Tubuh, Gender, dan Agensi: Kajian Antropologi Visual tentang Representasi Perempuan di Media Sosial

Bella Dinata

doi:10.64691/nizamiyah.v1i1.40

Authors

Bella Dinata Universitas Islam Negeri Sultan Syarif Kasim Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.64691/nizamiyah.v1i1.40

Keywords:

Visual Anthropology; Body Representation; Digital Gender; Social Media; Women’s Agency

Abstract

Social media has become a new interactive space that not only represents women’s bodies and identities but also reproduces complex gender constructions. In this context, the visualization of the female body often becomes an arena for a tug-of-war between cultural objectification and the expression of individual agency. This study aims to examine how women’s bodies, gender, and agency are represented through social media using a visual anthropological approach, and to uncover the symbolic dynamics surrounding these representational practices. This research uses a desk study method by analyzing scientific literature, visual documentation, and theories of feminism, media, and visual anthropology. The results show that women’s representations in social media are heavily influenced by digital aesthetics, platform algorithms, and gender norms that are constantly being negotiated. Women’s bodies often become visual commodifications trapped in performative narratives, but at the same time, they also become a medium of agency in voicing identity, autonomy, and resistance to patriarchal standards. The aesthetics displayed through body images often blur the lines between personal choice and structural pressures, so that women’s agency manifests in ambivalent forms—between self-awareness and being trapped by digital expectations. This study concludes that social media is a symbolic field that harbors tensions between dominant structures and women’s subjectivities, and therefore demands a critical reading of every visualization of the body that is produced and consumed.

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