Thinking about gender playing a role in social media profiles and posts made me reflect on Savannah LaBrant’s instagram profile and posts. I am studying her family and the community that follows them for my netnography project, so focusing on gender roles throughout their posts is something I am exploring more every day. The textbook explained role theory as “people inhabiting different roles that consist of social and cultural norms for how to behave” (Humphreys, 138). Below is a screenshot of Savannah LaBrant’s instagram profile. As you can see she immediately has a very feminine profile picture and says she is a “wifey” and “girl mama”. We know that she is clearly feminine and gender is highly portrayed in her posts.
After looking at her profile it is filled with photos of herself, her husband, and her children mostly. We can see gender roles at play in many of her posts and I’ve provided some as examples. Below is a post of Savannah and her husband Cole. In the photo, Cole looks very manly with his shirt off and abs showing. He is holding his wife, Savannah, on his arm while she looks very feminine and cuddled up to him. Their positioning in this photo is clearly showing gender roles as Cole looks like the tough man who protects his wife. In the caption we see that she is talking about how she is pregnant and how her pregnancy is going. That alone is very feminine and on top of that she is thanking her husband for taking such good care of her while she is pregnant. This reinforces that she is being taken care of by her husband while she carries his child. She also talks about how good looking he is in this post.
Cinema Media Studies 