ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author engages with gender and visuality in two ways: as representation and as performance. Building on Judith Butler's influential work on gender as performative and inspired by Raewyn Connell's work on masculinities, the author focuses on gender as a social practice that constantly refers to bodies, to what bodies do or don't do and to how bodies matter, visually. Drawing on Jenny Nordberg's book The Underground Girls of Kabul (2014), the author uses the cultural phenomenon of bacha posh in Afghanistan, a practice in which girls are brought up as boys, to demonstrate the visual politics of gender and sex. The author aims to show how visuality is not only essential to how gender is understood and communicated but also offers opportunities to challenge associated cultural practices. The chapter concludes by highlighting that we miss out on understanding key aspects of how global politics works unless we pay attention to visual logics of gender.
