Owning and Disowning the Female Body: Mediating Gender and the Conservative Values Clash in Kazakhstan

Abstract

This article analyzes contemporary gender representation and perception in Kazakhstan’s public sphere and the sexualization of social media required by the market economy. Through the example of a female social media influencer, Aizhan Baizakova, and her ambivalent public success, it analyzes gender and sexuality as the product of contradictory power orders: the traditional patriarchal system and retraditionalization in the name of nationhood, on the one hand, and the Soviet legacy of putting women into the labor market and the post-Soviet capitalist logic, on the other. It explores how women find themselves caught between two forms of illiberalism: a market-driven one pushing for evermore provocative online content and a conservative backlash in terms of gender roles.