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Innovative essays that explore how men perform femininity and what femininity looks like without women
What counts as “male femininity”? Is it simply men behaving in effeminate ways or is it the absence of masculinity? Male Femininities presents a nuanced, critical collection of essays that highlight the extent to which male femininities are neither an imitation of femaleness nor an emptying of masculinity. These innovative essays focus on both gay and straight men, and transmasculine and genderqueer people in their construction and performance of femininity, thereby revealing the possibilities that open up when we critically examine femininity without women. Male Femininities asks, What does femininity look like for men?
The contributors—highly regarded scholars and rising stars—cover a range of topics, including drag queens, cosmetic enhancements, trans fertility, and gender-non-conforming childhoods. Male Femininities illuminates what happens when we decouple femininity from female bodies and how even the smallest cracks and fissures in the normative order can disrupt, challenge, and in some cases reaffirm our existing sex-gender regime. This volume pluralizes the concept of male femininities and leads readers through an exploration of how gender, sex, and sexuality are manifested in the United States today.
"Male Femininities explores the political potential of gender boundary crossing and encourages readers to see gender as distinct from sex and sexuality. Focusing on what happens when social rules are broken, each chapter reveals the variety of spaces in which gender can look different from what we might expect."
"Kudos to the editors for bringing together such engaging work – including compelling first-person narratives and theoretically- and historically-grounded ethnographic research – that illustrates a range of male femininities in action."
"Male Femininities comes at an opportune time as we experience rapid change and political disputes concerning gender...This volume seeks to explain male femininities by looking toward history, attempting to create definitions, exploring embodiment, unraveling performances/performativity, interrogating sexualities and sexual behaviors, and seeking to understand the role of institutions. Weaving together personal narratives and empirical studies, this collection provides a diverse look at an understudied subsect of gender."
— MC Whitlock
Dana Berkowitz is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Louisiana State University. She is the author of Botox Nation: Changing the Face of America.
Elroi J. Windsor (Editor)
Elroi J. Windsor is Professor of Sociology at the University of West Georgia, and co-editor of Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader.
C. Winter Han (Editor)
C. Winter Han is Professor of Sociology at Middlebury College. He is the author of Geisha of a Different Kind: Race and Sexuality in Gaysian America and Racial Erotics: Gay Men of Color, Sexual Racism, and the Politics of Desire.