Few sociological texts have been as influential in the study of human interaction as Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). Through theatrical metaphors, Goffman examines how individuals perform different roles in their daily interactions, distinguishing between the identities they present to others and those they inhabit in private. Central to his theory is the concept of the "backstage," a space in which individuals can step away from their performances and exist without an audience. Art critic John Berger explores a related question of self-identity in Ways of Seeing (1972), examining how representations of women in art shape the ways women perceive themselves. For Berger, the persistent male gaze encourages women to understand themselves as both the subjects and objects of observation. Although neither Goffman nor Berger could have anticipated the internet as a new dimension of self-expression, their theories offer a compelling framework for understanding how women construct and negotiate identity online. Examined together, their work reveals a central paradox of digital identity: although the internet appears to offer freedom from the constraints of physical identity, a woman's online existence remains profoundly shaped by her gender, even in spaces that promise anonymity.
In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman likens human interaction to a theatrical production, casting the individual as an actor performing for an audience. His theory rests on the idea that people assume different roles according to the social situations they encounter, whether speaking with a colleague, addressing an authority figure, or celebrating with family. These performances may be calculated, unconscious, or automatic, but the individual is nevertheless always performing. To navigate social life successfully, people move between roles while adhering to what Goffman calls the "definition of the situation," a shared understanding of the behavior expected within a particular setting. In a classroom, for example, students know to sit, listen, and engage with their instructor, just as the instructor understands the expectations of their own role. Neither party needs explicit direction because the situation has already been collectively defined. When someone disrupts this understanding, such as a student who misbehaves, others respond in ways that preserve or restore the established social order. They may ignore the disruption or address it directly, signaling that the student has failed to perform their role appropriately. For Goffman, such negotiations are fundamental to nearly every level of social interaction.
While Goffman presents the world as a stage populated by performers and audiences, he also identifies a "backstage" where individuals can temporarily abandon their roles. The backstage exists wherever the performer is removed from the audience, allowing them to step out of character without undermining the credibility of their performance. This distinction raises an important question about self-identity: who is the individual when no one is watching? Although one might argue that even our private selves are performances, Goffman's framework suggests that the absence of an audience permits a different relationship to identity, one less constrained by the expectations of others. The distinction between frontstage and backstage therefore offers a way to understand not only how individuals behave in social situations, but also how their sense of self changes when they are alone.
Yet the ability to move between these spaces is not necessarily experienced equally. Race, gender, and sexual orientation can all influence the roles available to an individual and the expectations governing their performance. Where Goffman's analysis offers a broad account of social interaction, John Berger's Ways of Seeing (1972) provides a more specific examination of how gender shapes self-perception. Originally developed as a television series, Ways of Seeing investigates how art, particularly European oil painting and modern advertising, has historically positioned women as objects of visual consumption. Berger argues that women have been taught to understand their appearance through the perspective of an imagined male observer. In his discussion of the female nude, he describes how the woman's body is presented for the viewer's pleasure rather than as an expression of her own subjectivity. This dynamic anticipates what film theorist Laura Mulvey would later conceptualize as the "male gaze": a visual framework in which women are positioned as objects of heterosexual male desire.
Berger's argument, however, extends beyond how men look at women to examine how women learn to look at themselves. He writes:
"A woman is always accompanied, except when quite alone, and perhaps even then, by her own image of herself. While she is walking across a room or weeping at the death of her father, she cannot avoid envisioning herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood, she is taught and persuaded to survey herself continually."
— John Berger, Ways of Seeing
Through the consumption of images in painting, photography, film, and advertising, women learn to internalize the perspective through which they are represented. They come to occupy two positions simultaneously: the person being observed and the observer evaluating that person. This relationship complicates Goffman's distinction between performance and privacy. For women, the audience need not be physically present to influence behavior; the expectation of being watched has already been internalized. Whether walking across a room or grieving in private, as Berger suggests, a woman may remain conscious of how she appears. To be a woman is, in this sense, to anticipate observation, and to anticipate observation is to perform. The backstage becomes increasingly difficult to access when the audience exists not only outside the individual, but within her own understanding of herself.
German sociologist Georg Simmel explores another dimension of this relationship in his essay "Female Culture," examining how women negotiate their existence within a historically male-dominated society. Simmel argues that what is broadly understood as "culture" has largely been defined by men, who have historically controlled its institutions and forms of expression. Women, often confined to domestic and socially segregated spaces, consequently developed what he describes as a distinct "female culture." His analysis offers a useful foundation for considering the emergence of the internet, a space in which conventional markers of identity can seemingly be obscured or abandoned altogether.
Unlike the physical world, the internet permits individuals to construct identities that may bear little resemblance to their offline selves. Through anonymity, pseudonyms, or the adoption of alternate personas, users can participate in online communities without disclosing their gender, race, appearance, or other identifying characteristics. At first glance, this flexibility suggests the possibility of escaping the social expectations attached to one's physical identity. If culture has historically been constructed through male-dominated institutions, as Simmel argues, the anonymity of the internet would appear to offer women an opportunity to participate in that culture without being immediately defined by their gender. A woman who posts anonymously, or presents herself as a man, might theoretically encounter the same expectations and opportunities as any other user. Yet this possibility rests on the assumption that anonymity can meaningfully separate a woman's identity from the social meanings attached to her body.
The internet also introduces new dimensions to Goffman's theatrical framework. If everyday social life resembles a stage, the digital world operates simultaneously as a stage, a mirror, and a panopticon. Michel Foucault's discussion of the panopticon, a structure in which individuals regulate their behavior because they may be watched at any moment, is particularly relevant to online identity. Social media profiles remain accessible even when their owners are absent, while digital activity can be tracked, recorded, and revisited. The possibility of an enduring audience encourages users to monitor and curate their behavior. At the same time, the internet functions as a mirror, reflecting back an identity that the individual has constructed and made available for public consumption. Yet this reflection does not constitute a true backstage. Even when a user exercises considerable control over their online persona, that persona remains subject to the expectations and interpretations of others. The internet may expand the possibilities of self-presentation, but it does not necessarily provide an escape from performance.
These tensions are especially visible in anonymous online communities, where users ostensibly exist without the identifying characteristics that ordinarily inform social interaction. Imageboards such as 4chan occupy a peculiar space in which identity can be reduced almost entirely to the content of an individual's contributions. Without a name, photograph, or recognizable personal history, what determines the role that an individual is expected to perform? And if gender is no longer visible, can it continue to shape the definition of the situation?
One of 4chan's most notorious expressions offers a revealing answer: "There are no girls on the internet." The phrase, widely circulated throughout anonymous online culture, suggests that womanhood is either irrelevant or incompatible with participation in these spaces. Its accompanying demand, "tits or get the fuck out," requires users who identify themselves as women to provide photographic evidence of their bodies (Know Your Meme). In this formulation, a woman's claim to identity is insufficient on its own; her gender must be made physically visible to be acknowledged. A widely circulated 4chan post elaborates on the reasoning behind this demand, arguing that women receive attention in everyday life because of their sexual desirability, an advantage supposedly eliminated by the anonymity of the internet. The author concludes:
"The one way around this rule, the one way you can get your 'girlness' back on the Internet, is to post your tits."
— Quoted in Know Your Meme; Milner
This statement exposes a striking contradiction within the supposed neutrality of anonymous online spaces. On the one hand, the absence of visible gender is presented as a condition of equality: users should be judged by their contributions rather than their physical identities. On the other, the moment a woman identifies herself as such, her participation becomes subject to scrutiny. Her claim to womanhood is interpreted as a demand for sexual attention, and the legitimacy of that claim is made contingent upon displaying her body. In effect, the woman is presented with two choices: remain anonymous and allow her gender to be erased, or disclose her gender and become an object of sexual consumption. What appears to be freedom from physical identity instead reveals the persistence of the expectations attached to it.
Through this example, Berger's observations about the relationship between femininity and spectatorship take on new significance. The anonymous woman is not necessarily being watched in the literal sense, nor is her physical appearance available for judgment. Nevertheless, the possibility of her gender being disclosed is enough to reproduce the dynamics of the male gaze. The demand for photographic proof reasserts the body as the defining feature of female identity, even in a space where the body is otherwise absent. Anonymity does not eliminate the structures through which women are understood; rather, it exposes how readily those structures are reinstated.
Goffman's concept of the "definition of the situation" is equally useful here. In an anonymous forum, users collectively establish the norms that govern participation, just as the students and teachers in Goffman's classroom understand their expected roles. Yet when a user identifies herself as a woman, the definition of the situation changes. Her contributions may no longer be assessed solely on their content, but through assumptions about her gender and sexuality. The audience, rather than the performer alone, determines the terms under which her identity becomes intelligible. Even in a space designed to obscure personal identity, the social expectations governing womanhood remain remarkably difficult to escape.
Ultimately, the internet complicates rather than dissolves the relationship between identity, performance, and observation. Through Berger's framework, women can be understood as occupying the positions of both performer and audience, having internalized the gaze through which they are continually evaluated. Through Goffman's, the expectations of an audience shape the roles available to an individual and the boundaries between public performance and private identity. The example of 4chan demonstrates how these processes persist even when conventional markers of identity are removed. A woman's gender, whether visible, concealed, or merely asserted, can fundamentally alter the terms of her participation. The internet may offer unprecedented freedom to construct and experiment with identity, but that freedom remains constrained by the social structures through which identity is recognized. For women, the possibility of anonymity does not necessarily mean the possibility of escaping the gaze.
Berger, John, and Michael Dibb. Ways of Seeing. London: BBC Enterprises, 1972.
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1959.
“Tits or GTFO.” Know Your Meme, 5 Nov. 2019, knowyourmeme.com/memes/tits-or-gtfo.
Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
R.M. Milner. The World Made Meme: Public conversations and participatory media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2016.
Simmel, Georg, David Frisby, and Mike Featherstone. Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings. London: Sage Publications, 1997.