Beyond the silhouette: Meanings and manifestations of femininity among Indian and Pakistani immigrant women in the United States

Abstract

Click on the DOI link to access this article at the publishers website (may not be free).Indian and Pakistani diasporas in the United States are one of the fastest growing immigrant communities, yet there is infrequent examination of the meaning immigrant women attach to their gender and the ways their femininity manifests in everyday life. Drawing from transnational feminism theory, the present study examines the meaning( s) and manifestations of femininity among Indian and Pakistani immigrant women through analyzing their (a) narratives detailing the meaning women attach to their femininity and (b) self-selected photos illustrating the ways femininity manifests in their lives. Semistructured interviews with a photo-elicitation portion were conducted with 17 participants. We used reflexive thematic analysis to analyze women’s narratives and textual–visual thematic analysis to analyze the photos participating women shared to elaborate their ideas about femininity. Our findings illustrate Indian and Pakistani immigrant women’s meaning and manifestations of femininity through four overarching themes: relationality, nurturing oneself and others, embodiment, and negotiating and creating pluralities. This study makes theoretical contributions to the literature on immigrant women’s understanding of gender and transnational feminism theory by theorizing transnational women’s femininity at the intersections of changing cultures and contexts. Methodologically, the use of the photo-elicitation component in tandem with in-depth interviews elevated the inherent meaning-making process of qualitative research by enabling opportunities to cocreate knowledge about femininity with immigrant women. © 2025 American Psychological AssociationUniversity of CincinnatiNabiha Chaudhary received financial support from two sources for the research presented in this article: the University of Cincinnati University Research Council Graduate Support Program and the Grants-in-Aids program by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues