Social media are integral to representations of beauty, gender, and femininity. However, these representations are often contentious and contribute to the continued othering of religious women. Through the lens of beauty discourse, this paper examines the affordances of Instagram for creating positive, true-to-life representations of religious women. Social media’s role in globalisation and cross-cultural engagement has led to tangible results in diversifying portrayals of beauty. However, religious women continue to be minimised in both the academic and media discourse surrounding representation, even when such discussions aim to highlight a variety of racial and cultural backgrounds. Within these spaces, religious women are persistently portrayed homogeneously, as a backwards, ugly, and oppressed group. This study aims to challenge these assumptions and amplify religious women’s voices. Using in-depth focus groups and interviews with Muslim, Jewish and Christian women located globally, this study offers a detailed exploration of their nuanced understandings of beauty, femininity, and gendered expectations within religion. The findings build on previous research that establishes Instagram as a tool for self-representation and the fashioning of ‘hybrid’ identities. The discussions reveal the opportunities that Instagram creates to challenge misconceptions surrounding veiling and modesty, while fostering racially and religiously diverse communities online. Conversely, they highlight how religious women remain subject to overly sexualised, tokenised, and commodified representations in media that align with normative, Western perspectives. The research ultimately concludes that representations of lived, subjective religious experience are imperative not only on social media, but also within other media industries that inform this space.

Authors:
Rachel Marie Abreu, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Rachel Abreu is a PhD Researcher in the Communications, Media, and Culture Department at the University of Stirling. Her research centres on social media, identity, and representation within a postcolonial, feminist framework.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelabreu-feminist-researcher/

Additional website of interest
https://www.stir.ac.uk/people/1693252#aboutme

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