Digital Mind 🧠

🪵 The Threshold

Women's self-display of bodies carries meanings beyond sexualized objectification.

Properties2
tagsja-picks, xref, contrarian_or_surprising, trade, singleton, category/contrarian-or-surprising
aliases@gillespie2018custodians, loc. 429

2 min read

Women’s self-display of bodies carries meanings beyond sexualized objectification.

Evidence

While in Western culture women’s exposed bodies are typically represented in media for the pleasure of men, and often for the commercial profit associated, women also expose their own bodies for a range of different reasons: as an expression of self-confidence, as a reclamation of their own sexuality, as a challenge to restrictive cultural standards of beauty (across the axes of age, race, and size), and in and around important moments in their lives that involve their bodies—not only breastfeeding but celebrating the experience of birth, expressing grief and resilience after a mastectomy, or asserting the legitimacy and beauty of their body after sexual reassignment surgery. This array of meanings does not fit neatly into the traditional, sexualized display of women’s bodies as objects of desire, or the regulation of such display. — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet, 429

Categorization

  • XREF: Pairs with the book’s own chapter 2 on the complaints-about-immodesty article (‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’) — same moral-panic-over-women’s-bodies thread. — connects to: An image’s moral power can depend on its violation of norms. — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 17; Breastfeeding photos function as community badges of belonging, not mere records. — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 451; Every moderation change has winners and losers, so each decision is political. — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 518 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

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