Karmel, Year 10, Most Popular, Chigford
Social media magnifies the potency of the inequitable relations between girls and boys: the double standard is amplified as soon as images are distributed. Hegemonic femininity is enacted to ensure girls take moral responsibility for producing the images, rather than those involved in the distribution (Hasinoff, 2013; Renold and Ringrose, 2013). As the girls explain, there is a fine line to walk between being sexy and chaste, sexually appealing and sexual, a virgin
256 and a whore. False dichotomies imbue this gender regulation on schoolgirl femininity, which concurrently restrict and validate their experiences in school and on social media. These examples serve to demonstrate that the shaming of girls’ bodies is pervasive and culturally normal.
Alice: I hear people getting upset about exposed accounts. I go through Instagram and see people screenshot a picture of the account and they ask people to shout them out [tag them in a nude photo],
JH: When was the last time you saw this? Alice: About a week ago
Alice, Year 10, Unpopular, Estuary
Although these accounts are shut down semi-regularly by the authorities, they continue to re-emerge. These accounts were private, with access only being granted upon receipt of a nude photo that could be added to the collection. In this girls’ bodies are shamed, held as an example of a failure of ‘control’ their sexuality (Ringrose and Harvey, 2015).
Abbie: There’s been in this school, and Greenly Academy, pages of Slags and Sluts and stuff and that was its name. Sometimes you report the account and then it gets deleted, but they just make another one. Izzy: Once a picture goes on Instagram everyone has got it and everyone has to say something. Taylor: Yeah, everyone. Izzy: They are mainly private and they like them shouting them out and more people can then follow them, and it makes them more popular. But people say stuff and they type a message and say, like someone has had sex with someone, but it’s not true. Abbie, Izzy, Taylor, Year 8, Most Popular, Estuary
On these accounts, young women’s nude photos are documented and revealed to a wide audience, concurrently positioned an object of desire and scorn. These images are widely sought after, highly prized yet highly
257 scorned. This inequity reflects the normalisation and internalisation of the patriarchal hierarchy into the everyday peer cultures and relationships (Campbell and Gregor, 2004; Lippman and Campbell, 2014). These examples demonstrates how popular male peers operationalize their power to reinforce and maintain the naturalised hegemonic framework, subordinating girls to a passive position that is both punished and desired (Payne, 2007; McRobbie, 2007; Connell, 1995). The language of shame, ‘catfish’, ‘exposed’, carried a malevolent undertone, their process of shaming implies that the girls are fundamentally broken or wicked from the beginning, and that this process has served to ‘reveal’ their nature: an inferior and flawed sex, with an inability to control themselves (Fine, 1988; Hamilton and Armstrong, 2009).This prevailing norm restricts the discursive positioning of schoolgirl femininity to a position where it cannot be successful, and is therefore subordinate, continually striving to attain acceptability. As the next section focuses on, this creates an intense pressure upon young women as they attempt to attain an impossible standard navigating between false dichotomies (McRobbie, 2009).
Pressure to perform
"I wish I didn’t have to do that"
Across the interviews, girls often accompanied their descriptions of the hyper- feminine performances and punishments, with an explanation of that obligation they felt to enact these. They walked a tightrope between social failure and bodily shame where there appears no successful route to perform successful schoolgirl femininity. Those who were popular were fully aware of the commitment required to gain status, feeling pressure to perform in a certain way:
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to do that and they just, I don’t know, sometimes I think I shouldn’t care if they don’t like my picture but then as
258 much as I think that I still want them to like my picture. I don’t want to feel like that, I feel like I have to put pictures on Instagram. Ellie, Year 10, Popular, Estuary Academy
In the quote above there is a sense of compulsion to perform hyper-femininity, seeking validation in order to minimise the chance of sanction or loss of status. Ellie shows the need for external validation to solidify her status, and the steps required to achieve this: revealing photos that hold the potential for her to be branded as sexually immoral (Ringrose, Harvey, Gill, and Livingstone, 2013). It exemplifies the hegemonic power paradox: the actions she feels will give her power, submit her to the discursive diktat of the most popular males, reinforcing her subordinate position. Naz and Savannah emphasize this role of popular male peers in pressuring girls to perform hyper-femininity:
Naz: Because boys give likes to what their ideal girl is and then loads of girls are then pressured to look like that. And then boys don’t really care. I don’t really think that boys care about the girls that much and they just want them to look a certain way. Then girls pressure themselves to look like that. Savannah: With boys liking the ideal girl that they want, and if a girl sees they liked that person, they will go “I need to look like that” and change everything Naz and Savannah, Year 8, Popular, Milner’s
This other-directed stylization demonstrates that performativity is not the power a subject brings over themselves to be what they would like, but rather a pressure from others to produce a particular way of acting (Butler, 1993: 2). Naz and Savannah described a pressure continually negotiate the requirements for appropriate gender performance in school and on social media. The standards continually shift, and remain intangible, as Natalie and Jamelia discuss the impossible expectations upon them to perform successful schoolgirl femininity.
259 Jamelia: People expect too much. Natalie: People expect you to be a certain way. Think about it, we can look the way we look now and people don’t say nothing…. Monique: Even girls and boys expect too much from girls, and girls expect too much from boys as well…it’s just expected. Every day at school. Jamelia: Sometimes I hear boys talk about it and make comments on different types of girls….Like this girl is like that, or this girl is like this, or this girls flat, this girls peng [attractive]…People expect too much of a fantasy. Natalie: For example, boys and girls can look at a girl and be like, she’s pretty but she’s too skinny, or she’s too fat. Something like that. Then boys expect too much, like she’s pretty but she hasn’t got this or she hasn’t got that. Natalie, Jamelia and Monique, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
Their conversation highlights the pressure to perform an unattainable standard of femininity, where boys continually moved the boundaries of acceptability, the normalising judgement. The ‘repeated’ hyper-feminine stylizations, both online and in school, solidify over time to create a semblance of substance – a script which others feel compelled to follow and adopt (Butler, 1990). In vocalising their ‘fantasy’ expectations upon girls through positive reinforcement and punishment of schoolgirl feminine performance, the male peers sustain their privilege, and reinforce their position of power (West and Zimmerman, 1987). Social media serves the hetero-normative discourse – enveloping how girls act, what they know and understand of themselves, of others and consequences for failure. It is expected that these online standards translate offline into daily practice in school, but are predominantly unattainable. Girls understood these contradictory expectations: the impossibility of attaining these standards, yet the negative consequences for failing to attain them:
That’s the thing, on one side, you can’t be sexual. But on the other side, if you are not sexual enough then you are also unappealing. It’s like, whichever way you go, people find something wrong with you.
260 Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Milner’s
Every option available to perform schoolgirl femininity is considered unsuccessful in some form. Yet within the failure to achieve the impossible standards, challenges can arise (Weedon, 1997; MacNaughton, 2005). In describing the inequitable experience of performing gender both online and in school, girls were aware of how they were positioned unfairly, subject to greater consequences and asked to attain impossible femininity. This next section explores the resistance to the normative, traditional hierarchies purported by the most popular boys and girls, and how within these very discourses of control and dictation, spaces are created through which they can be resisted.
Possibilities of resistance
"You don’t want to say anything to them, but you do try and stop them"
The enforcement of hetero-normative behaviours through the validation and punishment of discursive practice does not lead to uniformly submissive subjects. This section will explore how the construction of power creates the possibility to challenge the status quo and how this resistance is enacted (Foucault and Gordon, 1980; Paechter, 2007). It is within the construction of power that lies the possibility to challenge it (Raby, 2005). This thesis has argued that power is imbued in relationships: the imbalance between two individuals or groups; between the most popular boys and the most popular girls, and the most popular girls and other girl groups within the student body. This relational theory does not lie upon a binary notion of the powerful/powerless, but rather posits each actor possesses power in some form and capacity: power is not unidirectional, but contested and fragmented (St. Pierre, 2004). Its fragmented nature creates the space for resistance, as this chapter will now discuss, exploring the contradictions and spaces within
261 the regulation of schoolgirl femininity that enable resistance to take place. It argues that the school site creates a challenging context to resist within and documents how partial and micro resistances enable alternative subjectivities to be subtly expressed. These resistances are born out of a need to protect the self from the prevailing discursive practice and punishments, and the desire to formulate a new version of successful femininity (Pringle and Pringle, 2012). The negotiation of power and resistance is complex: agency and choice must be considered when exploring how acts of protection evolve into acts of resistance (Harris and Dobson, 2015). However, it is crucial not to overlook certain forms of resistance as they do not adhere to previous ways of challenging, to remember the creativity of the actors in the resistance process as they take on new challenges (McDonald, 1999; Renold and Ringrose, 2008). This section will therefore consider both innovation and agency in the exploration of resistance to the impossible successful schoolgirl femininity.
Contradictory narratives
Contradictions were pervasive in the construction and enforcement of appropriate schoolgirl femininity, particularly how girls were expected to behave compared to boys and celebrities. Resistance is born out of contradictory narratives, which create internal conflict (Weedon, 1997; Raby, 2005). Social media has an interesting role in raising the awareness of contradictory narratives – it both enables the inequity, as discussed earlier, but in doing so makes the double standard more apparent. This enables its own undoing, ‘renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it’ (Foucault, 1978 : 101). Its fragility was identified in the translation of online expectations of curated, authentic hyper-femininity to the offline environment. These discourses hold girls unfairly to account, with a pressure to achieve impossibly high and fluctuating standards. Their very impossibility demonstrates the flaws in the ‘truths’ told to young women (Weedon, 1997). Gwen and Nina explained how taking a break from social media enabled them to see this contradiction more clearly:
262
Gwen: Being off social media you realise that’s what social media is like – because now I’ve done it I don’t see that pressure now. Like when you have a younger brother I know that he is going to be one of those boys who will be saying “that is the duff of the group”. Or saying “she is pretty”... and I know that’s how it’s going to happen. JH: Duff? Nina: The DUFF – designated ugly fat friend [a film]. Gwen: People always see it like an inspirational movie. Like girls our age see it as an inspirational movie, even although it really isn’t. Because the ugly fat friend got the nice-looking guy in the end, and that is supposed to make us feel special? Not really. Gwen and Nina, Year 9, Middle and Unpopular, Milner’s
This visceral inequity can fuel anger and resentment in students, as Gabby explains after describing the inequity between boys, girls and their sexually revealing photos described earlier in this chapter. The contradictions she sees in female and male sexuality enable her to trace further patriarchal inequality:
Eventually it makes me feel angry… because if a girl can do it, why can’t a boy do it. I think it is because they will build this image that if you are a girl or a woman, and you have to be feminine and do this and that, you’re not allowed to do masculine things like play football, so it is like if a boy sends you that [a dick pic], that is classed as normal. But if you send something you’re a slag, so it’s like some people react different than other people Gabby, Year 10, Middle, Chigford
Here, social media has led Gabby to understand how other discourses are normalised within schoolgirl femininity, and how inequality translates to other domains, such as sports. These create internal conflicts for the girls when their realities do not match up with the social narratives (Davies, 1991; Weedon, 1997; Fisher, 2017). Similarly, Alice described wanting to ‘spread awareness’ of issues, such as the shooting of African Americans by the police
263 ‘even if they are far away, they are important’ (Year 10, Unpopular, Estuary). These multiple conflicts create fragmented points from which to resist, complicated and facilitated by the interaction of the digital and in school environments. Social media both magnifies patriarchal control and the contradictions through which it holds power. The interaction of these two spaces creates both barriers and facilitators to resisting the impossible hyper- feminine ideal.
Resistance in context
The school site, and its interaction with social media, creates an extremely challenging environment to resist within. The mechanisms for control, surveillance and punishment are powerful and can appear omniscient and omnipresent. In school, gossip, information and photos are shared quickly, facilitated by online distribution. Within this, open resistance to the expected norms can appear impossible – with efforts to disrupt the status quo quickly captured and shamed. Deviations from normative behaviour are publicity punished, which affects how and when young women can resist the prevailing discourses. This section explores how resistance is navigated in context through creating ‘safe space’ (Guillard, 2016): keeping their circle small, demarcation practices and micro-challenges create a space where alternative subjectivities can safely be crafted.
Young people frequently considered the digital trail or footprint they left with their data as well as to whom they gave their information. For some, a reaction to the proliferation of data in school and online was to restrict the availability of data: young women protected themselves by minimizing who had information about them.
Rachel: Keep your circle small. Everyone uses that. Letitia : So we are still friends with everyone, but the people we trust, it’s only us four.
264 Rachel and Letitia, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s
In an environment where young people had on average over one thousand followers on Instagram, they resisted offline by forming small, tight knit friendships where trust was paramount. Protecting each other’s secrets that deviate from the prevailing norms, as well as their own, was a greater priority that the benefits accrued for sharing such information further. Naz and Angelique spoke of the time required to build trust in someone:
Naz: For me, knowing someone for a long time…then you share secrets between you. Then you know that they won’t spread it around because you have known them for a long time and you know how they are around you, like a really good friend. Angelique: But not like someone you have just met for a few weeks and send them something, because I wouldn’t trust them because I don’t really know them. Naz and Angelique, Year 8, Popular, Chigford
For Naz, Angelique, Rachel and Letitia, this behaviour is reactive to protect themselves, and their data, from what happens when information becomes out of the owner’s control. Data that they feel compromises the perception that they adhere to school social mores. However, is important to consider whether this behaviour is out of conscious resistance, or out of necessity. This behaviour calls into question the legitimacy of being termed resistance, if those involved do not feel there is an alternative. It is also important to consider the extent to which keeping the circle small is a reaction to the mass availability and distribution of data, rather than a resistance to it. It is therefore important to consider the choice young women have in creating their small circle, and the information and actions that take place within it (Harris and Dobson, 2015). Tara and Jade suggest their actions are conscious, as they distance themselves, and their friendship, from normative school behaviour.
265 Tara: If we get into an argument in our friendship group we don’t spread it to other people. We would keep it to ourselves, and that’s one thing that me and my friends do. If we’ve got an argument between ourselves, we don’t tell people to add their fingers in it basically. We don’t make it public, and we aren’t that type to make things worse. Jade: We are mature about it. Tara and Jade, Year 9, Middle, Chigford
Their conscious pact between friends to keep their secrets close, and the value they ascribe to this decision, suggests that they seek to challenge the norm. Collectively, they describe themselves in opposition to the normalised behaviour, suggesting the system of social shaming is immature. Small groups that constitute themselves in opposition to the prevailing discourse build upon each other to craft new communities and meaning (Pomerantz, Currie and Kelly, 2004; Pomerantz, Raby and Harris, 2017).It is a subtle resistance, but contributes to their self-segregation from the normative hierarchies and structures, as they opt to become less noticeable, resisting how other peers could shame them. The norms upon the body are what allow a subject to be able to resist them (McNay, 2000). Acting to protect the self from the normative subjectivities is the first step towards resisting – as it implies a consciousness of self – that they do not want to be engulfed in the current school cultures and digital practices. As resistance cannot happen outside of the environment it challenges, social media has become a mechanism for micro-resistance, as girls seek to protect themselves and demarcate spaces in which they are protected from the regulatory framework enacted between school and mainstream social media.
Micro protection, micro resistance: demarcating space
Although social media serves to magnify the existing patriarchal inequality offline, it also heightens the opportunities to resist it. This section details how these micro-resistances take place, how girls actively try to bypass the hetero-
266 normative discursive practices by creating spaces in which they feel more comfortable. These can be seen as alternative realities and sites were resistance can take place online (Renold and Ringrose, 2008; Guillard, 2016). These micro acts are often born out of protection, where the consequences for actions outside the norms are unjust and severe. As the most popular wield such control over the student body, resisting from a position of low social status needs to be subtle and discreet.
You don’t want to say anything to them, but you do try and stop them...take them down Jessie, Year 8, Unpopular, Estuary
Although some of these resistances, such as Jessie’s, described an intent to consciously undo the current system, other resistances were subtle and subconscious – an act of protection rather than resistance. This limits the agency underpinning a resistance if there is no choice in the action aside from self-preservation. Resistance is complex, as resistors can engage in both control and resistance, simultaneously legitimising and challenging dominant discourses (Kondo, 1990; Ashcroft, 2005). This section outlines how young women resist through demarcating space to resist and practice alternative subjectivities: creating multiple profiles; limiting data; switching off and using alternative sites.
Multiple Profiles
As discussed in Chapter 5, online validation fortifies the position of those most popular and their ability to wield influence over their peers. As social media profiles curate and store the content used to gain validation and status, they are a particularly potent record of approved discursive practice. Given this importance to the schoolgirl feminine performance, holding multiple profiles on social media was a primary site of resistance. These are sometimes known colloquially as a ‘Finsta’ – a Fake Instagram account.
267 There were two different motivations to create multiple profiles on mainstream social media applications, particularly Instagram. Firstly protection of reputation, as Chennai and Brooke describe how a popular girl created another profile after receiving criticism that her photos were too revealing:
Brooke: Chennai has got two accounts now,
JH: When did she get the second account? Rhian: A few months ago, she got a new one because she said she couldn’t remember the old password, this one is less revealing Brooke and Rhian, Year 10, Popular, Estuary
It appears this incident occurred shortly before Chennai changed her Instagram account, in reaction to the boys’ negative comments about how much she exposed her body. In this example, the student used another accounts to ‘remake’ her hyper-feminine subjectivity through the guise of forgetting a password. In this, Chennai does not appear to be resisting the idealised gender norms, but finding a way to enact them better. It appears more to be an act of protection to maintain status than it does an act of conscious resistance. This action refreshes the profile and online subjectivity, providing a space to try another identity, or shift their gender performance or discursive practice without the history of the prior posts.
Some people get two accounts because the other one had too much followers, or that they didn’t like the last one. Or something happened on social media and that person could have got humiliated, so they decided just to leave everything. Jamelia, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
In some senses, the creation of this new profile avails young people the opportunity to reset their digital persona – a second opportunity where they are not tied to their previous performances. It can be seen as the phoenix approach, burning one profile to begin again and reflects the nature of
268 resistance – often constituted when the notion of the self is put in jeopardy (Harding, Ford and Lee, 2017). It is in the unstable performance of the schoolgirl femininity that change can be generated (Gregson and Rose, 2000), fragmenting the performance and the audience across two profiles. As well as creating new accounts, other young people actively maintain two profiles – one where they present themselves to the whole student body and the other for closer friends. These were generally less popular peers who felt they were restricted with what they could post in front of the wider student body and therefore enabled them to both resist and conform concurrently.
Molly: I have two Instagram accounts, one for close friends to follow and my main account, which I don’t really use any more. Olivia: On my main account I will post a selfie or something if I am with my friends. But if I want to post it for my close friends to see, then I will post it on to my other account. Molly: Everyone makes two accounts, like a spam account where they just post everything, but on the main account it is all neat and organised. On my main account I have 500 and about 150 Molly and Olivia, Year 10, Unpopular, Chigford
Other students also had multiple profiles, explaining that it was a space for them to be themselves. This links to Edwin and Shelly Ardener’s work, that some spaces are easier for some people to have a voice in than others. Multiple profiles can be viewed as a reaction against the prevailing powers, which restrict what some students can say based upon their social status (Ardener, 1975; Ardener, 2005).
Lena: I don’t know, I think it’s, like, not wrong, but you should just be yourself on your normal account. But I don’t think in the first place you shouldn’t accept people that you don’t really want to see your private line.
269 Jessie: I think there are quite a few people that get annoyed if they post a load. There is this girl, and she posted a lot on her main account, and people get really annoyed Lena and Jessie, Year 8, Estuary
Multiple profiles are mechanisms to create safer spaces on mainstream social media through conscious compliance and concurrent resistance. They served to limit their data to a small circle of trusted peers and restrict the wider student population. One profile acts to comply with the wider discursive practice and the other offers a safer space for alternative subjectivities. These actions are a protection measure, as well as one that tries to resist the enactment of power and control over them. Other students described how important this was:
Rachel: Well for me I don’t put my information up. On Insta I use my name but I don’t put too much. But you see people that put all their details and when something happens they shouldn’t put your life on there. Letitia: You have to be careful of what you do as well. For instance if someone on Snapchat tries to add you, you can see the person. If you don’t know them don’t accept, but people do accept it. So you have to protect yourself and be smart. Rachel and Letitia, Year 10, Popular, Milner’s
The creation of multiple profiles is a tool used across the social status spectrum to create a space where girls can be released from the pressure of the hyper-feminine performance: either by remaking themselves or by having multiple accounts that create the semblance of compliance.
Switching off
Alongside holding multiple accounts, girls restricted access to who could see their data – switching off their phones, actively blocking and adding a few
270 people, and using social media that was outside the mainstream. It helped them to demarcate a space where they felt freer to be themselves. Switching off helped manage unsolicited requests and photos from males for and of sexually revealing photos.
Alice: It makes me really angry because I just don’t think it’s okay for people to use people’s bodies against them. I just don’t understand why some people will do that to somebody. JH: So how do you respond if someone asks for a photo from you? Alice: I say no…They try to make me feel I’m doing the wrong thing but I just don’t respond, just switch it off. Alice, Year 10, Unpopular, Estuary
Alice resisted the prevailing discourses by engaging in her offline environment, rejecting the hegemonic framework by blocking and switching off – demarcating space where she felt more comfortable offline. However, resisting dick pics is challenging as so few resources are available: the choices are to block or switch off. It leaves those who want to resist with limited options to prevent a non-consensual photo: removing themselves from the application appears to be the only current way to avoid this situation. Girls possess limited agency to challenge this normative behaviour:
JH: So what do you do when you receive a photo like that? [Dick pic] I just say “Eww, what are you doing?”, and you just block them. Sometimes they will ask for a selfie, and it’s like, “Who are you?” Then you just block them and everything is ok Melissa, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s
Actively blocking content they do not want to see, and making time to switch off from social media, are small actions that take place on mainstream social media. Given the limited agency to resist on these platforms, girls attempting
271 to resist the prevailing discourses turn to alternative digital spaces, as described in Chapter 4.
Alternative spaces
As well as creating alternative realities within mainstream social media, less mainstream social media sites supported young women to resist. These were spaces girls could perform alternative subjectivities without fear of derision or shame. Gwen and Nina explained why they rejected mainstream social media, preferring anonymous sites and forums where they interacted with young people whom they did not know:
Gwen: The reason I like it is that I don’t have to pretend to be anybody. With social media I have to always be like, hey I’m pretty. But when nobody knows who you are and they don’t know anything about you, it’s easier to get judged but it’s also not as easy because people judge you for your face and how you present yourself. Nina: It’s just easier when they don’t know what you look like. Gwen and Nina, Year 9, Middle and Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
These girls found a space where they were not judged, enabling them to feel freer to act in any way they liked online, without being held accountable in school. The anonymity was a space they could shelter in, away from their school’s hierarchy, scrutiny and surveillance.
In these alternative spaces, alternative behaviours and practices could take place. Alice preferred Tumblr and other niche applications to explore her creative subjectivity that she could not enact on the mainstream applications:
Alice: I like Tumblr it’s a lot different from the other social media apps and I think it’s just more creative…there are a lot of people who upload their own
272 writing and photography, so it’s interesting to see that you like and you’re able to keep track of it whenever they post something new. JH: How do you use it? Alice: I’ve put some photos, like if I think I took a really cool picture then I will upload it on to Tumblr. It’s a lot easier for me to load pictures on to Instagram, because it’s easier. When I tried to post a photo on Tumblr I have to think about it. Alice, Year 10, Unpopular, Estuary
Alternative applications offer space away from the mainstream – girls could resist the prevailing discursive practices, conducting subtle resistances by demarcating spaces in which they can practice alternative subjectivities. It enabled them to find spaces with peers who are similar to them, and where they can be themselves, as Charlie explained:
Online you can do anything beyond your imagination with what you want with your own little worlds Charlie, Year 8, Unpopular, Milner’s
Demarcating this space is an act of protection where girls can partially resist the normative expectations through enacting alternative subjectivities. These acts create a space where girls can craft a subjectivity which rejects the prevailing patriarchal norms within school, resists the hyper-hetero-normative behaviour and re-signifies schoolgirl femininity (Pomerantz, Currie and Kelly, 2004).
Alternative subjectivities
Keeping the circle small, and enacting micro-resistances, enabled resistance in a safe space in front of a micro-audience. It allowed alternative schoolgirl subjectivities to be crafted, which actively challenged the normalized hyper- feminine discursive practice (McRobbie, 2004; Davies, 2015).
273 Mostly girls act, act up, and they mainly act when they are around boys and the kind of act up. Like prestige…I’m probably not like that, I don’t care about boys, I’m the least ladylike person in the world Lila, Year 8, Middle, Chigford
These subjectivities were formed in opposition to the ascribed norms of hyper- feminine practice, as Lila’s positioning of herself in comparison to her peer, highlights. Lila does not passively accept the discourse required to attain a social status that is required in order to be highly valued by peers (Crosnoe, 2011). This can be seen as resistance through difference – drawing on her marginalised subjectivity to be a productive resource from which to connect and relate to peers, and resist the prevailing norms (Gagnon and Collinson, 2017).
However, within the school context, active resistance to the hetero-normative framework was difficult due to the interaction of hierarchal observation and normalizing judgment that captures behaviours offline to expose young people online. These alternative subjectivities were preferred over the dominant discourse, but expressed in subtle and partial ways as they came with social consequences (Allan, 2009). Many of the alternative subjectivities were therefore subtle – girls outwardly maintained appropriate engagement with the approved and validated hyper-femininity, whilst resisting it inwardly.
Olivia: I don’t think that matters as much, who cares about likes and comments… Some people think that they are just Instagram famous and that’s it now. They have failed their GCSEs… so they will put in their Snapchat story, “I’ve failed my GCSEs, but it’s alright and I’m just an Instagirl after all”. Molly: It is embarrassing. Olivia and Molly, Year 10, Unpopular, Chigford
274 This oppositional subjectivity focused on the future, with educational success as the vehicle to a successful alternate subjectivity. Olivia and Molly positioned themselves in opposition to the Influencer/Most Popular form of femininity, articulating how the prevailing hyper-feminine practice leads to future academic failure. The co-construction of their difference helped shape their resistance – formulating their subjectivity around future success, compared to instantaneous Instagram gratification. Similarly, Gwen, Jaz and Ruby resisted the popular discursive practice by associating their resistance with later life success; their alternative subjectivity was future-focused, whilst in school popularity was short term.
Gwen: They [The most popular] think they are above everyone else, but if you look at it from the outside you are the bigger person than them because you know just to ignore them because they are not anything. Jaz: At the end of the day, I think we are going to get a better job and education than they are. Gwen: All they care about is going out smoking, drinking, having sex. We are just like, why would you do that? We’ll get our education and get a job. Ruby: I just want to get out into the big wide world, get a job and earn my money, get my own house and car. Gwen, Jaz and Ruby, Year 8, Middle, Milner’s
Through drawing on their collective co-construction of difference, these girls can be seen to fashion new meanings of success, beyond the prescriptions applied to hyper-femininity. Monique, Natalie and Jamelia criticize the most popular girl in school, Jenna, who is considered an Influencer with over fifteen thousand followers. They see her investment in the hyper-feminine performance as short term, but also acknowledge the challenge this can be to perform appropriate femininity and be studious. They are aware of the competing pressures upon popular girls, choosing between success with peers and success in school.
275 Jamelia: Some girls are different. Some don’t care about their appearance for what people. Sometimes we try hard to give that impression…focus on other things. Should be your books, your education. Natalie: People like Jenna for example, focus too much on how they look, and how they are going about and who they are trying to impress. She doesn’t even know what she is going to do now job-wise. That’s society now. Monique: She doesn’t even realise what she wants. Natalie: People like that don’t know what to do because she is too focused on her looks rather than her education, and they are not going to do anything. Jamelia: Only on their social media. Natalie: Exactly, and their followers will be like, cool, you will be known, but what are you doing? What are you going to get out of it? Where are you going to get money from? You can’t stay with your mum your whole life and what are you going to do. She is not going to pay for you and one day she will be like, “too bad”. Jamelia, Natalie and Monique, Year 10, Popular, Chigford
As these girls are considered popular within school, there may be more pressure to better perform hyper-feminine discursive practices in order to maintain their position. This conflicts with focussing on their education, as the pressure to perform appropriate schoolgirl can be unrelenting. However, it is clear from these conversations that a mechanism to resist the most popular’s investment on social media is to highlight the perceived long-term limitations of taking that role. It reflects that resistance is complex: those who try to resist can simultaneously legitimise and challenge dominant discourses (Kondo, 1990), and conforming to the norms can also be a resistance depending on the consciousness of the act (Brown and Coupland, 2005). Despite influencers making careers from their YouTube and Instagram content, these girls feel that investing in this does not lead to success, unlike education. Success as an influencer appears as likely as becoming a famous footballer, desired by the many and achieved by the few. This shows that although the self-commodification of Instagram influencers purports that their lifestyle is
276 attainable with hard work, (Banet-Weiser, 2012), many girls interviewed rejected this as a viable life and career trajectory.
Practicing alternative subjectivities also allowed girls to question and support their friends to resist the normative expectations. Nina describes how she would talk to a friend who was engaging in hyper-feminine behaviour:
I feel that if my friend is doing that, I would be, ‘why are you doing that, you don’t need it’, and trying to make them see that they don’t need it. Nina, Year 9, Unpopular, Milner’s Academy
Nina demonstrates how she exposes the flaws of successful schoolgirl femininity to her friends (Weedon, 1997) and her alternative subjectivity enables her share a reformulated definition of success with her close network. This quiet rejection of the approved discursive practice was often conceptualized around the future, with girls citing that it held long-term negative consequences.
Jennifer: It’s not something that I want to look at. It’s just a bit like you have gone on to some porn and I don’t want to see that, and they do shout outs. Pippa: I think that girl does promotions and stuff. She promotes products because she has so many followers. Toma: But she is so young and doesn’t understand, and she just has to go in her underwear just to look good. Jennifer, Year 9, Popular, Pippa and Toma, Year 9, Unpopular, Milner’s
Similarly to Tara and Jade, Toma attributes her resistant subjectivity to being more ‘mature’, as she understands the longer-term consequences of her actions. These alternate and collective subjectivities are future-focused – and subtle and positioned in opposition to the assertive hyper-feminine hegemonic femininity. They lay the groundwork for future, more vocal resistance after they leave the secondary school environment. These subtle resistances could
277 be forming to first steps towards actively tackling the normative discourses, building blocks that will be used for future challenge and mobilization.
Chapter summary
At the intersection of the digital and in school environment, schoolgirl femininity is heavily policed and punished. Girls are beholden to the most popular males and their interpretation of locally valued femininity. It is a form of impossible femininity riddled with false dichotomies and double standards, with tools of shame deployed against those who fail to perform validated femininity. They all operate to reinforce the hegemonic framework. Combined with the smartphone, the school ground is an environment of surveillance and judgment that aims to create a docile and passive female body, which complies with the prevailing discursive practice. Deviation from the norm runs the risk of widespread social shame, as the body is weaponised to reveal the inherent female failings and weakness. Validation and punishment combine to reinforce the impossibility of successful schoolgirl femininity.
Social media magnifies this inequitable experience of idealised schoolgirl femininity, but also reveals its fragmented and instable nature. The act of enforcing unattainable ideals reveals inconsistencies and spaces from which to resist and challenge the status quo. This resistance is future-focused and subtle, a product of the surveillance environment in which it is conducted. Girls resist through the construction of their future selves, as the digital space offers flexibility to find safer spaces in which to craft alternative subjectivities that reject the patriarchal norms.
To resist in the school context is to learn how to resist the future challenges of patriarchal control upon their subjectivity – the foundations from where they begin their long battle to challenge the discursive truths repeatedly told to them.
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This thesis will now move on to bring together the findings across the three analysis chapters in the conclusion. It returns to the research questions, addressing each one in turn and then moves on to highlight the key contributions to methodological, conceptual and empirical knowledge that this thesis makes. It finishes with further reflections and implications for future research and policymakers.
279 7. Conclusion
This study aimed to understand schoolgirl femininity, the influences and mechanisms in forming its production. Based upon 54 interviews with young women aged 12-15 in three secondary schools in South East England, it charted how young women navigated their schoolgirl femininity, and how school, social media and peer popularity intersected to inform their experiences.
The concluding chapter summarises how this thesis has explored the relational nature of power, and the naturalised traditional gender roles it reinforces and maintains in relation to the research questions. Popularity and social media interacted with peer groups and hierarchies to stipulate and validate correct gender performance, whilst concurrently punishing failures to achieve appropriateness. These findings, collected within the schools, illuminate how relationships online interacted with offline spaces, charting how social media serves to heighten existing offline inequalities (Boyd, 2014) as a tool to survey, judge and shame. It documented the pressure that the online media adds to the gender performance and the authenticity of a hyper- feminine ideal that is impossible to attain, but easy to shame. Through understanding peer popularity online, this thesis has traced how the prevailing standards relating to idealised gender performance infiltrated everyday discursive practice in school and on social media; and how the interaction of peers between the online and in school space served to magnify both the accountability girls are held to, but also their opportunities to resist.
The structure of the concluding chapter is as follows: firstly the thesis returns to the research questions, addressing each one in turn. It then moves onto discuss the methodological, conceptual and empirical contributions to knowledge. Lastly, it reflects upon these findings, and the study, before discussing the implications of the research for academics, policymakers and schools.
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Addressing the research questions In order to present these thesis findings coherently, this section addresses each research question in turn, to illuminate how teenage girls constructed their schoolgirl femininity.
Research Question 1: What are the contextual factors in which schoolgirl femininity is situated, and how do they inform gender performance?
Schoolgirl femininity is situated in a complex and competitive environment. It is produced at the intersection of the online and in school domains, and therefore, these contextual factors required exploration first. Environmentally, social media facilitated a number of dimensions that affected behaviour, perceptions and interactions. These were the intensification of the offline; relational friction removal; and the creation of unpatrolled spaces.
Intensification of the offline Social media complicated the school site by enabling particular behaviours and creating others. It accelerated how young people interact, and how peer cultures develop, through collapsing the contexts between online and offline (Boyd, 2008; Couldry, 2012). It magnified the availability of information, photos, and gossip, and the momentum at which it spread. Communications continued during lessons and after school, where previously it has been restricted to the minutes in between lessons and break times. The information is also better documented and stored; the smartphone acts as a library from which photos, statements and conversations could be recalled. The collective memory is now much longer, more vivid and simpler to retrieve (Turkle, 2011; Boyd, 2015). The architecture of social media engagement situated the girls within an attention economy; the value of likes and comments from others were highly sought after (Berriman and Thomson, 2015; Marwick, 2015a). It created a sense of surveillance and observation, heightening the role of the
281 audience, and other actors, in the performance of the self. The role of the audience was intensified, exacerbating and altering how individuals interact with each other, based on the perceived expectations of others.
Relational friction removal Social media facilitates the ease with which exchanges can take place – the phone provides a physical barrier to the other person without removing the instantaneous flow of conversation. It is, therefore, more comfortable to communicate words that may induce embarrassment, derision, affection, aggression or abuse. These ‘short-cuts’ (Turkle, 2011) make the interactions more extreme than offline communication – the speed at which exchanges take place, the potency and craft of the words and photos used. As there were no face-to-face cues or reactions to the communication, and potential for anonymous or non-direct delivery, the consequences for saying hurtful or abusive statements were reduced (Marzi, 2018). The communication exchange predominantly takes place in front of an audience, who want to witness ‘drama’ for their entertainment and can, therefore, exacerbate or escalate issues (Marwick and Boyd, 2014; Hayes, 2015). The audience has a major role in shaping content that they approve and enjoy.
Unpatrolled spaces The attributes of social media create new properties for how young people interacted in and around the school environment. School and social media are parallel spaces, where information and interactions slip between the two spheres. It was a symbiotic relationship: social media allowed conversations to continue during lessons and after school that were unpatrolled by staff or other adults. School drama continued after hours through social media, whilst social media created unpatrolled spaces for peers to interact within the school. The interaction between these two spaces is unpredictable, with events and gossip passing between the two, depending on the time of day (Hasebrink et al., 2009; Addington, 2013). Given this unstable nature, schools
282 find it challenging to police issues that occur online and spill over into the school environment (Boyd, 2007; Blair, Claster and Claster, 2015). This inaction serves to informally signal that what takes place online is tacitly sanctioned and permissible.
Social media and school overlap in a multiplicity of complex ways, both beneficial and harmful. Social media concurrently holds both positive and negative potentialities and was a source of support for young people, who sought out social media as a form of escapism and pressure release from exams and frequent appraisals.
The context in which schoolgirl femininity is situated served to intensify the requirements upon girls. Alongside the school’s academic expectations and ranking of pupils, the demands of a more ever-present audience; increased observation; and longevity of collective memory heighten pressure upon schoolgirl femininity. The intersection of the offline and in school spaces tacitly sanctions prevailing norms, and the more extreme abuse, through a school’s inability to deal with the consequences of its pupils’ online behaviour. Social media, both within and outside school, serves to magnify the experience of performing schoolgirl femininity across a multiplicity of dimensions.
Research Question 2: What are the prevailing discourses of schoolgirl femininity, and how are they constructed and performed both online and offline?
Understanding the most valued form of femininity in school enabled this thesis to trace how it was constructed, performed and maintained across social media and in school. It explored the performative nature of gender, outlined by Judith Butler, and the heterosexual matrix in which the performance was situated (2004). It found the most valued femininity to be hyper, magnified by online influencers and digital editing tools. This form of femininity was ‘fairy- tale’ authentic, with gender performances online aiming to look both perfect,
283 and entirely un-curated. The attempts to achieve this form of femininity took significant investment both online and offline, as the next sections outline.
Hyper schoolgirl femininity Across the three schools, a ‘hyper’ form of femininity was described as aspirational and highly valued: an hourglass figure, with large breasts and bottom accompanied by a small waist. It was a femininity exemplified by revered celebrities – Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian being two most frequently cited idealised body types. Upon this body shape, extreme beauty regimes were conducted to achieve the hyper-feminine production: make-up, hair extensions and long nails (Ridgeway, 1991; Holland and Harpin, 2015; Ringrose, Tolman and Ragonese, 2019). These regimes, alongside clothes, served to accentuate the hyper-feminine shape of the body. It was also a form of femininity associated with risk-taking, or ‘adult’ agentic behaviours, such as drinking alcohol, smoking, sexual behaviour and sexually revealing photos (Duits and van Zoonen, 2006; Dobson, 2014; Walrave, Heirman and Hallam, 2014; Lamb et al., 2016).
This production rendered femininity at the behest of male enjoyment, but also at the intersection of the virgin/whore false dichotomy. It further positions teenage hyper-femininity in conflicting discursive limbo, where girls’ behaviours are concurrently valued as markers of independence, but also as objects for the male gaze. They are superficially empowered through performing a form of femininity that aims to please others.
Digital magnification of femininity Social media has intensified the ‘hyper’ production of femininity, raising the bar of acceptability by allowing time to curate and edit photos (Tiidenberg and Gómez Cruz, 2015). As well as in school feminine practices, more emphasised versions of hyper-femininity were portrayed online to the student body, increasing the standards of “perfection” that are expected. The
284 proliferation of modelled examples of hyper-femininity by celebrities and influencers support a notion of attainable ‘authentic’ perfection. Influencers and celebrities shared photos and videos of their personal lives, the intimacy of this content implying they are authentic snapshots of home life. It is a covert fairy-tale authenticity: the content is as curated as that on mainstream media, but made to feel relatable as it set within the home, and is situated in- between everyday content from friends and peers. It is within this relatability that implicit believability resides (Banet-Weiser, 2012; Allen and Mendick, 2013a; Cunningham, 2013; Marwick, 2015a; Fisher, 2017). Inauthentic authenticity serves to reinforce the impossible standards of hyper-femininity, as girls in school are held to account offline in a way that celebrities are not.
This thesis found the hyper-feminine hyper-sexualised body was the most valued formed of schoolgirl femininity within the localised attention economies within Estuary Academy, Milner’s Academy and Chigford School. This finding reflects the wider discourse about valuable femininity, which is a mechanism to reinforce a broader truth of patriarchal control through publicly valorising a form of femininity that as its heart serves to objectify the female body for the male gaze (Gill, 2008; Riley, Evans and Mackiewicz, 2016). It is a form that the most popular students performed better than lower status peers, a reflection of the power/knowledge bind that purports certain truths and discourses over others (Foucault, 1972, 1978).
Invest in performing Given the high, and arguably unattainable, standards of hyper-femininity, investment in the performance was crucial in order to avoid scrutiny within the peer social hierarchy. The performance of hyper-feminine was a balance between excess and authenticity (Read, Francis and Skelton, 2011; Allen and Mendick, 2013a). Photos were edited and curated, with photo shoots and beauty procedures adopted just for online performances. This process is time- consuming and fraught with pressure; as girls curate a best, yet authentic,
285 version of hyper-femininity that would be approved of by the student body online and in school.
Their significant investments in this discursive practice can be viewed as Foucault’s technologies of the self, where girls attempted to maximise their standing within the peer group power structures (Foucault, 1978, 1988b). The practitioners with the greatest status, the most popular; the influencers and celebrities, normalise the discursive truth that hyper-femininity is the correct and best way to do schoolgirl femininity (Budgeon, 2014; Cook and Hasmath, 2014; McCullough, 2017). Their power and status reinforce the notion that the most valuable form of schoolgirl femininity is one that most pleases male peers.
Research Question 3: What is the role of peer hierarchies and social media in maintaining and reproducing schoolgirl femininity?
Peer popularity served as a vector to maintain and reproduce traditional hetero-normative gender roles. In the three schools where the research was conducted, this was a hyper-feminine gender performance, validated by both peers and wider society.
Popularity is a discursive vehicle Those who had the highest popularity were not those who were most liked, but those with the greatest status. With this status, they enacted the ‘truest’, most appropriate discursive practices of femininity, due to their ability to wield power and knowledge of what truth meant (Cobbett, 2014; Pomerantz, Raby and Harris, 2017). They are the best practitioners of the hetero-normative and hegemonic discourse, their role atop the apex enabled them to not only say what is true but also evolve the truth. Peer hierarchies, therefore, serve to reproduce and maintain hyper-feminine truths that valued an objectified schoolgirl femininity. This is not a modern vehicle; peer hierarchies have been
286 a mechanism for communicating traditional gender roles long before the digital era. However, the digital now serves as another tool to clearly publicise particular practices that are more readily available within and outside of school.
As those most popular can successfully enact both types of knowledge, the connaissance and savoir of how to produce a correct subjectivity, they are best placed to sanction and approve the discursive practice of others both online and in school (Foucault, 1972). However the most popular girls enact hegemonic femininity that actively aims to maintain the patriarchal status quo through adoption and arbitration of hyper-feminine performances in themselves and others. Between the most popular boys and girls, the relational power can be traced to the former, whose tastes and preferences the girls look to, seek out and implement in their online hyper-feminine performance.
Peer validation The power imbued in the most popular is not static but continuously negotiated; as girls vie for the top position, they continually shift the standards of appropriate and valued schoolgirl femininity. Validation of these standards is critical to reinforce their status, which can most tangibly be seen on social media: the number of likes, followers, or comments an individual accrues on a photo or a profile (Mascheroni, Vincent and Jimenez, 2015; Walrave et al., 2015; Chua and Chang, 2016).
This validation was closely linked to self-worth, as peers and wider society rewarded some online performances and presentations more than others (Banet-Weiser, 2014). The approval mirrors the most appropriate discursive practices of femininity; those who accrue the most positive online engagement are the best practitioners of their gender.
287 The importance of validation on social media means that the reactions of others to social media content were critical to how a girl negotiated her schoolgirl femininity (Senft, 2013). Feedback on their gender performance contributed to the continual renegotiation of this hyper-feminine subjectivity, those who are popular sought inspiration for the photos from the behaviour of other popular girls, celebrities and influencers, as well as content which male peers had liked previously. However, not all validation is equal but reflects the relational nature of power: those with the highest social status also have the most significant impact upon the validation’s worth. Of all validation, the most popular boys’ approval was most sought after; their status enabled them to wield the most influence over the hyper-feminine performance. Girls were also in receipt of direct feedback on their photos, via private messaging, in school or on publicly available comments on the photo. Feedback on a gender performance allowed the next public production of hyper-femininity to be tailored or tweaked accordingly.
Societal validation The hyper-feminine performance is also rewarded, not just in social status and positive feedback, but materially: those who have over ten thousand followers begin to receive products from organisations as part of an ‘Influencer marketing strategy’(Khamis, Ang and Welling, 2016; Berryman and Kavka, 2017; MacIsaac, Kelly and Gray, 2018). Those with the most followers generally post the most revealing; hyper-feminine photos that serve to reward those who can best enact the discursive practice. Free merchandise is a particular draw for younger girls, who spoke of performing hyper-femininity in order to generate enough social media engagement to receive products. Influencer product placement effectively serves to validate the hyper-feminine hetero-normative gender performance on a societal level.
The most popular girls’ hyper-feminine performance is central mechanism to transmit appropriate discursive practices. This process demonstrates that the power the most popular girls wield is a paradox: their actions that reinforce
288 their social status also served to place them in a weaker position than their male peers, who they seek to please through effective displays of hyper- femininity.
Research Question 4: How are these notions of schoolgirl femininity enforced and challenged?
The hyper-feminine schoolgirl discourse is not just reinforced by positive validations; failure to perform correctly is also punished. Girls are asked to attain an impossible form of schoolgirl femininity, and tools of shame are deployed when they discursively fail to navigate a suite of contradictory binaries. Within these contradictions resides the space for challenge: girls craft collective, alternative subjectivities that re-define the notion of successful schoolgirl femininity.
Enforcing hyper-femininity Here, smartphones and social media are tools of enforcement. Acting akin to CCTV, peers can capture or document discursive departures or failings that they can share with other students on social media. Foucault’s process for creating docile bodies is a useful framework to understand how girls’ performance of gender is patrolled (Foucault, 1977). Phones act as surveillance tools, every student has the potential to capture failings and share them. This rendered the girls into a state of constant consciousness, observing both their behaviour and that of others (Lupton, 2016; Riley, Evans and Mackiewicz, 2016; Mishna et al., 2018). Girls described school-wide social media groups that would permanently display these departures from appropriate behaviour. The public shaming of others induced the fear of being recorded and the sense that their actions always possess the potential to be documented. This process induces what Foucault describes as hierarchical observation: a consciousness of being watched by observers who, although unseen, are always everywhere.
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Not only are young women observed, but also they are judged and ranked according to the effectiveness of their gender performance. Judgment is facilitated by rating and ranking systems on social media, which the most popular used to reinforce their status, and also deride those who fell below the minimum standards of approved discursive practice. Group ratings and ranking exist across different platforms but ultimately serve to dictate which behaviours are deemed acceptable or unacceptable, depending upon their rank in comparison to their peers.
These two dimensions, observation and judgment, work alongside each other to create a state of examination, self-surveillance and compliance. Girls anticipated how their behaviour would be viewed and ranked and therefore altered their actions accordingly. The fear of derision leads the girls to have an acute awareness of their digital footprint, compounded by the long shelf life of information and the speed at which it could spread (Lupton, 2014; Dyer, 2017). This cognisance induced a schoolgirl femininity that intensively surveyed itself, and in doing so positioned itself into a lower status than hegemonic masculine performances. Its position is maintained by a combination of hegemonic masculinity and femininity, which worked to maintain the hyper-feminine ideals that position the subjectivity in a subordinate position (Paechter, 2018).
Alongside methods to create docile bodies, there were patriarchal digital devices that reinforced the double standards between girls and boys, which targeted the girls’ bodies. The appropriation of emojis, the digital pictorial language, reflects how inequalities are translated from in school to online: they were used to describe the female body, or male enjoyment of the female body, whilst the emoji language to describe the reverse was unavailable. The digital double standards, between how the sexually revealed teenage male and female bodies are treated, are modern tropes that reproduces age-old patriarchal notions: photos of the female body are concurrently requested and
290 sequestered by males but heavily shamed if received (Gill and Scharff, 2011; Henry and Powell, 2015; Ringrose and Harvey, 2015). Conversely, boys could send non-consensual dick pics to girls without consequence for their actions (Salter, 2016)
This patriarchal trope of shaming the female body is deployed when girls fail to practice their schoolgirl femininity correctly. Social media provided a space to ‘expose’ their failure to navigate the virgin/whore dichotomy, where their photographed bodies and stories of their sexual behaviour were used against them (Ringrose et al., 2013; Dobson and Ringrose, 2016). They were uploaded onto social media and afterwards, distributed across school via public and private networks. The very verb ‘expose’ implies that girls are inherently flawed, and their true nature is revealed through the shaming process. Girls were morally held accountable for actions in a way their male peers are not – they were simultaneously desired and scorned. Their performance of hyper-femininity was required to be passively hyper-sexy, but not actively sexual – an impossible binary to navigate.
The combination of validation and punishment created an almost impossible tightrope to traverse successfully: girls have to choose between failure to practice hyper-femininity and face social exclusion or attempt to perform the hyper-feminine ideal and face social shame. Both positions rendered a subjectivity that was subservient to the patriarchal diktat within schools and society writ large; social media served to further heighten the impossibility of successful schoolgirl femininity.
Challenging notions of hyper-femininity Throughout this thesis, social media has shown to be a tool to magnify; it heightened the hyper-ness of the feminine gender performance, increased the availability of information and the audience within and outside the school and acted to intensify how girls were observed, judged and shamed. There were suites of behaviours that normalised the double standards and contributed to
291 the unattainability of successful schoolgirl femininity. Social media served to enhance this inequity but also highlighted the underlying contradictions. It was within these conflicting discourses that resistance could be seen to grow (Bartky, 1988; Weedon, 1997; Maxwell, 2007; Rich and Evans, 2009; Johansson and Lalander, 2012). Girls questioned the impossibility of the standards they were expected to achieve; the fallible notion of ‘successful’ femininity and the unfair standards that held their bodies to account. The contradictions led them to act in ways that resisted the mainstream notions of ideal femininity through demarcating spaces that were insulated from the prevailing expectations and social mores.
However, these resistances were subtle and reflected the digital and in school surveillance culture in which they were situated. The culture created limited options for open resistance, and instead, girls described underground approaches to challenge the norms. Their methods were simple, but acted to reject the practice of successful hyper-femininity: limiting the friends they trusted with their data, delineating offline space to minimise their exposure to online discursive practice and seeking alternative online spaces either within or outside of the social media domains of the most popular students. When considering these acts of resistance, some were more a reaction to protect the self whilst others were proactive in their purpose to challenge the norms (Davies, 1991; Raby, 2005; Maxwell and Aggleton, 2012). The agency with which a young person resists was considered, for example, closing down a profile that received criticism versus actively maintaining two profiles to maintain the semblance of conformity: the former is reactive to perform a more attuned version of femininity while the latter is agentic, creating a space for alternative feminine subjectivities.
These demarcated spaces are therefore not resistant to the dominant discursive practices in and of themselves, but allow for the practice of alternative subjectivities. These were constructed by focusing on longer-term goals over shorter-term benefits of social status and popularity, they were
292 education and career-focused, opting to choose later life success over shorter-term gains (Francis, Skelton and Read, 2012). They consciously complied externally, adopting practices that conformed but were not all consumed by the prevailing discursive practice. These alternatives also reached further than peer status to question gender inequalities, such as in sports or science, and racial inequality (Guillard, 2016). This exploration into other domains of inequalities suggests that these alternative subjectivities are the foundation from which further challenge and resistance can ensue. They appear to be a blueprint for method, a process of critiquing the accepted status quo that can be applied to other scenarios.
Contributions to knowledge
This research has extended current understandings of gender inequality in education and how notions of schoolgirl femininity are transmitted through peer hierarchies both online and in school. It has built upon on the conceptual work of Michel Foucault (1968; 1977; 1980), Judith Butler (1993; 2004; 2000) and Lois McNay (1992; 2013); and was heavily influenced by researchers in social media Alice Marwick (2011; 2015), Dinah Boyd (2007; 2015) and Sherry Turkle (2011); and gender and education – Jessica Ringrose (2008; 2013; 2015), Carrier Paechter (2007; 2016; 2018) and Becky Francis (2010; 2012; 2015). By building upon the work of these and other authors, this thesis has extended understandings of the role of social media in the construction of schoolgirl femininity, exposing how digital tools magnify offline inequalities. It furthered the academic understanding of peer popularity as a system to disseminate the prevailing gender norms in pursuit of idealised hyper- femininity.
The next section will outline the key contributions to knowledge that this thesis makes empirically, conceptually and methodologically.
293 Methodological Contributions
There are two contributions that have helped deepen the richness of the data and analysis. Firstly, this thesis stratified the sample by peer group, using the girls’ self-assessed peer ranking as the unit of analysis. Building upon Adler and Adler’s ground breaking work (1988; 1996), this decision was driven by the finding that the girls’ social standing was more influential upon their day- to-day experiences of schoolgirl femininity than the school they attended. Although education research has previously explored peer popularity in relation to gender (Francis et al, 2010; Read et al 2011; Francis et al. 2012; Paechter and Clark, 2016; Dytham, 2018), none of these works have presented their findings as stratified by self-identified peer group, rather drawing conclusions from how the girls discussed themselves and their peers. Other research into gender and education (Francombe-Webb and Silk, 2016), do not use peer popularity as a factor to help understand gender performance. This thesis therefore contributes to this field by demonstrating the value of considering peer popularity in the conceptualisation and exploration of gender within education. When aiming to understand gender construction, peer status was of significant influence to the girls’ values, experiences and perceptions of gender. This thesis therefore recommends peer popularity and social standing should feature in the methodological design of future studies relating to school and gender.
Building on the methodological value of girls’ self-reported social status, I turn to my second methodological contribution: using light-touch creative visual research methods to better explore the data and research questions. Through my PhD, and work in applied research, I have been inspired by the work of Pat Thomson (2008) and others to use techniques that empower young people to express themselves (see Heal, 2015). Although significant bodies of work exist stating the benefits of Visual Research Methods (Margolis et al, 2011; Spencer, 2010), they are still an under-used method in mainstream qualitative research, although growing in popularity (Moss and Pini, 2016).
294 There is also a perception that they take significant investment in planning, preparation and piloting, especially when used alongside other methods (Lynn and Lea, 2008; Willis et al, 2016). However, this thesis demonstrates that light-touch, less intensive, visual research methods can be incorporated into data gathering processes. With less intensive initial input, benefits can still be wrought to the participants and the research. This thesis therefore challenges the pre-conception that visual research method should be set aside from research which can accommodate such time investment and should open up opportunities for researchers to consider incorporating them into the practice in a more accessible manner.
I drew upon light-touch versions to enhance the semi-structured interviews in my study to positive effect: using one draw-and-tell activity to navigate the difficult conversations of social standing and to understand the peer hierarchies across the three schools. The diagrams the girls’ created helped illuminate the similarities across the three schools highlighted in the paragraph above, and aided the girls to more comfortably articulate their social status16. The second tool I used was the phone as a prompt — this provided a space for girls to deepen their explanations, and also reduced the need to verbally describe a photo they may have been uncomfortable to explain. It also helped them discuss more sensitive topics as they could show me evidence, which appeared to make the subject more permissible to discuss. For example, posts where girls wore very revealing outfits or language of a sexual nature.17 This shows the value of enhancing semi- structures interviews with visual research methods, and that even light-touch additions can be beneficial.
16 See pages 187, 190, 193, 198, 244 for examples 17 See pages 166, 169 and 207 for examples
295 Conceptual Contributions
This section outlines the principal conceptual contributions that this thesis makes. It applies the Foucauldian tools of relational power, alongside the notions of performative and socially constructed gender, to reveal how peer popularity and social media serve to uphold traditional understanding of femininity.
In illuminating the process of gaining and maintaining peer popularity, this thesis theoretically contributes to our understanding of how power, resistance and discursive constructs are deployed to regulate and reinforce the prevailing inequitable gender roles. The Foucauldian tools relating to power have been valuable, providing space to trace the relational power network that exists through the peer social hierarchies. The role of the powerful ‘mean’ girl or ‘wild girl’ (Reay, 2001; Jackson, 2006) has featured in educational research, recently argued by Dytham (2018) that some girls wield incredibly strong power within school, intimidating and bullying male peers. This thesis challenges and complicated this notion of all-powerful girl into one that is powerful, but subordinate, still at the behest of popular male approval: their power is at once both real, and paradoxical. The thesis reformulates the notion of female popularity, not as an example of power, but as a mechanism through which locally valued gender practices are transmitted. The thesis posits a more nuanced understanding of peer status: the most popular girls are the most powerful, yet their source of power serves to actively reinforce the patriarchal norms. This thesis builds on the work of Francis and Paechter (2015), and Paechter (2018) to demonstrate how girls with the greatest social status perform hegemonic femininity by actively performing hyper-femininity and chastising those to fail to fit within the discursive hyper feminine norm. This thesis furthers our understanding of hegemonic femininity and peer popularity by demonstrating that the power the most popular girls wield is superficial as their gender performance is ultimately beholden to popular male
296 approval. Their power is paradoxical: it provides them social status but simultaneously positions them in a subordinate position to their male peers.
Shaped by notions of gender as performative, and socially constructed, this thesis has extended the frameworks by Butler (1993; 2004), Bartky (1988; 1990; 2002) and McNay (1992; 2013) to demonstrate how social media serves to magnify the performative nature of gender. Despite academics such Foucault to analysis digital performativity (Kanai, 2015; Sanders, 2017) , there is a growing trend to favour Delusian, post-humanist approaches which are considered to better encapsulate the multiplicity of contextual factors upon performativity (Sawyer, 2016; Renold and Ringrose, 2017; 2019). This thesis demonstrates that Foucaldian and Butler’s theorisations are valuable tools for in-depth and nuanced analysis of digital performativity. It builds upon their Foucauldian feminist theories to observe how social media provides another tool for patriarchal power structures to craft and control femininity. This work builds upon these theorisations and uses social media to deconstruct the notions of fixed, natural gender positions. The thesis forwards our understanding of the socially constructed nature of gender through the analysis of girls’ perceptions and experiences both on social media and in school—highlighting the investment and craft with which girls’ curate their schoolgirl femininity. This highlights the value of incorporating social media into studies of gender to challenge the notion that technology is solving our social ills and generate a more nuanced challenge to the ‘truths’ of femininity.
Empirical Contributions
Although numerous empirical findings have been articulated across the three analysis chapters, and in the section of the conclusion above, it is important to highlight three of the most striking contributions below. These relate to the role of social media in deepening our everyday inequalities; the impossibility of successful schoolgirl femininity and the blueprint for resistance that is being shaped by girls seeking alternative subjectivities.
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This thesis builds upon the work of digital researchers such as Livingstone (2014); Turkle (2011) and Boyd (2015) to forward our understanding of how social media informs everyday school experiences. These authors lightly touch upon the offline school environment and pay more attention to the out of school and online digital interactions. This thesis explicitly draws out the in- school offline experience and reveals how social media serves to magnify: the intensity of information distribution, the reach of the surveillance of others and of the self, the hyper-ness of the idealised femininity and the tools to validate and shame. Social media and school combine to act as a force that builds momentum, exacerbating issues as they are exchanged between the two spaces. Authenticity as a concept relating young people has been explored in multiple dimensions: to in-school popularity (Read et al, 2011); reality TV (Allen and Mendick, 2013); online individual brand development (Banet- Weiser, 2012); friendships on social media (Henderson and Bowley, 2010) and Instagram selfies and Influencers (Marwick, 2015).
This thesis extends our understanding of authenticity, and the nuanced around purporting a fairy-tale authenticity between the online and offline space in school. It brings together these previously siloed themes, to consider the role of social media, peer popularity and offline portrays of inauthentically authentic feminine performativity. The thesis extends our understanding of how social media contributes to the fairy-tale authenticity purported by influencers and celebrities that served to increase the expectations upon girls in school and online performance. They either failed to live up to the online standards or created an online subjectivity that was too different from their offline self.
The thesis furthers our understanding of offline inequalities by mapping how they are magnified online. Previous research has shown within a macro context, as well as local context, how gender, racial and sexual inequality are magnified online (Kapidzic and Herring, 2015; Robinson et al, 2016;
298 Robinson, 2018). This thesis takes this analysis further to consider the education context: the ranking and comparison to others is merely a mirror to our offline condition: young people are ranked by grades, schools are ranked by quality, and our education system is ranked by its literacy and numeracy (Selwyn et al, 2015). Peer popularity has been considered a social phenomenon long before Web 2.0 emerged, yet this thesis reveals how broader societal influences are now digitally reinforcing traditional understandings of femininity. It reveals the role of the outside influencers on in school discourses, how young women’s bodies are being self-marketed online to the benefit of profit-making organisations. This thesis highlights how social media did not create our inequalities; it merely provided another platform upon which they evolve and intensify.
As described above, social media magnifies offline inequity: the girls’ bodies are the primary targets of the gaze, control and shame. This thesis extends our understanding of gender inequality between girls and boys, building on the work of Ringrose and Harvey (2015) on the exchange of girls’ sexually revealing photos in school, Dobson (2014) on agentic feminine digital behaviours and Gill and Scharff (2011) on the influence of neoliberalism on digital subjectivity. This research takes these subjects further, to reveal how social media enables the body to be more readily available, more revealed and more edited compared to its offline counterpart. It explores the inequalities raised by the previous authors to outline the impossible binaries girls are subject to, and illuminates the role of social media in their ‘failure’ to attain an impossible and contradictory femininity. Building on authors who explored offline impossible tightrope (Warrington and Younger, 2011), this thesis reveals how these tightropes have transferred to the digital space, with one end resting within a digital space, the other tethered to our offline world. It reveals how the double standards are re-imagined through social media, describing a range of digitised patriarchal tropes deployed to shame girls, and their bodies. This thesis illuminates how there are no successful schoolgirl femininities: to accrue social status is to seek exposure and to shun social
299 status is to face exclusion. This thesis extends our understanding by revealing how mainstream social media has reduced the space available to balance multiple and contradictory discourses between sexy/slag; pretty/geek or smart/slut through being more publicly available, more frequently. The culture of observation in which this performance exists heightened the pressure to focus on the reactions of others, and what they perceive to be acceptable. Schoolgirl feminine subjectivities are now more defined, more available and more open for critique than ever before.
The thesis’ last primary empirical contribution is resistance, building on Foucault to chart the emergence of resistant subjectivities from within these contradictory discourses, and how resistance is formulated and crafted. Previous research has explored resistant femininities and youth activism (Ratallack, 2016; Guillard, 2016) but this work reveals the earlier, nascent steps to a resistance that provided a foundation from which further critique and challenge could occur. It builds upon work of Ringrose and Renold (2012) that explores girl’s resisting sexualisation and Gagnon and Collinson’s collection resistance through difference in the workplace (2017) to reveal how resistant subjectivities are shaped by difference, and the power of collective difference can reformulate notions of success. This thesis illuminates the process of creating a space from which to resist, arguing that this nascent development of resistant subjectivities act as a blueprint, a toolbox of methods to challenge the prevailing and accepted social norms.
300 Implications
This section begins with a return to the anecdote from the introduction and the year 7 girls in my tutor group. When I returned to the school three years later and met with those same girls, now in Year 11, none were wearing excessive make-up. As I walked away from the school, I reflected upon my time as a teacher there, and the impact you can have as a teacher. At the time I failed to acknowledge my own role and influence on their lives. As well as challenging their prevailing expectations about hyper-femininity during tutor time, I also offered a different form of femininity from one that they were exposed to. In questioning the expected norms through critical thought, and offering alternative forms of subjectivity, I perhaps helped these girls reject some of the celebrated behaviours and attributes of the hyper schoolgirl femininity.
I have returned to this story to highlight the parallels to the implications of this study for future research and policy. Exposure to alternative offline subjectivities and conversations around inequality offline are firstly critical in order to tackle how these manifest on social media. However, the digital cannot be exonerated entirely: it builds momentum between the offline and online spaces to exacerbate issues, emphasises failures and validates traditional gender roles. However, as with any tool, it is within our capability to control it, and use it responsibly. Before this can take place, we must understand how the tool works. Education on the architecture of social media should be a critical part of our curriculum and conversations, to lay bare the functionality and the behavioural outcomes it creates would then allow us to use it more critically. This is a conversation for both adults and young people alike. There currently appears to be misbalances between the control young people have over social media, the control it has over them, and how little this is understood by the adults tasked with caring for them. Helping young people to recognise what they are informally conditioned to recognise as ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ behaviour or beliefs is therefore essential—both online and in school.
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To summarise, the key implications of this research are as follows:
1) Enable alternative subjectivities by exposing young people to alternatives and create safe spaces in which to enact these. a. Exposing young people to alternative subjectivities that display other successful forms of gender that do not ascribe to the hyper-femininity, hegemonic masculinity or hetero-normative prescriptions. b. Create safe spaces in school and elsewhere to celebrate alternative subjectivities. c. Expose young people to role models who represent diverse forms of femininities and masculinities from across sports, business and the arts. d. Enable alternatives by exploring the racial, sexual and gender inequality which underpins the prevailing norms, particularly within the context of young people’s everyday lives. This could comprise celebration of LGBT month; or curriculums that considers more diverse female and minority ethnic leaders and notaries. One example is the recent incorporation of female composers into the A-level syllabus after a petition started by a student.18
2) Education for both educators and students on the working of social media, and the environment is facilitates e. Education on the functioning of social media, marketing strategies and the behaviours it can induce. This will help young people to critically assess and contextualise their feelings,
18 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/dec/16/a-level-music-female-composers-students- campaign-jessy-mccabe-edexcel [accessed 30.11.12]
302 desires and experiences. f. Training for teachers to improve their understanding of social media applications, key trends and risks. g. Incorporate Digital Citizenship, such as the curriculum offered by Common Sense Media, across primary and secondary education. h. Government should provide specific advice for schools with links to resources on recommended digital and social media policies and avenues for support, to help schools more coherently and consistently manage the offline ramifications of online drama and bullying. For example, the Essential Digital Skills Framework19 currently does not include any items related to social media literacy and the recent Teaching Online Safety in Schools20 is too general, with limited specific examples and no recommendations. Another recent publication, Relationships, sex and health education: guides for schools21, does not contain any reference to social media or the Internet. These issues do not occur in silos and future guidance should combine the digital into all policy considerations, so it better reflects everyday reality.
3) Further research i. Further research to explore the role of social media in school. j. Further research to understand the perspective of the male
19 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/essential-digital-skills-framework [Accessed 07.07.19] 20 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/811796/Teaching_ online_safety_in_school.pdf [Accessed 07.07.19] 21 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-sex-and-health-education-guides-for-schools [Accessed 07.07.19]
303 student in the hyper-feminine subjectivity formation. k. Incorporation of class and race into future research in this area. l. Understand how resistance is formulated and the conditions that make it a greater or more subtle, agentic act.
In discussing these implications, I also expose the limitations of the study, as more research in this area is critical: to better understand the experiences of boys, whose voices are absent from this thesis, as well uncovering more micro-resistances, especially alongside the literature for digital youth activism. Similarly, this research has only scratched the surface on issues relating to the Influencer Marketing strategies and digital school policies relating to the online environment, both of which could provide invaluable insights into young people’s experiences. The intersection of young women’s sexuality, class and race upon these experiences have not been considered, and future work should focus on bringing the voices of marginalized populations to the fore. The influence of my own personal beliefs and social mores have heavily impacted how I viewed and interpreted the experiences of the young women in this study, particularly drawing upon a narrow selection of theorists, when others may have drawn upon Bourdieusian or Deluzian frameworks and analysed the data through an entirely different lens. Again, these both appear to be fruitful avenues for future analysis. It is hoped that these limitations will be built upon to expand our knowledge and understanding in this area, to better prepare future generations.
Concluding reflections
It is hoped this thesis has both contributed new knowledge, but will also spark further debate and research in this area. Social media, and its role in our lives, is constantly shifting as new applications and digital cultures and behaviours are born – this is not a static issue but one that needs continual attention paid to understand how it evolves our inequalities and experiences. Government, schools and individuals need to recognise the fluidity of the digital
304 environment, and be prepared to respond in a similarly nimble fashion, in order to best support the young people growing up online in the UK and further afield.
Of particular attention must be how our false notions of authenticity, and tools to edit ourselves online are filtering into our offline lives. Adverts for full-body make-up and hourglass shaping corsets and underwear are marketed across social media, serving to help girls edit their offline selves and much as their online. We must be aware of these issues, and know how to tackle them to ensure the worst traits of our online world are not normalised in our offline one.
Social media must be viewed as an accessory to the inequalities in our offline world, if we want to help young people control their gendered digital subjectivities, a better understanding of its capabilities are needed. Social media is a tool, like any tool it can be used for good or bad. We must understand how to use it, or it will use us. This will not only benefit the young women of today and tomorrow, but their male peers and society as a whole.
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351 Appendix 1 Information sheet and consent form to students and parents
An investigation into peer popularity and social media
Student and Parent Information Sheet You are being invited to take part in a research study to investigate how peer popularity and influence takes place at school and online. Before you decide it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully and discuss it with others if you wish. Please ask if there is anything that is not clear or if you would like more information. Take time to decide whether or not you wish to take part. Thank you for reading this.
Who will conduct the research? Jessica Heal, a PhD student from the Manchester Institute of Education at the University of Manchester
Title of the Research An investigation into peer popularity in a digital age
What is the aim of the research? The aim of the research is to find out how young people use social media to interact with their peers in school.
Why have I been chosen? You have been chosen because I would like to interview teenage girls between the ages of 11-16.
What would I be asked to do if I took part? If you agree to take part, you will be asked to do the following: - Have a 30 minute interviews with me where we discuss social media and popularity in your school. I will ask you to show me some examples from your own phone..
What happens to the data collected? . - I will record your interview with a Dictaphone and use anonymous quotes from it. - All recordings will be destroyed within 6 months of completing the project
How is confidentiality maintained? During the interview, I will use a pseudonym which you can choose for yourself. All information relating to your name, location and any other identifiable information will
352 be removed or changed. Your interview will be stored on an encrypted computer which only I, the researcher, have access to. I will destroy the recording after it has been transcribed.
What happens if I do not want to take part or if I change my mind? You can decide whether to take part or not. You do not need to tell me a reason. If you want to take part please sign the consent form below. During our interview, you can refuse to answer a question without giving me a reason. You can also change your mind about being involved in the project at anytime without giving me a reason. Simply tell me or your teacher.
What is the duration of the research? X1 30 minute interview
Where will the research be conducted? At your school at a time that suits you
Will the outcomes of the research be published? This study will be the subject of my thesis and findings may be published in an academic journal or discussed at conferences.
Criminal Records Check (if applicable) The researcher is a qualified teacher and has had a DBS. She has worked in education for the last 7 years and is also a school governor at a Primary school.
Contact for further information If you need to contact me please email [email protected] What if something goes wrong?
If something goes wrong please speak to the researcher, your form tutor at your school.
If there are any issues regarding this research that you would prefer not to discuss with members of the research team, please contact the Research Practice and Governance Co-ordinator by either writing to ‘The Research Practice and Governance Co-ordinator, Research Office, Christie Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL’, by emailing: [email protected], or by telephoning 0161 275 7583 or 275 8093
353 An investigation into peer popularity and social media CONSENT FORM
If you are happy for your child to participate please complete and sign the consent form below and return it to school.
# Item Please initial each box
1 I confirm that I have read the attached letter and information sheet on the above study and have had the opportunity to consider the information and ask questions and had these answered satisfactorily.
2 I understand that my child’s participation in the study is voluntary and that I am, and they are, free to withdraw at any time without giving a reason.
3 I understand that the interviews will be audio recorded
4 I agree to the use of anonymous quotes 5 I agree that any data collected may be passed to other researchers 6 I agree that any data collected may be published in anonymous form in academic books or journals.
I agree that my child can take part in the above project
Name of child Date Signature
Name of Parent/Guardian Date Signature
354
Letter to parents/guardian Dear Parent/Guardian Re: Research Project ‘An Investigation into Peer Popularity and social media’
Summary: I am doing a research project about social media and would like your permission to interview your daughter.
My name is Jessica and I am a doctoral student at the University of Manchester. I am an experienced researcher, ex-teacher and a current school governor and am studying part-time for my PhD. In my day job I conduct research to evaluate government policy for the Department of Education. The University of Manchester Ethics committee has approved the study reference number PGR-58366831.
I am doing research into how young people use social media to talk to friends and peers in school. I would really appreciate your help with this project by allowing me to talk to your daughter about what she thinks it means to be popular and what this looks like both online and offline.
I would like to talk with you daughter for 30 minutes in an interview about how they use social media in schools and how it affects their friendships and popularity. I will tape record the interview to help me remember what they have said and to help me write a report. However, the interviews will be confidential and the only people who listen to the interview will be myself, I will personally transcribe and anonymise the data. I will destroy the recording within 6 months on completing the project. Your daughter will be anonymous and all identifiable information (location, school name, specific information that may lead to her being identified) will be removed.
If you are happy for your daughter to take part, I would be very grateful if you could sign the attached form and return it to school. If you would like to know more about the project, please contact or your daughters’ form tutor.
Many thanks for taking the time to read this letter and for your help. Yours sincerely Jessica Heal
355 Appendix 2 Letter to Head teachers DATE SCHOOL ADDRESS Dear XXX
My name is Jessica Heal and I am a part time postgraduate student at the University of Manchester and work full time in the Qualitative research team at Teach First. I have been in contact with XXX, a member of staff at XXXX, recommended that I contact you as I would like to conduct a research for my PhD thesis at your school. I am investigating social media and peer popularity between students and it’s effect on educational experience as part of my PhD in Education. I am writing to request your permission for your school to take part in the study. A sheet describing the study is attached to this letter.
I would hope to work with 20 girls between the ages of 12-15 years old students (Years 8-10). The project will involve me interviewing girls individually, or with their friends, (as they prefer), for about an hour. The interview will be recorded but the recording destroyed once I’ve transcribed and anonymised the transcript. I can guarantee full anonymity for all the participants – all identifiable information will be removed from the transcripts and you are welcome to check over these to ensure this is so.
This study has received ethical approval from the University of Manchester Ethics committee, number PGR-58366831 . I would be very grateful if you would consider my proposal to undertake this research in your school with your permission. If you wish to discuss this study with me further, or require any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me via email or phone. I look forward to your reply.
Yours Sincerely,
Jessica Faye Heal
356 Appendix 3 Interview Schedule
Peer Popularity and Social Media Interview Schedule Introductions Tell me what your school is like? Tell me about the different friendship groups at school Peer Group
1. Does your school have peer hierarchies, or different cliques? 2. What do these look like? Can you draw this out for me? 3. Where would you put yourself on this? What about your friends? 4. Can you describe what it means to be ‘popular’ in your school? (Probe: is this the same for everyone? (gender/age/quirks) 5. Think of someone who is popular: can you describe what they’re like and why you think they are popular? 6. How do you get to be popular? 7. What do the most popular do online?
Social Media 1. Tell me about how you keep in touch with your friends/family/other people in school? 2. What are the top 3 apps you use and how much? 3. Would you speak to everyone you’re friends with online (Twitter/Facebook etc.) at school? 4. Who do you speak to online? 5. Do you use social media during school? If so, how? a. Can you show me? 6. How much do you interact with different people from your school on social media? 7. Does social media help you to become more or less popular at school? a. Can you show me? 8. Who are the most popular students in school?
357 a. What do they do/act/wear? b. Can you show me? 9. How does being popular affect how you use social media? 10. How does social media affect bullying? 11. How do you use social media at home? 12. What do you think the positives/negatives/dangers about social media? 13. What do you think is good, bad and dangerous about social media? 14. Can you talk me through your recent interactions on your phone, what have you been doing and who have you been talking to? a. Can you show me? 15. Is there anything you’d change if you could? 16. What should school and teachers stop/start to help people being bullied? 17. Probe: how does that feel? You said X, can you explain that- give me an example? Can you describe what that means? Or show me?
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Appendix 4 Additional interview questions These questions and themes were added, which were identified from Estuary Academy interviews, that warranted follow up in both Milner’s and Chigford School. The following scenarios were provided as prompts to understand how similar experiences are across different locations.
1) ‘Slag Groups’ (exposed accounts) [Accounts which hold lots of photos of nudes] 2) Requests for nudes/Receiving dick pics. How often do you get dick pic and from who? How do you react? 3) Bribing to access photos. 4) Group rates – communal hash tags the school share? 5) What are the mechanisms for generating the most number of comments or likes on a post and are they important? 6) Strategies to counter these?
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Appendix 5 Detailed sample information #Followers Year on Participant Pseudonym Location Group Instagram Popularity Ethnicity Most 1 Abbie Kent 8 5123 Popular White British Most 2 Taylor Kent 8 2757 Popular White British Most 3 Izzy Kent 8 4304 Popular White British 4 Amy Kent 8 0 Unpopular White British Eastern 5 Lena Kent 8 200 Unpopular European 6 Jess Kent 8 350 Unpopular White British 7 Ellie Kent 10 1400 Popular White British 8 Katie Kent 10 1500 Popular White British 9 Demi Kent 10 1252 Popular White British 10 Rhian Kent 10 1462 Popular White British 11 Brooke Kent 10 2200 Popular White British Most 12 Faith Kent 10 3232 Popular White British Most 13 Leyla Kent 10 3500 Popular White British Most 14 Mia Kent 10 4000 Popular White British 15 Janine Kent 10 427 Middle White British 16 Chelsea Kent 10 824 Middle White British 17 Shannon Kent 10 0 Middle White British 18 Sophie Kent 10 800 Middle White British 19 Neave Kent 10 700 Middle White British 20 Jodie Kent 10 650 Middle White British 21 Alice Kent 10 300 Unpopular Biracial Most 22 Maddison Essex 10 9000 Popular White British Most 23 Ashley Essex 10 5500 Popular White British Most 24 Karmel Essex 10 3000 Popular Middle eastern 25 Nellie Essex 8 1000 Popular Black African 26 Lilia Essex 8 700 Middle White British 27 Aimee Essex 8 300 Middle Asian 28 Savannah Essex 8 2000 Popular Black African
360 Black 29 Naz Essex 8 2000 Popular Caribbean Black 30 Angelique Essex 8 800 Popular Caribbean 31 Monique Essex 10 2500 Popular Indian Asian 900 (only had new account for 2 32 Jamelia Essex 10 weeks) Popular Black African Black 33 Natalie Essex 10 2952 Popular Caribbean 34 Jaz London 8 400 Middle White British 35 Ruby London 8 800 Middle White British 36 Gabby London 10 1000 Middle White British 37 Melissa London 8 200 Unpopular White British 38 Rachel London 10 1500 Popular Middle eastern 39 Letitia London 10 1600 Popular Afro Caribbean 40 Charlie London 8 160 Unpopular Black African 41 Tara Essex 9 300 Middle White British 42 Jade Essex 9 800 Middle White British 43 Sana Essex 9 900 Middle Asian 44 Zara Essex 10 500 Middle Asian 45 Molly Essex 10 150 Unpopular White British 46 Olivia Essex 10 200 Unpopular White British 47 Lily London 9 350 Middle Middle Eastern 48 Milly London 9 500 Middle White British Most 49 Chanel London 9 8000 Popular Black African 50 Toma London 9 100 Unpopular White British 51 Pippa London 9 300 Unpopular White British Eastern 52 Gwen London 9 900 Middle European 53 Nina London 9 1300 Unpopular Middle eastern 54 Jennifer London 9 2500 Popular Black African
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Appendix 6 Sample stratified by self-reported peer popularity
362 Appendix 7 Ethics approval confirmation
363 Appendix 8 Draw-and-Tell Peer Hierarchy Diagrams The two figures below are digitised copies of the diagrams which two students drew, an examples of the peer hierarchy. One is from Estuary Academy, the other from Milner’s Academy.
Figure 4 Drawing by Jennifer from Milner’s Academy
Figure 5 Drawing by Jodie from Estuary Academy
364 Appendix 9 Coding framework
Coding Framework Overarching Themes Main theme Sub-themes Descriptive Popularity Descriptive Highest High Middle Low Outsider
Theoretical Hyper feminie Loud Audible/Authentic Visible Invest Disengaged schooling Sexuality Attractiveness Brands
Social Media Usage Basic School Home Aggression Sexual Emojis/Photos Drama Rants/Indirects Abuse/Bullying Online/offline Anonymity Selfies Likes, comments, followers Theoretical
Power Discourse Truth Knowledge Approval Hierarchy Norm judgment Control Regulation Resistance Reactive Proactive
Observation Hierarchical observation Discipline/Punish Permanence Self-Surveil Examination Docile Expression Group muting
Gender Shaming Impossibility Body Embodiment Property Heterosexuality heteronormativity Performance Active Conscious Male gaze 365
Appendix 10 Example reflection piece ‘Keeping the circle small’: Protecting your data, protecting yourself from data.
Jessica Heal University of Manchester
We live in a visible world. The digital sphere has rendered lives of young women more public than ever before (Turkle, 2011; Boyd, 2015; Ronson, 2015). The article, based on qualitative research collected for doctoral research, highlights both the challenges young women face growing up on social media and the ways they seek to protect their data and preserve themselves and their friends from the data of others.
With increased visibility comes increased scrutiny – the double standard has never been more evidenced (Ringrose, 2012). The desire for the female body is expressed through the request for ‘nudie pics’ – of the 20 girls, aged between 13-15, all had been solicited for revealing photos of themselves. Those who do reveal intimate photos of themselves are subsequently paraded and labelled sluts by the student body and can be posted on ‘Exposed’ Accounts on Instagram – private accounts which showcase a collect of these photos which, in order to gain access to the account, you must submit a revealing photo yourself (Ringrose and Renold, 2012).
Although the concept of slut shaming is not new – the Internet now serves to render that double data standard augmented beyond control (Crawford and Popp, 2003) 366
However, and unsurprisingly, the reverse cannot be said of their male peers. ‘Dick pics’ are prolific over applications like Snapchat and private messenger, and are unwanted and unwelcome. Several 14 year old students told of how male peers tried to claim that the girls had wanted to see the pictures of them – they screenshot conversations which they have engineered or edited to make the girl look like she is requesting to see his dick pic. These girls subsequently described that the boys in question effectively tried to blackmail into sending photos of themselves of them, for fear of sharing their ‘desire’ to see the dick pic with the student body.
In such a maelstrom, defending both your own data whilst protecting yourself from the incriminating data of others in continuous. Those caught up by threatened explained that to protect yourself from the data of others, you must have equally damming or contradictory evidence in return.
‘You tell him that I’ve got this photo and if he shares that – I’ll share this,’ one girl pronounced passionately to her threatened friend as I observed.
When asked how to avoid being paraded, several 15 year olds instantly retorted ‘keep the circle small’ – don’t trust anyone beyond your close circle of friends. Despite the Internet giving unparalleled access to a broad and incessant amount of information, teenage girls appear to be reacting against it, drawing themselves closer in to protect their data and themselves from the double standard.
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Appendix 11 Extract from coding journal
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Appendix 12 Memo example Elements of these notes have been redacted manually to protect identities.
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Appendix 13 Number of Followers on Instagram by peer group
Social Group Total Average Most Popular 29916 4274 Popular 28194 1762 Middle 10851 603 Unpopular 3260 296
This figure is based upon the self-reported number of followers each interviewee stated they had at the time of the interview.
Appendix 14 Numbers of participants by interview type Interview group size Frequency Total participants 1 3 3 2 4 8 3 13 39 4 1 4 Total 21 54
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