Digital Femininities: The paradoxes, pitfalls, and power of femininity in the digital world
In: Journal of FemininitiesUniversity of Waterloo and St. Jerome's University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Search for other papers by Rhea Ashley Hoskin in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Erin Leigh Courtice in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
A man shaving his eyelashes on TikTok, a meme reimagining a powerful politician in drag, and a TikTok trend of using makeup metaphors in professional contexts may appear unrelated. Yet, each reveals how femininity is mocked, weaponized, and reclaimed in digital life. Drawing on femme theory and Foucauldian understandings of power, this article conceptualizes such “digital femininities” as technologies of power, technologies of counter-discourse, and technologies of re-negotiation. First, we analyze technologies of power that weaponize femininity, drawing on examples such as grooming trends and deepfakes. Second, we examine technologies of counter-discourse that mobilize femininity as creativity and resistance, such as makeup metaphors. Third, we analyze technologies of re-negotiation that are simultaneously subversive and complicit, including tradwifes, pick-me girls, and feminized political imagery. Across these examples, digital platforms emerge as key sites where femininity is continuously negotiated, revealing how power, resistance, and femmephobia intersect to shape contemporary gendered life.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Bartky, S.L. (1990). Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression. Routledge.
-
Barton, B., & Huebner, L. (2022). Feminine power: A new articulation. Psychology & Sexuality, 13(1), 23–32.
-
Blair, K. L., & Hoskin, R. A. (2015). Experiences of femme identity: Coming out, invisibility and femmephobia. Psychology & Sexuality, 6(3), 229–244.
-
Blair, K. L., & Hoskin, R. A. (2016). Contemporary understandings of femme identities and related experiences of discrimination. Psychology & Sexuality, 7(2), 101–115.
-
Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture and the body. University of California Press.
-
Brammer, S. E., Smith, C. R., & Essary, C. R. (2025). “We need an American Girl doll who…”: Reimagining and memeifying American Girl(hood) and fem(me)ininity in digital spaces. Journal of Femininities, 1(aop), 1–35.
-
Brownmiller, S. (1984). Femininity. Fawcett Columbine.
-
Brushwood Rose, C., & Camilleri, A. (2002). Brazen femme: Queering femininity. Arsenal Pulp Press.
-
Burkholder, C., MacEntee, K., Hill, M., Beaumont, A., & Keehn, M. (2025). “Dykes on dollars”: Soft femme anarchiving and other queer futures in online spaces. Journal of Femininities, 1(aop), 1–27.
-
Bryson, V. (2003). Feminist political theory: An introduction (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
-
Chen, W. P., & Ku, C. C. (2025). Platformed femininities: Dual authenticity labor of women game streamers. Journal of Femininities, 1(aop), 1–29.
-
Chillifunk [@chillifunk]. (2024). [Screenshot of Threads post]. Threads. https://www.threads.net/@chillifunk/post/C3BNHifL8vW
-
Connell, R. W. (1987). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. Polity.
-
Coyote, I. E., & Sharman, Z. (Eds.). (2011). Persistence: All ways butch and femme. Arsenal Pulp Press.
-
de Beauvoir, S. (1949). The second sex. Random House.
-
Eaton, A. A., Scott, A. J., Flynn, A., & Powell, A. (2026). Perceptions of sexualized deepfake abuse across three nations: An exploration of how victim gender and race shape attitudes towards deepfake abuse in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Computers in Human Behavior, 177, 108899.
-
Eldridge, L. (2015). Face paint: The story of makeup. Abrams Image.
-
Espada, M. (2023, April 12). The Instagram page ‘RuPublicans’ uses ai to turn anti-lgbtq+ Republicans into drag queens. TIME. https://time.com/6271330/instagram-turns-republican-anti-lgbtq-drag-queen/
-
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality: An introduction. Random House.
-
Green, J., Hoskin, R. A., & Mayo, C. (2019). Navigating trans and complex gender identities. Bloomsbury Publishing.
-
Halberstam, J. (2011). The queer art of failure. Duke University Press.
-
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
-
Henry, R. M., & Schudson, Z. C. (2024). Femmephobia is related to essentialist and social constructionist beliefs about gender/sex and gender-related political ideologies. Psychology & Sexuality, 1–17.
-
Holland, J., & Holland, J. (2019). A brief history of misogyny: The world’s oldest prejudice. Robinson.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2017a). Femme theory: Refocusing the intersectional lens. Atlantis, 38(1), 95–109.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2017b). Femme interventions and the proper feminist subject. Cogent Social Sciences, 3(1), 1–17.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2019). Femmephobia: The role of anti-femininity and gender policing in lgbtq+ people’s experiences of discrimination. Sex Roles, 81(11–12), 686–703.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2020). “Femininity? It’s the aesthetic of subordination”: Examining femmephobia and the gender binary. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(7), 2319–2339.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2021). Can femme be theory? Journal of Lesbian Studies, 25(1), 1–17.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2024a). Femininities. In G. Kaufman, M. Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, S. Roberts, & B. Ralph (Eds.), Research handbook on the sociology of gender (pp. 51–62). Edward Elgar.
-
Hoskin, R. A. (2024b). Femme frontiers. In A. Tooth-Murphy & R. C. Ryan-Flood (Eds.), Queering desire (pp. 97–111). Routledge.
-
Hoskin, R. A., & Blair, K. (2024a). The femme factor: Transforming pop culture analyses through femme theory. Sexualities, 27(8), 1307–1323.
-
Hoskin, R. A., & Blair, K. L. (2021). Critical femininities: A “new” approach to gender theory. Psychology & Sexuality, 1–8.
-
Hoskin, R. A., Blair, K. L., & Holmberg, D. (2024). Femmephobia is a uniquely powerful predictor of anti-gay behavior. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 53(1), 127–140.
-
Hoskin, R. A., & Serafini, T. (2023). Critically feminizing family science: Using femme theory to generate novel approaches for the study of families and relationships. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 15(2), 292–312.
-
Hoskin, R. A., Serafini, T., & Gillespie, J. G. (2023). Femmephobia versus gender norms: Examining women’s responses to competing and contradictory gender messages. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 32(2), 191–207.
-
Hoskin, R. A., & Taylor, A. (2019). Femme resistance: The fem(me)inine art of failure. Psychology & Sexuality, 10(4), 281–300.
-
Kennedy, E. L., & Davis, M. D. (1993). Boots of leather, slippers of gold: The history of a lesbian community. Routledge.
-
Kimmel, M. (1997). Masculinity as homophobia: Fear, shame, and silence in the construction of gender identity. In M. Gergen & S. Davis (Eds.), Toward a new psychology of gender (pp. 223–242). Routledge.
-
Kornfield, S., & Long, C. (2023). Bold resistance: Tenets of femme analysis for an era of popular feminism. Sexualities.
-
Levitt, H., Gerrish, E. A., & Hiestand, K. R. (2003). The misunderstood gender: A model of modern femme identity. Sex Roles, 48(3–4), 99–113.
-
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider. Crossing Press.
-
McWebb, A., Lim, M. S., & Wiens, B. (2024). The politics and aesthetics of #Tradwife: Disentangling the curation of digital femininity. Journal of Femininities, Online First.
-
Millett, K. (1977). Sexual politics. Doubleday.
-
Mishali, Y. (2014). Feminine trouble: The removal of femininity from feminist/lesbian/ queer aesthetics, imagery, and conceptualization. Women’s Studies International Forum, 44, 55–68.
-
Mutero, V. (2025). “As a woman…”: Policing Black femininity through unsolicited digital advice. Journal of Femininities, 1(aop), 1–26.
-
Musofer, R. P., & Musofer, M. A. (2025). From silence to resistance: An autoethnographic account of willful femininity and digital activism in Gilgit-Baltistan. Journal of Femininities, 1(aop), 1–22.
-
Padda, K. K., MacDonald, S., & Ruest, N. (2024). Regulating femininity in the manosphere: An exploration of femmephobic discourse in Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes podcasts. Journal of Femininities, Online First.
-
Pascoe, C. J. (2007). Dude, you’re a fag: Masculinity and sexuality in high school. University of California Press.
-
Rupublicans [@rupublicans]. (2025). [Screenshot of Instagram post]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/DJkIDRBxijN/
-
Schwartz, A. (2020). Soft femme theory: Femme internet aesthetics and the politics of “softness.” Social Media + Society, 6(4), 2056305120978366.
-
Scott, J. B. (2021). What do glitter, pointe shoes, & plastic drumsticks have in common? Using femme theory to consider the reclamation of disciplinary beauty/body practices. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 25(1), 36–52.
-
Scott, J. B. (2022). Negotiating relationships with powerfulness: Using femme theory to resist masculinist pressures on feminist femininities. In Critical femininities (pp. 33–42). Routledge.
-
Serano, J. (2007). Whipping girl: A transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity. Seal Press.
-
Serano, J. (2013). Excluded: Making feminist and queer movements more inclusive. Seal Press.
-
Singh, A., & Gopal, K. (2025). Not So Soft Side of Femininity: Interpretating the Validity of Inclusive Femininity. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, jxaf060.
-
Steele, V. (2018). Pink: The history of a punk, pretty, powerful color. Thames & Hudson.
-
Valko, A. (March, 2025). As if masculinity couldn’t be more fragile right now, men are now shaving off their eyelashes to appear “less feminine”. BuzzFeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/alanavalko/men-shaving-eyelashes-trend
-
Valko, A. (August, 2025). This woman got tired of sports metaphors at work, so she started using makeup terms instead, and it’s kinda iconic. BuzzFeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/alanavalko/makeup-metaphors-replace-sports-lingo-workplace
-
Volcano, D. L., & Dahl, U. (2008). Femmes of power: Exploding queer femininities. London, UK: Serpent’s Tail.
-
Waldman, A. (2018). Trickster feminism. Penguin Random House.
-
Westphal, T. (2024). “Sexy but frightening”: Femme worldbuilding and feminist revenge. Sexualities, 27(8), 1339–1355.
-
White, M. (2026). “Dress porn definitely does it for me”: Femininities, digital wedding porn, and pleasure and danger. Journal of Femininities, Online First.
-
Wolf, N. (2002). The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. HarperCollins.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 637 | 637 | 63 |
| Full Text Views | 56 | 56 | 12 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 135 | 135 | 29 |
Digital Femininities: The paradoxes, pitfalls, and power of femininity in the digital world
In: Journal of FemininitiesUniversity of Waterloo and St. Jerome's University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Search for other papers by Rhea Ashley Hoskin in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Erin Leigh Courtice in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
A man shaving his eyelashes on TikTok, a meme reimagining a powerful politician in drag, and a TikTok trend of using makeup metaphors in professional contexts may appear unrelated. Yet, each reveals how femininity is mocked, weaponized, and reclaimed in digital life. Drawing on femme theory and Foucauldian understandings of power, this article conceptualizes such “digital femininities” as technologies of power, technologies of counter-discourse, and technologies of re-negotiation. First, we analyze technologies of power that weaponize femininity, drawing on examples such as grooming trends and deepfakes. Second, we examine technologies of counter-discourse that mobilize femininity as creativity and resistance, such as makeup metaphors. Third, we analyze technologies of re-negotiation that are simultaneously subversive and complicit, including tradwifes, pick-me girls, and feminized political imagery. Across these examples, digital platforms emerge as key sites where femininity is continuously negotiated, revealing how power, resistance, and femmephobia intersect to shape contemporary gendered life.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 637 | 637 | 63 |
| Full Text Views | 56 | 56 | 12 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 135 | 135 | 29 |
