In this August 2020 issue of Vogue, Olympic Gold Medalist, Simone Biles is depicted on the cover. For women and young girls across the country, she embodies what it truly means to be strong, independent, and successful. This issue encompasses both a major and important category of Goffman’s Gender Displays as well as represents how The Sex Role Perspective can have an effect on the audience.
Goffman’s Gender Displays
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- On the cover image, Biles is not in an active role, but rather a passive. She is not engaging with the audience, but she is looking away as an invitation for the audience to look more specifically at her body.
The Sex Role Perspective
What is interesting about this cover photo, is that although Biles is a woman, she embodies several masculine stereotypes that are not always associated with women.
- For example, through the lens of Goffman’s Gender Displays, the audience could see this as a chance to gaze upon her body. What may seem ironic is the fact that although those were the intentions of the publication, those intentions were supposed to be skewed in different direction. Biles’ body was not supposed to be looked at in a sexual manner, but to show that she can be just as strong as a man. The audience can look at her and physically see the reasons as to how she can perform at such a competitive, and elite level.
- Furthermore, the way in which Biles is positioned to stand in a “power pose” with her hands on her hips, shoulders back, chin up, etc. shows the confidence and courage that is most likely associated with men rather than women.
Through The Sex Role Perspective, this issue of Vogue can show how women can embody the same traits that are more commonly stereotyped with men.
Shared by: Sydney Zima
Image Credit: https://archive.vogue.com/issue/20200801