“I think everyone looks better in pictures than in real life”: Posting Selfies and Women’s Body Image
Selfies: Problematic or empowering?
Many scholars have focused
on the role of selfies in how we present ourselves online (e.g. Lasén, 2015; Miguel, 2016), including the choices
we make about which aspects of our bodies to reveal, and ways in which we might
self-censor our bodies in selfies to protect against any potential backlash.
Views of different researchers have been mixed in relation to impact of selfie
posting on women’s body image; on the one hand, it has been argued that posting
selfies encourages body
objectification, which refers to the tendency to view one’s own body as an
object, and may result in distortion of women’s body image and encouragement of
unhealthy eating (e.g. Briggs, 2014; Mabe, Forney & Keel, 2014; Tiggemann &
Slater, 2013). Alternatively, other researchers argue that posting selfies can
boost self-esteem and empower women through enabling control over the body
aesthetic, showcasing variations in beauty, and celebrating uniqueness
(Tiidenberg, 2014; Tiidenberg & Cruz, 2015).
What do women selfie posters have to say?
In one recent study (Grogan, Rothery,
Cole & Hall, 2018), we asked young women to account for their selfie posting in
their own words. Eighteen women students aged 19-22 years, all based in the UK,
answered a series of open-ended questions about their selfie posting including ‘Do
you think that selfies have had an impact on your body image?’ in conversation
with a young woman selfie-poster of a similar age. The answers to these
questions were examined for patterns in the data using thematic analysis (guided
by Braun & Clarke, 2006) and the results showed that links between selfie posting and body image were complex.
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| Photo by bruce mars from Pexels |
Posting too many selfies was viewed as
vain, and selfies with others were preferred to individual selfies because there
was less risk of being charged with vanity. Facial shots were preferred to body
shots because of low body confidence, and if the body was included in the
selfie it should be covered. Selfies should show people at their best;
therefore, selfies where one looked unkempt should be avoided, and sexualised
selfies were seen as unacceptable. Women linked selfie posting to identity
management, and differentiated between their “unreal”, online identity and
their “real” identity. Women edited and manipulated their selfies to present
what they felt was a socially acceptable image of their bodies and faces, constructing
an ideal (manipulated) body online and expecting others to do the same, as the
quote in the title of this article suggests.
These results queried constructions of
young women as empowered and self-determined selfie posters who are free to
showcase variations in beauty and celebrate uniqueness (e.g. Tiidenberg, 2014) and
suggested significant constraints on women’s posting, imposed by the women themselves
due to concerns about the reactions of others. Women spoke in objectifying ways
about how their bodies appeared in selfies, felt pressure to post flattering
and non-sexualised selfies, and were highly aware of the likely impact on their
perceived audience.
The limits to freedom in selfie posting
The accounts in this study supported an
Objectification Theory (Fredrickson
& Roberts, 1997) interpretation, where selfie posting is associated
with self-objectification, and also with objectification of other women. This
is important because the limits placed on normative female appearance in
Western society remain but are not policed in a top-down fashion by men; women
keep themselves in check by policing
the appearance decisions of each other.
This research suggests that online presentation of women is therefore no
different to other arenas where female appearance is scrutinised, even when
women have control (in theory) over their own images. Clearly, selfie-posting is a complex
behaviour, and young women (and men) will have a range of motivations and
experiences when posting selfies. Rather than being ‘free’ to control their own
images online, the women in our small-scale study were only free to express
themselves within the parameters set by society which dictate how women should
look. The careful policing of theirs and other women’s selfie posting that we
heard about in this study, reduces the potential impact of selfies as a means
to celebrate variations in beauty and showcase a variety of body types; instead,
women posted “unreal”, sanitised and perfected versions of their bodies and
expected other women to do the same. Future work could examine how
generalizable these data are, but these initial findings suggested significant
constraints on women’s representations of their bodies on social media
platforms.
Sarah Grogan is Professor of Psychology, Health and
Wellbeing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is interested in body
image and links between body image and health-related behaviours such as
smoking, UV protection, and alcohol consumption as well as media and other
social influences on body image.
Jenny Cole is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at
Manchester Metropolitan University. She is interested in body image, gender and
technology and feminist perspectives on bodies and female appearance.
References
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