Scroll through any social media and it isn’t long before you see teen girls shaking their booty for likes and comments.
While there are some guys in the mix — we see you TikTok star William White — there are far more ‘thirst traps’ of young women (posts intended to entice viewers sexually).
This is perplexing for some parents, especially mothers who came of age before social media, who likely believed that if only women controlled the medium — could control the camera and publish themselves, in other words — girls would portray themselves as the talented, intelligent and complex creatures that they are.
Of course, many do. But if we have come so far, especially in Squamish — with female politicians, CEOs, Olympic athletes, authors, filmmakers, actors and more — why are so many young women using it to sexualize themselves?
New tool, old patriarchy?
Independent researcher Stephanie Patrick, who has a PhD from the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa, challenges why this is even the main question.
"As much as it's important to think about how these kinds of practices may be harming girls, or how they exclude certain girls and include some who maybe didn't have access before… I think it's also important to ask, 'What do girls get out of presenting themselves this way?' And until we think about that more, I think that women are going to continue to do that," she said.
This is just an old way of trying to access power but with new tools, said Patrick, whose book Celebrity and New Media: Gatekeeping Success comes out in May.
Historically, marriage was one of the few ways women could rise in society, for example.
"If you wanted to rise up the socio-economic ladder, that would be through marriage… That's also through using your body and your sexual capital — to be able to access the higher status of society.
“To me, it is just a new way of doing something that's like, as old as patriarchy itself. As much as you want to celebrate the progress that has been made for women, we're still so rewarded for how we look, and how we present ourselves as sexually desirable objects, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. As soon as a new media technology comes up, then whatever is after TikTok, it's going to be the same thing on there all over again, in my opinion.”
Where the focus should be
Patrick questions why the attention is not placed upstream of social media, at the top, instead of downstream on youth who use it.
Why not focus on those who profit off of the status quo, she asks.
"Shining the light more on that level above users, above celebrities, like the people that benefit from these technologies, the people that are making billions of dollars off of girls posing in seductive ways. Or the people who are able to kind of hide behind the scenes and not be as visible in our culture, that whole level of media ownership and billionaires and all of those people," she said.
"Who made that algorithm so that girls are being attracted to presenting themselves in this way? Who came up with that? Who is this person who designed this? Let's have those conversations about those people as well."
There are other users of social media to be concerned about as well, said Patrick.
"There's always this concern focusing our attention towards how girls and young women are using [technology], versus — for contrast, off the top of my head — maybe we should be concerned about how a whole generation of white people are using Facebook and YouTube, because they're radicalizing huge swathes of the population as we're seeing play out every day right now. And there's not a concern about our uncles using Facebook," she said.
If it works, it works
Young women are doing what they see works, reiterated Patrick.
“When we look up at the culture around us, and our society, which kinds of girls and women have power? It's the ones that are sexy. It's the ones that are famous. It's the ones who are visible. So, if [young women] want to access that kind of power; they're often really immediately rewarded for it, versus other kinds of power, or other kinds of skills that they could develop which take longer and they don't have as immediate sort of benefits."
The algorithms on these platforms also promote and reward this type of behaviour, she noted.
She also said that this way of portraying themselves is not necessarily all bad for young women.
"They do get something out of it," she said, noting that not all young women have access to the "sexual capital" available to some. It requires looking like whatever the norms of the day say is attractive.
"But the girls that do have that access to that… sexual capital, of course, they're going to use it because you get immediate rewards for that," she said, referencing the number of likes a post can get. She added that while some young women may start out using social media for sexual self-representation, they may learn from using the platform and become "really cool" content creators.
"They can develop and hone other skills that might then encourage girls and women to expand representation and to delve into other forms of technology, and media production and representation and opening up those doors rather than closing them. So, you know, these are really complex issues that sometimes just get boiled down to good or bad," she said.
What about their future jobs?
While parents may be concerned that social media posts could hurt their child’s job prospects in the future, that isn't how many youth see these platforms.
"The cultural messaging to young people is not to see yourself as a worker — it is to see yourself as an entrepreneur," she said. "You could be an influencer. You don't want to be working for somebody else. You're going to be your own boss. If you can build this empire, what do you need a boss for? It doesn't matter. So all of these contradictory messages are coming through. Every way you go is wrong in some way."
Choose real life
Patrick didn’t want to give hard and fast advice about social media but said logging off can be a good idea.
"Because it is designed just to keep you coming back. And that's the most important thing to remember about it. Whether or not you're having fun with it, whether or not other people are judging what you're doing on it, you're playing into whatever design they came up with for the platform. Anytime you open that app, you're just giving it more power in your life."
