Feminist Disability Studies Athletes’ Self-Representation on Instagram
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9584-2025v33n2105335Keywords:
Gender, Disability, Sport, Paralympic Athletes, InstagramAbstract
Feminist Disability Studies show us that sports are an arena marked by male bodies without disabilities, and within this arena the media plays a fundamental role in reinforcing gender stereotypes and normativity. On the other hand, Paralympic athletes have increasingly used social media to self-represent themselves and take control of the narrative about their bodies, stories and disabilities. Using content analysis, we sought to explore the forms of self-representation made by two Paralympic athletes, one Brazilian and one American, on Instagram, focusing on their representations related to the triad: gender, disability and sport. Our results indicate that the Brazilian represents herself first as an athlete, reinforcing the standards of femininity without, however, hiding her disability, while the American chooses to focus on her identity as a woman.
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