Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T20:57:20.185Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘The pictures I really dislike are those where the girls are naked!’ Postfeminist norms of female sexual embodiment in contemporary Italian digital culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2018

Arianna Mainardi
Arianna Mainardi*
Affiliation:
Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, Italy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article engages with the postfeminist debate on girls’ sexuality in contemporary Italy. The huge popularity among adolescents of social network sites (SNSs), which involve a vast mobilisation of personal images, has given rise to new concerns and a moralising gender panic about girls’ sexuality. Drawing on critical girls’ studies, and based on the outputs of a qualitative research project, the article discusses the gender discourses that emerge from Italian girls’ digital practices on SNSs, with specific reference to girls’ online self-representation through posting and sharing photos on Facebook and other SNSs. The article explores how sexual regulation works among girls in the digital context by analysing the postfeminist norms of female sexual embodiment in contemporary Italian digital culture. In doing so, the article hopes to contribute to the transnational academic debate in media and cultural studies by showing the discursive and visual conditions of possibility which shape girls’ digital sexual subjectivity on social network sites.

Italian summary

L’articolo esplora il dibattito postfemminista sulla sessualità delle ragazze nell’Italia contemporanea. L’enorme diffusione dei social network site tra gli adolescenti e la condivisione di immagini personali ha dato vita a nuove preoccupazioni e panico morale di genere che ha come oggetto la sessualità delle ragazze. A partire dai risultati di una ricerca qualitativa, l’articolo analizza i discorsi di genere che emergono dalle pratiche digitali delle ragazze, con uno specifico riferimento alle rappresentazioni di sé attraverso l’utilizzo di Facebook. Esamina, dunque, i meccanismi di regolazione della sessualità nel contesto digitale attraverso l’analisi delle norme postfemministe che caratterizzano la sessualità femminile nella cultura digitale italiana. L’articolo mira a contribuire al dibattito accademico internazionale nei girls e media studies mostrando le condizioni discorsive che danno forma alle soggettività delle ragazze nel contesto dei social network site.

Keywords

girlspostfeminismdigital culturesocial network sitessexualisationsexuality
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 23 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue: Sexuality and Power in Contemporary Italy: Subjectivities Between Gender Norms, Agency and Social Transformation , May 2018 , pp. 187 - 200
Copyright
© 2018 Association for the Study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albertazzi, D., Brook, C., Ross, C., and Rothenberg, N., eds. 2009. Resisting the Tide: Cultures of Opposition under Berlusconi (2001–06). New York and London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Andò, R. 2017. ‘Girls and the Media: Girlhood Studies Agenda and Prospects in Italy’. gender/sexuality/italy 4: 102–113.Google Scholar
Attwood, F., Clare, B., and Barker, M. 2013. The Sexualization Report. Retrieved from https://thesexualizationreport.wordpress.com/ last consultation December 2017.Google Scholar
Bale, C. 2011. ‘Raunch or Romance? Framing and Interpreting the Relationship Between Sexualized Culture and Young People’s Sexual Health’. Sex Education 11 (3): 303–313.Google Scholar
Banet-Weiser, S. 2011. ‘Branding the Post-Feminist Self: Girls’ Video Production and YouTube’. In Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls’ Media Culture, edited by M.C. Kearney, 277–294. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Bartky, S. L. 1997. ‘Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power’. In Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory , edited by K. Conboy, N. Medina, and S. Stanbury, 93–110. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bertone, C., Ferrero Camoletto, R., and Torrioni, P. M. 2011. ‘Sessualità femminile, tra nuovi desideri e nuovi confini’. Polis 25 (3): 363–392.Google Scholar
Best, E. L. 2007. Representing Youth: Methodological Issues in Critical Youth Studies. New York and London: New York University Press.Google Scholar
boyd, d. 2014. It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Bonfiglioli, C. 2015. ‘Lo schermo del potere. Femminismo e regime della visibilità’. Feminist Review 109 (1): 14–16.Google Scholar
Butler, J. 1988. ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’. Theatre Journal 40 (4): 519–531.Google Scholar
Connell, R. 1985. ‘Theorising Gender’. Sociology 19 (2): 260–272.Google Scholar
Crowhurst, I., and Bertone, C. 2012. ‘Introduction: the Politics of Sexuality in Contemporary Italy’. Modern Italy 17 (4): 413–418.Google Scholar
Dobson, A. S. 2015. Postfeminist Digital Cultures: Femininity, Social Media, and Self-Representation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ellison, N., Steinfield, C., and Lampe, C. 2007. ‘The Benefits of Facebook “Friends”: Exploring the Relationship between College Students’ Use of Online Social Networks and Social Capital’. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (3): 1143–1168.Google Scholar
Ferrero Camoletto, R. 2011. ‘Sexual Beginners: Accounting for First Sexual Intercourse in Italian Young People’s Heterosexual Biographies’. Sex Education 11 (3): 315–325.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1976. La volonté de savoir. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Ghigi, R. 2013. ‘Nude Ambizioni. Il Velinismo Secondo Gli Adolescenti’. Studi Culturali 10 (3): 431–456. doi: 10.1405/75183.Google Scholar
Gill, R. 2003. ‘From Sexual Objectification to Sexual Subjectification: the Resexualisation of Women’s Bodies in the Media’. Feminist Media Studies 3 (1): 100–106.Google Scholar
Gill, R. 2013. ‘Postfeminist sexual culture’. In The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender , edited by C. Carter, L. Steiner, and L. McLaughlin, 589–599. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Giomi, E. 2012. ‘From Drive-In to Makeover Television. Female models and sex relationships on TV in the Berlusconi era’. Studi culturali 9 (1): 3–28. DOI: 10.1405/37128.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1976. ‘Gender Display’. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 3: 69–77.Google Scholar
Gribaldo, A., and Zapperi, G. 2012. Lo schermo del potere : femminismo e regime della visibilità. Verona: Ombre corte.Google Scholar
Hipkins, D. 2011. ‘“Whore-ocracy”: Show Girls, the Beauty Trade-Off, and Mainstream Oppositional Discourse in Contemporary Italy’. Italian Studies 66 (3): 413–430.Google Scholar
Leccardi, C. 2011. ‘Trasformazioni della morale sessuale e dei rapporti tra i generi’. In Processi e trasformazioni sociali. La società europea dagli anni Sessanta a oggi , edited by L. Sciolla, 297–322. Rome-Bari: Editori Laterza.Google Scholar
Magaraggia, S. 2013. ‘Giovani donne e sessualità’. Salute e Società 2: 115–129.Google Scholar
Mazzarella, S. R. 2010. Girl Wide Web 2.0: Revisiting Girls, the Internet, and the Negotiation of Identity. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
McRobbie, A. 2004. ‘Post-feminism and Popular Culture’. Feminist media studies 4 (3): 255–264.Google Scholar
McRobbie, A. 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Mitchell, C., and Reid-Walsh, J. 2008. ‘Girl Method: Placing Girl-Centred Research Methodologies on the Map of Girlhood Studies’. In Roadblocks to Equality: Women Challenging Boundaries, edited by J. Klaenn, 214–233. Montreal: Black Rose Books.Google Scholar
Morris, P. 2006. ‘The Harem Exposed: Gabriella Parca’s Le italiane si confessano ’. In Women in Italy, 1945–1960: An Interdisciplinary Study , edited by P. Morris, 109–130. New York, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Parca, G. 1959. Le italiane si confessano. Florence: Parenti.Google Scholar
Peroni, C. 2012. ‘Violenza di genere e prostituzione nel discorso pubblico: norme, controllo, sessualità’. In Sessismo democratico: l’uso strumentale delle donne nel neoliberismo, edited by A. Simone, 111–129. Milan: Mimesis.Google Scholar
Pheterson, G. 1993. ‘The Whore Stigma: Female Dishonor and Male Unworthiness’. Social Text 37:39–64. DOI: 10.2307/466259.Google Scholar
Renold, E., and Ringrose, J. 2013. ‘Feminisms Re-figuring “Sexualisation”, Sexuality and “the Girl”’. Feminist Theory 14 (3): 247–254.Google Scholar
Ringrose, J., and Barajas, K.E. 2011. ‘Gendered Risks and Opportunities? Exploring Teen girls’ Digitized Sexual Identities in Postfeminist Media Contexts’. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics 7 (2): 121–138.Google Scholar
Ringrose, J. 2013. Postfeminist Education? Girls and the Sexual Politics of Schooling. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ringrose, J., Harvey, L., Gill, R., and Livingstone, S. 2013. ‘Teen Girls, Sexual Double Standards and “Sexting”: Gendered Value in Digital Image Exchange’. Feminist Theory 14 (3): 305–323.Google Scholar
Virgili, E. 2014. ‘Tecniche di confessione e costruzione dell’identità di genere nel contesto mediatico italiano’. Itinerari Filosofici 17. Milan: Mimesis.Google Scholar
West, C., and Zimmerman, D. H. 1987. ‘Doing gender’. Gender and Society 1 (2): 125–151.Google Scholar
Willson, P. 2010. Women in Twentieth-Century Italy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Zanardo, L. 2010. Il corpo delle donne. Milan: Feltrinelli Editore.Google Scholar
Ziga, I. 2015. Diventare Cagna (Devenir Perra). Golena Edizioni.Google Scholar