Bikinis, nudes and feminist snaps in teenage girls’ digital sexual cultures

Teenage girls’ engagement with digital cultures is controversial. It is a domain that both perpetuates misogyny, reflective of broader gender norms and provides a platform for feminist orientations. Utilising a new feminist materialist approach and ‘feminist snaps’ as an analytical concept, this article explores the feminist capacities of South African black teenage girls, aged between 14 and 18 years, as they challenge the ongoing materialisation of gendered inequalities within a digital assemblage where female sexual expressions are constrained. This qualitative study involved thirty girls from a secondary school in South Africa. The study aimed to understand how their interactions with digital cultures could foster abilities to reshape their gendered experiences. Our findings reveal two primary actions. First, girls recognise and resist the digital policing of their bodies by posting bikini and provocative selfies generating feminist snaps that momentarily destabilise gendered norms of female respectability. Second, requests for nude images reinforce male power while exposing girls to reputational harm; by blocking and refusing these demands, girls stage feminist snaps that challenge sexual double standards and destabilise the digital assemblage. We argue that, despite limited support, teenage girls’ responses exhibit potential for transformative snaps towards gender justice in a context where they are often overlooked and depicted as passive victims of male dominance and violence. We conclude by advocating for initiatives that bolster teenage girls’ feminist capacities on and off social media platforms, while also calling for a broader analytical lens to understand the complexities of gender norms and male sexual entitlement.