ASSIGNMENT

Femininity and Masculinity

Submitted to: Dr. Pedada Durga Rao

Submitted by: Charudutt Poonia(11802100)
Introduction

Femininity and masculinity are acquired social identities: as individuals become

socialized, they develop a gender identity, an understanding of what it means
to be a ‘‘man’’ or a ‘‘woman’’. How individuals develop an understanding of
their gender identity, including whether they fit into these prescribed gender
roles, depends upon the context within which they are socialized and how they
view themselves in relation to societal gender norms. Class, racial, ethnic, and
national factors play heavily into how individuals construct their gender
identities and how they are perceived externally (hooks 2004). Gender
identities are often naturalized; that is, they rely on a notion of biological
difference, ‘‘so that ‘natural’ femininity encompasses, for example,
motherhood, being nurturing, a desire for pretty clothes and the exhibition of
emotions’’. ‘‘Natural’’ masculinity, in contrast, may encompass fatherhood,
acting ‘‘tough,’’ a desire for sports and competition, and hiding emotions. In
both cases, these constructions of gender identity are based on stereotypes
that fall within the range of normative femininities and masculinities. Yet, as
many sociologists have pointed out, not all individuals fit within these
prescribed norms and as such, masculinities and femininities must be
recognized as socially constituted, fluid, wide ranging, and historically and
geographically differentiated.

What Scholar Says

Feminist scholars have long addressed the social construction of femininities,

particularly in the context of gender inequality and power. Early second wave
feminist scholars such as Simone de Beauvoir (1980) argued that women’s
subordinated status in western societies was due to socialization rather than to
any essential biological gender difference, as evidenced in her often cited
phrase, ‘‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.’’ Many feminist
scholars in Anglo Saxon and European countries have emphasized social
construction over biological difference as an explanation for women’s ways of
being, acting, and knowing in the world and for their related gender
subordination. Some feminist scholars have addressed the social construction
of femininities as a way to explain wage inequality, the global ‘‘feminization of
poverty,’’ and women’s relegation to ‘‘feminine’’ labour markets and to the so
called private realm of the household and family. Because feminists were
primarily concerned with the question of women’s subordination, masculinities
themselves were rarely analysed except in cases where scholars sought an
explanation for male aggression or power. Likewise, hegemonic femininity was
emphasized over alternative femininities such that the experiences of women
who did not fit into socially prescribed gender roles were either left
unexamined or viewed through the normative lens of gender dualisms
(Halberstam 1998).

Particularly since the 1980s, at least three areas of research on gender identity
have helped shift the debate on femininities and masculinities:

(1) masculinity studies, which emerged primarily in the 1980s and 1990s.

(2) queer studies and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) studies,
including the pivotal research of Butler (1990).

(3) gender, race, ethnic, and postcolonial studies, a trajectory of scholarship in

which researchers have long critiqued hegemonic forms of masculinity and
femininity on the basis that these racialized constructions helped reinforce the
criminalization and subordination of racial/ethnic minorities in industrialized
societies and the colonization of both men and women in poor and/or non-
western regions.

In contrast to feminist scholarship that focused primarily on women’s

experiences with femininity, Connell’s (1987) research on ‘‘hegemonic
masculinity and emphasized femininity’’ was among the first to systematically
analyse both sets of constructions as they contribute to global gender
inequality. Connell argues ‘‘hegemonic masculinity,’’ a type of masculinity
oriented toward accommodating the interests and desires of men, forms the
basis of patriarchal social orders. Similarly, ‘‘emphasized femininity,’’ a
hegemonic form of femininity, is ‘‘defined around compliance with [female]
sub ordination and is oriented to accommodating the interests and desires of
men’’. Borrowing from Gramsci’s analysis of class hegemony and struggle,
Connell develops a framework for understanding multiple competing
masculinities and femininities. He argues that hegemonic masculinity is always
constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as well as in
relation to women. Thus, for example, non-European, poor, non-white, and/or
gay men tend to experience subordinated masculinities, whereas men of
middle class European, white, and/or heterosexual backgrounds tend to
benefit from the privileges of hegemonic masculinity.

Especially since the 1980s, scholars of masculinity studies have produced

innovative research on various aspects of men’s lives and experiences.
Messner (1992), for example, examines men’s identifications with sports as an
example of how masculinities are constructed and maintained. Messner
analyzes the ‘‘male viewer’’ of today’s most popular spectator sports in terms
of the mythology and symbolism of masculine identification: common themes
he encounters in his research include patriotism, militarism, violence, and
meritocracy. Scholars of gay masculinities have addressed how gay men of
various ethnic, racial, class, and national backgrounds have negotiated
hegemonic masculinity, sometimes in contradictory ways, and constructed
alternative masculinities through their everyday lives.

Importantly, research on hegemonic masculinities sheds light on how and why

masculinity has been largely ‘‘invisible’’ in the lives of men who benefit from
hegemonic masculinity and in the field of women’s/gender studies, which
tends to focus on the experiences of women. Although there are obvious
reasons why the field of women’s/gender studies has focused primarily on
women, since women experience gender inequalities more than men, scholars
increasingly have pointed out that male socialization processes and identities,
as well as masculinist institutions and theories, should be examined as a way to
rethink gender inequality. As Kimmel (2002) notes: ‘‘The ‘invisibility’ of
masculinity in discussions of [gender] has political dimensions. The processes
that confer privilege on one group and not another group are often invisible to
those upon whom that privilege is conferred. Thus, not having to think about
race is one of the luxuries of being white, just as not having to think about
gender is one of the ‘patriarchal dividends’ of gender inequality.’’

Judith Butler’s research on gender performativity has opened space for

discussion about the naturalized linking of gender identity, the body, and
sexual desire. Butler (1990) argues feminism has made a mistake by trying to
assert that ‘‘women’’ are a group with common characteristics and interests.
Like socio biologists, feminists who rely exclusively on a sociocultural
explanation of gender identity construction also fall prey to essentialism. Many
individuals, especially those who define as ‘‘queer’’ or as lesbian, gay, bisexual,
or trans gendered, do not experience gender identity, embodiment, and sexual
desire through the dominant norms of gender and heterosexuality. Influenced
by Foucault, Butler suggests, like Connell, that certain cultural configurations of
gender have seized a hegemonic hold. She calls for subversive action in the
present: ‘‘gender trouble,’’ the mobilization, subversive confusion, and
proliferation of genders, and therefore identity. This idea of identity as free
floating and not connected to an ‘‘essence’’ is one of the key ideas expressed
in queer theory.

Butler and other queer theorists have addressed how normative femininities
and masculinities play a role in disciplining the lives of LGBT individuals.
Halberstam’s (1998) research addresses constructions of ‘‘female masculinity’’
and argues that scholars must separate discussions of gender identity from
discussions of the body. Women can ‘‘act masculine’’ just as men can ‘‘act
feminine’’; how individuals identify in terms of their gender is not and should
not be linked to their biological anatomies, however defined. Halberstam’s
own research addresses how masculine identified women experience gender,
the stratification of masculinities, and the public emergence of other genders.
Other scholars have examined how medical and scientific institutions have
managed normative gender identities through psychological protocols and
surgical intervention. This type of research points toward a broader
understanding of gender that places dualistic conceptions of ‘‘masculine’’ vs.
‘‘feminine’’ and ‘‘male’’ vs. ‘‘female’’ into question.

Scholars of race, ethnic, and postcolonial studies have addressed how

normative femininities and masculinities, which tend to benefit those with
racial/ethnic privilege, help rein force a racialized social order in which
subordinated groups are demasculinized or feminized in ways that maintain
their racial/ethnic sub ordination in society. One example involves the
stereotyping of African American men as unruly and hypersexual. The ‘‘myth of
the male rapist,’’ as Davis (2001) has discussed, has played a highly destructive
role in black men’s lives and has influenced legal, political, and social actions
toward them, including their disproportionate criminalization for rape, often
based on fraudulent charges. Another example concerns immigrant men
racialized as minorities in the US. Thai (2002) illustrates how working-class
Vietnamese American men have developed innovative strategies to achieve
higher status in their communities by marrying middle to upper class
Vietnamese women and bringing them to the US. Faced with few marriage
options and low paying jobs in the US, working class Vietnamese American
men who experience a form of subordinated masculinity seek upward mobility
through these transnational marriage networks.

Women of colour in the US and working-class women in developing countries

also face unequal access to hegemonic femininity, as defined in western terms.
Hill Collins (2004) addresses how African American women have been
hypersexualized in US popular culture, thereby placing them outside the realm
of normative femininity according to hegemonic white, western standards.
Postcolonial studies scholars have demonstrated how poor women in
developing regions (particularly non-white women) have been sexualized by
male tourists from industrialized countries and sometimes also by local men.
More broadly, scholars of masculinities and femininities have pointed out how
constructions of masculinities and femininities are embedded in social
institutions, processes and shape individuals’ everyday experiences and
gendered self-perceptions.

Critics have defended normative femininity and masculinity on religious, moral,

and/or biological grounds. Some, for example, have argued that these social
norms are ‘‘naturally’’ aligned with men’s and women’s assumed biological
roles in reproduction and/or with their assumed heterosexual desire. On all
sides of the ideological spectrum, individuals have participated in interesting
political responses and social movements that either embrace or challenge
dominant societal constructions of masculinity and femininity. Some women
have joined feminist movements and challenged traditional notions of
femininity; whereas other women have joined right wing women’s movements
that embrace

traditional gender roles and identities. Men have formed feminist men’s
movements, based largely on the principles of women’s feminist movements,
as well as movements to embrace traditional notions of fatherhood, as in the
divergent examples of the Christian based Promise Keepers and the Million
Man Marches, first organized in 1995 by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan
and attended by over 800,000 African American men as part of a movement to
reclaim black masculinity.

Conclusion

Future research on femininities and masculinities will likely be influenced by

the recent scholarship in the fields of masculinity studies, queer theory and
LGBT studies, and race, ethnic, and postcolonial studies. Although scholars vary
in their disciplinary backgrounds and methodological approaches to the study
of femininities and masculinities, most would agree that femininities and
masculinities can be seen as sets of rules or norms that govern female and
male behaviour, appearance, and self-image.

REFERENCES

1. Butler, (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.

Routledge, New York.

2. Connell, W. (1987) Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics.
Stanford University Press, Palo Alto.

3. Connell, W. (1997) Hegemonic Masculinity and Emphasized Femininity. In:

Richardson, L., Taylor, V., & Whittier, N. (Eds.), Feminist Frontiers IV. McGraw-Hill,
New York, pp. 22-5.

4. Davis, (2001) Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist. In: Bhavnani, K.-K.
(Ed.), Feminism and ‘‘Race.’’ Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 50-64.

5. de Beauvoir, (1980 [1952]) The Second Sex. Random House/Alfred Knopf, New
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6. European Graduate School (EGS) (2005) Judith

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11. Halberstam, (1998) Female Masculinity. Duke University Press, Durham, NC.

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13. hooks, b. (2004) We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. Routledge, New

14. Kimmel, (2002) Foreword. In: Cleaver, F. (Ed.), Masculinities Matter! Men, Gender
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16. Lorber, (1994) Paradoxes of Gender. Yale University Press, New Haven.

17. Messner, A. (1992) Power at Play. Beacon Press, Boston.

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