Epistemic Gender, Sex Beyond the Flesh: Science, Medicine, and the Two-Sex Model in Modern America
Howard Hsueh-Hao Chiang
In Making Sex (1990), Thomas Laqueur broaches the shifting conceptualization of sex in Western civilization from the one-sex model, in which men and women are thought to be two versions of a single-sexed body, to the two-sex model, which treats men and women as opposite counterparts. In this paper, I situate within the context of modern America a specific relationship between sex and gender, on the one hand, and science and medicine, on the other, that we do not learn from Laqueur. Specifically, I show that although Laqueur ends with a careful analysis of Freud, one of the main themes he fails to highlight is the emergence of a psychological style of reasoning about gender at the turn of the twentieth century. Early sexologists began to study human erotic desire in an unprecedented manner around that time, and gender was no longer determined only through reference to anatomical biology. More importantly, though, gender was perceived for the first time in history to have a psychological basis in congruence with an individual's sense of inner self. Having added a new psychological dimension to their understanding of gender, scientific and medical understandings of sex and gender took on a particular presence of their own, and their role became central to the cultural shaping of modern gender politics and epistemology in the context of the twentieth century United States.
The Question of Power and Authority in Gender Performance
Charlotte Coles
Drag raises the question of power and authority in gender performance today. Some see its performance as patronizing and insulting while others see it as a subversive and liberative act. This paper uses Judith Butler's work as the starting point for a discussion of drag's potential as a strategy to transgress the authority of gender norms. Drag brings a certain ambivalence to our discussion of gender and can highlight the need to accept in all feminist strategies the diversity and plurality of the gendered, classed, racial and sexualized female experience. Nonetheless, this coexists with an amplification of gender norms due to drag's full meaning in a world of gender hierarchies. Butler's work on drag brings into focus four themes relating to power and authority in the performance of gender: the disintegration of the subject 'women', the creation of new gender narratives, the denaturalization of the body and the breakdown of compulsory heterosexuality. Thus Butler's arguments make problematic the very categories we use to understand gender. In so doing, drag represents a site of gender confusion but not absolute transgression, as it is not possible to fully escape the dynamics of power and authority in relation to the performance of gender.
Masculinity Versus Femininity: An Overriding Dichotomy in the Music of Soviet Composer Galina Ustvolskaya
Rachel Foulds
Galina Ivanova Ustvolskaya established herself as one of the most dynamic composers emerging from twentieth century Russia, achieving both national and international recognition and success. However, it has only been over the past half century that female composers have managed to prominently surface from the male-dominated musical canon. This in itself requires a complicated enquiry: what are the sociological and political factors that have prevented the prevalence of female composers in the past? Is there a universal disparity between the musical language employed and implemented by each gender? If there is an overriding distinction, how can women possibly accomplish due credit within a tradition defined by 'male' values?
This investigation is furthered through an evaluation of Ustvolskaya's life. From her birth in 1919 until her death in 2006, Ustvolskaya's life spanned a tumultuous period in Russian history where the traditional role of women was disrupted on a sociological, political and ideological level. Ustvolskaya's personal struggle with a significant man in her life - her teacher and colleague Dmitiri Shostakovich - is also considered as a direct influence on her musical approach. This article aims to evaluate the effect of this turbulent climate on her position, both personally and professionally, as well as to scrutinize her musical language to observe any truths in the subject of archetypal 'masculine' or 'feminine' gestures.
Villainous Victims: The Paradox of the 'Damaged' Man in Naked and Nil By Mouth
Sarah Godfrey
The violent, misogynistic damaged man became a key trope of masculinity in nineties British cinema as men increasingly found their social, economic and familial power eroded by the ravages of post-industrialization and called into question by feminist politics. The consequences of these developments alone were enough to spark widespread claims that men were 'in crisis': somehow damaged by virtue of their gender and powerless to exert any influence over their destinies. This article explores two instances of the cinematic damaged man and deliberates the relationship between feminism, gender and the disempowered masculinities of post-industrial Britain. It seeks to place the narratives of damage within the wider cultural context of a 'feminized' world which had eroded and undermined the power of these men. Linking the trope of damaged masculinity to a specifically 'underclass' discourse, the paper draws together some of the main themes around men and crisis that emerged both in British culture and cinema during the nineties.
Feminised Idolatry and The Subversion of Religious Orthodoxy in John Bale's Three Laws
Brian Gourley
Judith Butler's definition of sex/gender as an essentially corporeal medium that creates cultural and political significance and meaning is a useful starting point for a consideration of the representation of idolatry in the writings of the Reformation playwright and polemicist John Bale. Taking as its central focus the carnivalesque figure of Idolatry in the festive morality play Three Laws, and a critical approach primarily informed by Butler and the works of Natalie Zemon Davis, Michel Foucault and Mikhail Bakhtin amongst others, this paper will examine how Bale uses the concept of feminised idolatry as a way of undermining the authority of Roman Catholic religious orthodoxy and consequently of promoting the power interests of the Tudor dynasty. Simultaneously, this paper illustrates how idolatry is vital to the advancement of Bale's personal agenda of radical reform - an agenda which illustrates the radical divergence of voices in the English Reformations. Key to this paper will be the illustration of how transgressive Idolatry follows in medieval traditions of grotesque females as exemplified in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales or John Lydgate's translation of Guillaume de Deguileville's Le Pelerinage de la vie Humaine (The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man).
The Queer Uncanny
Olu Jenzen
Using Freud's 1919 essay on various manifestations of the uncanny as a starting point, this article considers the relationship between the queer and the uncanny. It focuses on how the 'queer uncanny' may offer new ways of problematically posing notions of both ontological stability and normality, and furthermore, may work to disrupt definitions of gender and sexuality in relation to what constitutes the human. The article seeks to show how we may conceptualize the queer uncanny through its confrontation of a heteronormative category of the real. The article focuses in particular on anxieties about ontological boundaries and their relation to gender ambivalence in light of the contemporary theoretical writings of Judith Butler and Sue-Ellen Case. Then it moves to investigate the metaphor of 'the closet' as a materialization of heteronormative domination, as theorized by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, to consider its uncanny presence in the domestic space. Finally, through the notion of the uncanny, this article suggests we may also attempt a queer critical reading that, following Sue-Ellen Case's theoretical encouragement, works 'at the site of ontology' rather than in a gender and identity politics hinged on representation.
Femininity, Masculinity and Fear of Crime within Heterosexual Relationships
Clare Kinsella
This paper is a report of a small scale piece of primary research on the nature and effects of male altruistic fear of crime within heterosexual relationships. Traditionally, research on the fear of crime focuses on women and has repeatedly discovered evidence of fearful women whilst implicitly assuming that men are fearless. Feminist researchers have found that women manage their fear of crime by developing strategies to maximize their feelings of safety. Meanwhile, patriarchal ideology dictates that men should be chivalrous towards women and casts them in the role of 'protector'. However, as women are statistically more likely to experience a violent crime at the hands of a man well known to them, this ideology potentially maximizes women's vulnerability. Attempting to move beyond the fearful women/fearless men dichotomy, the piece considers altruistic fear of crime, or fear that a significant other or loved one will become a victim of crime, among heterosexual men. It is posited that men's altruistic fear of crime for female partners is exacerbated by women's socializing and specifically their use of alcohol. Further, men's altruistic fear of crime is identified as indicative of a broader masculine insecurity. Thus the piece demonstrates the ways in which personal fear of crime is a component of appropriate femininity and altruistic fear of crime is a component of hegemonic masculinity.
Grace Aguilar's 'Edict': Empowering Domesticity in 'The Edict: A Tale of 1492'
Kathrine Mercedes Klein
Literature of the Spanish Inquisition by English writers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries confronts English religious intolerance. Anti-Catholic literature, a genre taken up by authors and authoresses alike, was an overwhelming presence reflective of a peculiarly English sentiment during this period, even in literature that did not outwardly claim to focus on religious values. However, within these intolerant writings another battle was simultaneously being waged: the female voice and female values versus the male voice and male values. Through the literary Gothic, women subverted their status as human and religious inferiors and gained access to justice and self-empowerment in ways that they otherwise could not.
Although reference to the female Gothic conjures up the names of Ann Radcliffe or Clara Reeve, I would like to suggest that Grace Aguilar's (1816-1847) early literature, written in the spirit of her contemporaries, encourages a discussion of race, politics and gender. Aguilar's use of the Spanish Inquisition in her early writing enabled her to initiate a dialogue with early nineteenth century gender discourse and address contemporary issues through a romanticized vision of a politically charged past. As an Anglo-Jewess, Aguilar wrote across nationalities and races to create a unique and empowering image of the domestic woman for both the Jewish and Gentile women readers of her day. 'The Edict' (1844), Aguilar's first published text, is her statement that a woman's sacrifices for her faith and religious spirit will be rewarded.
Approaches to Gender, Power and Authority in Contemporary Anarcho-punk: Poststructuralist Anarchism?
Lucy Nicholas
This paper is concerned with the gender politics of the contemporary international anarchist punk scene which seemingly extends the punk 'DIY' ethic to gender. This extension results in politics that seek to deconstruct gender as a site of authority and reconstruct it in autonomous non-hierarchical terms. Contemporary anarcho-punk and hardcore politics often engage with gender politics in a way that demonstrates congruence between understandings of power and authority in poststructuralist accounts of gender and the anti-authoritarian or autonomous politics of this anarchism. The congruence is reflected in the domains considered to be 'political', in the way the term 'power' is understood, as well as in the modes of political action and 'resistance' considered effective. I suggest that DIY anarcho-punk shares with poststructuralism a productive notion of power, specifically in terms of gender, that resonates with the Butlerian notion of gender as a process or performative. Further, I explain that intervention is undertaken at discursive levels, resonating with poststructuralist assertions of the discursive productivity of power.
The Masculinization Project of Hospital Birth Practices and Hollywood Comedies
Shira Segal
What happens to men's masculinity in the event of childbirth and new fatherhood? In the face of demasculinization by the 'sensitive man' movement of the 1990s combined with the empowering yet simultaneously disempowering role for fathers in the medical birth setting since the 1970s, the ways men negotiate masculinity during childbirth is historically and contemporarily complex. Visual representations in film reveal masculinity at work in childbirth for either fathers or the medical institutions; Hollywood comedies situate the labouring mother within an institutionalized hierarchy of patriarchal power in the hospital.
By placing the mother under the male control of either her husband or the medical institution, as directed by prepared childbirth models adopted by hospitals (like the Lamaze Method), medicalized childbirth in Hollywood comedies function as a complicated pro-masculine project that works both for and against fathers. I have labelled this process - as reflected and reinforced in Hollywood - the masculinization project of hospital childbirth practices.
Larger questions include whether power equates masculinity, if traditional stereotypes of masculinity are actually harmful, and how pregnancy and especially birth in preparation for the emotional aspects of fatherhood may function as a 'softening' of traditional masculinity as posited by the 'real man' movement. The masculinization project manifests itself in film through the empowerment of the medical institution, the demasculinization of the individual, and the medicalization and control of the labouring woman's body. The failure of individual masculinity in the face of childbirth is a common theme, and I situate this in the larger social and medical discourses surrounding pregnancy and paternity.
A Discourse Study of Gender and Leadership in The Apprentice
Matthew Sung
In this paper, I examine the gendered representation of leadership in the debut season of the American reality television show The Apprentice. Drawing on the methods of discourse analysis, I analyze the leadership styles that a male and a female contestant employ in 'doing leadership'. In particular, in presenting my detailed micro-analyses of the interactions I pay attention to the linguistic devices and discursive strategies that make up their leadership styles. I suggest that they are shown to display different styles of leadership in The Apprentice which are in accordance with the traditionally dichotomous gendered expectations: while men's leadership style is characterized by directness and authoritativeness, women's leadership style emphasizes group consensus and relational goals. I argue that such gender-stereotypic representations in The Apprentice not only reinforce and reproduce the traditional gender stereotypes, but also confirm the existence of the differences between men and women. As a result of the gender differences exemplified by the differential leadership styles and the incompatibility of the feminine discourse style with the commonly conceived notion of leadership, the way the male and female project manager are represented with regard to their leadership styles and abilities in The Apprentice contributes to naturalizing women as unsuitable and incompetent in 'doing leadership'. Finally, I also suggest that the gendered composition of the group is the main reason for the gender differences found in the performance of leadership within the same-sex teams in The Apprentice.
Why Women Fell: Representing the Sexual Lapse in Mid-Victorian Art
Jessica Webb
While nineteenth century society advocated the idea of the virginal angel in the home, their art is overrun with images of the sexualized woman. What is perplexing, however, is not simply this strange fascination with visualizing the fallen woman, but the predominantly male insistence upon explaining and justifying her sexual lapse. Indeed, this article examines the subtle, complex and roundabout ways in which the reasons for female sexuality are presented in paintings of the period. Although, on the face of it, Victorian art is concerned with depicting both the fallen woman and the prostitute as victim, it is exactly this sense of vulnerability that empowers the male. Masculine anxieties surrounding illicit sex are negated as the seemingly helpless woman loses all of her sexual deviancy.
Moreover, I counter a common critical tendency that separates the fallen woman from bodily lust, emphasizing how Augustus Leopold Egg's Past and Present, for example, is characterized by such controversial desires. The fallen woman breaks free from her passive stereotype. This article then suggests that female sexuality and its position in Victorian art is far from straightforward. It draws attention to things - particularly in the areas of power, sexuality and the body - that Victorian society would have preferred to ignore, and, thus, this female sexuality insidiously but insistently disrupts attempts to appease and empower the male.