Politics is one of the areas where gender inequality is observed. Various factors determine women to exist as leaders in the political field where male hegemony dominates. In society, women’s responsibilities in the household, inequality education and the dominant masculine language prepare the ground for the positioning of women as the other in the political field. Therefore, the images of women leaders in the political arena are defined as problematic. Even in the politics of the United States, a country among developed nations, women leaders are constructing their political images in parallel with masculine hegemony. The aim of the study is to exemplify the construction of the images of female political leaders within a masculine framework. Therefore, purposive sampling was used in the study. The Instagram accounts of Family and Social Services Minister Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş, the only female member of the Presidential Cabinet of the Republic of Türkiye, and Kamala Harris, the first female Vice President of the United States of African-American origin, are included in the sample. The last 10 posts of the women leaders selected as a sample dated June 2024 via their personal Instagram accounts were examined by semiotic analysis in accordance with the views of Roland Barthes. The evaluations conducted in this study have determined that even in developed countries, female leaders construct their political image in accordance with a masculine framework.
Keywords: Politics, Female Leader, Social Media, Image, Semiotics.