Tożsamość zakorzeniona w ciele: Pokoleniowe strategie kobiecego przywództwa w kulturze obnażania
Identity Rooted in the Body: Generational Strategies for Women’s Leadership in a Culture of Exposure

Summary/Abstract: The article examines corporeality as a tool of communication in women’s leadershipfrom a generational perspective. Its primary aim is to show how the female body, entangledin the norms of the culture of exposure, may be transformed into a resourceof agency, redefinition, and resistance. Through the prism of corporeality, the articleanalyzes transformations in the representation of women’s leadership within thecontext of changing visual culture.The culture of exposure, grounded in the paradoxical intertwining of eroticismand control, shapes both the representation of the female body and its socialreception. In this framework, the female body is treated both as an object of visualconsumption and as a space in which identity is negotiated. From this perspective,women leaders representing different generations adopt distinct strategies of corporealcommunication that arise from their specific forms of social embeddedness.For representatives of Generation X, the body functions as a symbolic sign of perseverance,longevity, and resistance to cultural constraints. The example of RuthBader Ginsburg demonstrates that corporeality remains restrained yet meaningful,inscribed within the institutional ethos of power. Generation Y leaders, such as JacindaArdern and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, deploy corporeality in ways integratedwith visual storytelling. Their media presence combines embodiment with emotionalauthenticity, accessibility, and the breaking of stereotypes. The body thus becomes asocial message, serving both to affirm femininity and to redefine leadership. In turn,representatives of Generation Z, operating in the conditions of convergent media andinstantaneous visual communication, treat corporeality performatively—as a flexibletool of expression, self-irony, and activism. The body of the Generation Z leader isno longer a stable symbol; rather, it becomes movement, change, and a response tocontext. The article presents corporeality as a dynamic field of meaning—not merelyan object of evaluation, but also a means of communication that assumes differentfunctions depending on the generation. This approach enables a reinterpretation offemale leadership as a phenomenon deeply rooted in the cultural semantics of thebody. The analysis of empirical cases shows that corporeality may function both as asource of oppression and as a tool of emancipation. In this way, the article contributesto an interdisciplinary reflection on the role of the body in the social constructionof women’s authority and identity within leadership culture.

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