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Abstract

In Pakistan’s patriarchal system, gender is commonly viewed in a stereotypical, binary way. In this system, the public domain is predominantly within the purview of men while women are positioned in the private domain of home and family. Men are traditionally seen as the guardians of women and women as ‘vulnerable targets’ who need male protection. This rigid gender ideology thus bestows on men a power that is not enjoyed by most women in the Pakistani culture.

While Pakistani womanhood cannot be reduced to a homogenized singularity of disempowerment and victimization, it is nevertheless true that their conduct and mobility in comparison to that of men is monitored and policed by established socio-cultural norms. Yet, women have always resisted against these patriarchal norms and practices. However, in the past decade due to the immense popularity of the social media especially Facebook in the country, these debates about gender and gender disparity have moved to the online platforms, and this is what my study engages with.

In particular, my study explores how young middle-class Pakistani men and women mobilise visual and linguistic resources in constructing their gender identities in their Facebook posts. More importantly, the study investigated in what ways young middle-class Pakistani men and women adhere to or contest the prevailing linguistic and socio-cultural norms and stereotypical gender notions in Pakistan in their Facebook posts and what specific role Facebook plays in enabling and constraining the construction of their gender identities.

The results indicate that the use of Facebook is a complex experience for both men and women as it reflects the intricate interplay between individual autonomy and socio-cultural and religious pressures to conform. On the one hand, Facebook has become yet another venue where gender norms are reinforced and perpetuated. On the other hand, Facebook was found to be particularly empowering for previously marginalised groups (e.g., women assault victims, the LGBT community) as it offered them space to resist the dominant hegemonic discourses.

In other words, social media platforms can be viewed as not only a space with liberating potential, where gender can be performed in new ways; innovative identities can be imagined by online representation and gendered scripts can be re-conceptualized but also offering and at times encouraging the enactment of traditional gender roles. Thus, these results are in line with previous findings that the gender differences visible in the offline world are not only reinforced but also challenged on social media platforms, as these provide users with a site on which they can simultaneously transgress the dominant gender ideologies.

Julkaisun tiedot:

Constructing Gender Identities Multimodally: Young, middle-class Pakistanis on Facebook, Jyväskylä: Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥, 2022, 105 p. (JYU Dissertations ISSN 2489-9003; 537)
ISBN 978-951-39-9325-2

Publication:

More information:

Rauha Salam-Salmaoui
rasalam@student.jyu.fi, 0443416664