Doxa androcentric language and online feminism. Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis on how feminist Instagram users challenge taken-for-granted sexist and gendered language

Language is taken for granted because it is so deeply ingrained in our lives. As a result, underlying structures that our language entails are unconsciously reinforced by the use of it. Much of our language contains sexist structures that focus on male dominance or gendered language that excludes a group that does not identify themselves within the binary gender spectrum. One way to raise awareness about this matter is feminist activism on Instagram. Online feminism comes in different forms and there is a special branch that focuses on language and the inequality it produces. This thesis therefore answers the research question: 'How do feminist Instagram users discursively challenge the sexist and gendered power structures within language on Instagram?'. A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) was conducted among 150 Instagram posts that contained a form of challenging the sexist and gendered structures within language that often create power discrepancies between men and women. MCDA consists of both a visual analysis of the content and a discourse analysis of the content. Four main themes, each with two sub-themes, emerged from the analysis. Frist, the feminist Instagram users challenged sexist and gendered language by exposing gender inequality in the workspace. This emerged from posts regarding gendered job names and the seeming progressiveness of companies as well as by exposing gender inequality on the work floor itself. The second theme encountered revealing how masculine terms are used as generics. This emerges from the posts in exposing words that contain ‘man’ but are nevertheless used as gender neutral and revealing masculine appellations as inclusive for every gender. The third theme that emerged from the analysis includes language that assigns labels that reinforce gender stereotypes. The theme is constructed in the first place by posts that encounter masculine women and feminine men and how not conforming to stereotypical gender norms is regarded deviant and in the second place by feminine stereotyping and shaming the deviancies. The fourth and last theme includes stereotypical expressions. This includes feminist posts that place the narrative on the victim as well as masculine features as a symbol of dominance. The conclusion on this thesis points to feminist Instagram users discursively challenging the sexist and gendered structures within language, by exposing, criticizing and rephrasing taken-for-granted language structures and educating the audience on alternatives that can be incorporated as substitutes.