Introduction
Using the social media platform Facebook, I went through my friend list to view people’s profile pictures and see who fit into gender stereotypes and who did not. It was an interesting experiment to take a look at my friend group and see who I am identifying and how they fit into my expectations. After thinking about this I applied my thoughts and looked through my own profile pictures to determine if I have been portraying myself in stereotypical gender roles or not.
Gender Stereotypical Profile Pictures
Female
Upon pursuing the main profile pictures and looking for the five females that best encapsulate the gender stereotypes, I quickly realized that there are a few very common poses that most females are using for their profile pictures. The main pictures of the majority of females are headshots of them with some of their shoulders, their hair down, a medium amount of makeup (almost always a bright lip stick) and a slight smile on their faces while looking intensely into the camera. The next most common female stereotype is women in their wedding dresses, followed by the female with their partner, and then I see a lot of women with their child in a loving, natural mother-child pose. Finally is the female in some kind of foreign landscape setting portraying their travels. I am not choosing specific images for each because I can find five of each of the five most common image groupings. In fact, it is very difficult to find an image of a female that does not fit into one of these five categories. The females are portraying stereotypical female gender roles because they are showing their caring side, with their child or lover, or showing themselves off in a feminine way with their make up and smile, or wedding dress.
Male
The male profile images also show a few common patterns among them but not as obviously as the females. Many males portray themselves doing an activity they enjoy, an accomplishment they have achieved, with their partners or with an animal, presumably a pet. The images of the men are gender stereotypical because they are showing off what they love or what they have accomplished. In my understanding, a lot of men like to show and prove what they have to the world and all of these male images show exactly that. They want to show that they have power and gain the respect of their peers and use the social media platform to do it. The men want to look macho, intimidating, sexual or caring to gain the attention of the females.
Different Gender Identities in the Millennial Age
I think the images of the female travelling solo to a foreign place and using a landscape shot as her profile image is stereotypical in the millennial age because it is becoming more and more common to see woman going off to see the world and find themselves on solo trips abroad. While there are still the traditional gender roles being portrayed by both male and female, this strong independent travelling female is becoming a gender norm of the millennial generation. The males tend to travel more in groups and act as a pack rather than branch out on their own like females. For the newer millennial male stereotypical gender role it is becoming more common for men to be well groomed and take care of themselves physically and it shows in their profile pictures.
Non-Conforming Gender Stereotypical Profile Pictures
The images of the non-conforming gender stereotypes are all of people being more gender fluid or gender irrelevant. There are females wearing male clothing or of males with long hair striking feminine poses trying to be androgynous. While the images are trying to break gender stereotypes, they have not completely reached their goal. As the female wearing men’s clothing still has make up on and the man with long hair acting feminine still has a mustache showing his masculinity. Another non-conforming female is one who dresses in exuberant ways and her hair dyed the colours of the rainbow that stands out in a crowded room. One other non-conforming female is her as the lead singer of a band, in lingerie with blood running down her face and half her head shaved with the rest is long luscious blonde hair. She is clearly trying to push boundaries and break through her gender stereotype. The final male is also a gender fluid one, with his face covered, carrying a women’s bag, dressed in long robes so that the viewer must guess his masculine or feminine identity.
All of these images exist outside the masculine-feminine dichotomy as they are showing that they can be both masculine and feminine, or neither, at the same time so that the view has to decide for themselves what they identify as, however, the image always leaves on small clue to their true self-identifying gender. The two other females are presenting themselves in over the top, extra feminine in a strong and independent way so that males will tend to be intimidated by them, a trait typically reserved for the males.
Self-Assessment of Gender Identity Online
Taking these previously thoughts into consideration, I then began to look through my own history of profile pictures. In the more recent ones I fall into 4 of the 5 most common images for female stereotypical gender roles as there are pictures of me with a slight smile, in my wedding dress, with my partner and several of me in various landscapes while travelling. Going a little further back I definitely did not fit into any gender stereotypical identities, as most of my pictures are things that exist outside the norm. I have pictures of me shaving my head and in this particular image if you did not know me, you cannot tell if I am female or male. There are other pictures where I would dress up in obscene clothing and strike crazy poses to do something different and stand out.
It appears that I went from non-conformity to now conforming within the female gender stereotype. I do not know why this happened or when I changed into the stereotypical roles, but reflecting on these images has shown me how much I have changed in the way I present myself to the world through social media. Even though my images show this progression in changes I do not feel like I have become more or less feminine or own gender identity has changed over this time period.
Conclusion
It is interesting to see how people are portraying themselves in general through their profile pictures. Even with knowing all these people in the pictures I have described, I would never have put most of them into these gender stereotypes based off of their personalities and how they themselves identify. However, after analyzing the pictures it becomes evident that we are all greatly influenced by the gender stereotypes set out for us. Being masculine or feminine shows true as being an important factor when people select an image for themselves in their profile pictures, but there are a select few who do not follow it, they are few and far between in my own friend list, which is surprising based on the number of people I know who are transgender and not feminine or masculine in their daily lives.
