Workshop: We are all Girls on the Internet–Constructing Girlhood Online

Text

We kindly invite you to dive into the cyberspace of ‘The Girl Online’, dissecting identity constructions in digital cultures where the ‘girl’ transcends conventional gender boundaries. We encounter discourse on the girl online on the daily: From bimbo feminism, a movement subverting intersectional feminism with the female stereotype of the ‘dumb blonde’, to the playful depictions of girlhood in Greta Gerwig’s film Barbie (2023) to the revealing narratives of TikTok trends such as Girl Dinner, we want to analyze ‘The Girl Online’s’ ironic facade challenging gender social norms through ironic naivete, hyperfemininity, and self-determined sexuality. Critics frame The Girl Online as a helpless consumerist lacking any form of agency and warn about bimbo feminism’s reinforcement of Eurocentric and patriarchal structures. However, the intersection with queerness, nonconforming gender identities, critiques of Capitalism, and embracing of sex work adds many more layers to the feminist discourse. Instead of walking right into the trap of underestimating The Girl Online, we want to challenge assumptions about identity construction online within late capitalist relations, unraveling the complexities of ‘girl pessimism’ by moving beyond the stereotype of a ‘dumb consumerist’ girl. We welcome you to discuss the increasing presence of The Girl Online and speculate on its possibility to break free from restrictive categorizations of identity.

Vortragende