Digital Aging: Reinforcing Normative Masculinities on Instagram

Abstract

Age and gender intersect within power relations dynamics from which arise social hierarchies. Ageist and patriarchal systems perform power within an institutionalization of normative gendered hierarchy, validated by the media and legitimized through the hegemonic social culture. Aging masculinities have been mainly studied in health and social sciences’ scientific domains, without the gendered focus. By stemming from a feminist approach, this paper proposed the analysis of co-hashtag networks on Instagram to assess if these digital collective narratives perpetuate or challenge gendered and aging normative perspectives of masculinities. Results show that the semantic structure analyzed intercross age and normative masculinities anchor to soft-porn and patriarchal imaginaries. The data reveal expressions of multiple masculinities such as toxic and hybrid as central to the network. Nevertheless, these hashtags also convey normative understandings of what a man should be by opposition to femininities.