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‘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
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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 

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