Female Masculinity
Jack Halberstam(Author)
Duke University Press
Published on 26. October 1998
Book
Paperback/Softback
360 pages
978-0-8223-2243-6 (ISBN)
Description
Masculinity without men. In Female Masculinity Judith Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two hundred years. Providing the first full-length study on this subject, Halberstam catalogs the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women from nineteenth-century pre-lesbian practices to contemporary drag king performances.
Through detailed textual readings as well as empirical research, Halberstam uncovers a hidden history of female masculinities while arguing for a more nuanced understanding of gender categories that would incorporate rather than pathologize them. She rereads Anne Lister's diaries and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness as foundational assertions of female masculine identity. She considers the enigma of the stone butch and the politics surrounding butch/femme roles within lesbian communities. She also explores issues of transsexuality among "transgender dykes"-lesbians who pass as men-and female-to-male transsexuals who may find the label of "lesbian" a temporary refuge. Halberstam also tackles such topics as women and boxing, butches in Hollywood and independent cinema, and the phenomenon of male impersonators.
Female Masculinity signals a new understanding of masculine behaviors and identities, and a new direction in interdisciplinary queer scholarship. Illustrated with nearly forty photographs, including portraits, film stills, and drag king performance shots, this book provides an extensive record of the wide range of female masculinities. And as Halberstam clearly demonstrates, female masculinity is not some bad imitation of virility, but a lively and dramatic staging of hybrid and minority genders.
Through detailed textual readings as well as empirical research, Halberstam uncovers a hidden history of female masculinities while arguing for a more nuanced understanding of gender categories that would incorporate rather than pathologize them. She rereads Anne Lister's diaries and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness as foundational assertions of female masculine identity. She considers the enigma of the stone butch and the politics surrounding butch/femme roles within lesbian communities. She also explores issues of transsexuality among "transgender dykes"-lesbians who pass as men-and female-to-male transsexuals who may find the label of "lesbian" a temporary refuge. Halberstam also tackles such topics as women and boxing, butches in Hollywood and independent cinema, and the phenomenon of male impersonators.
Female Masculinity signals a new understanding of masculine behaviors and identities, and a new direction in interdisciplinary queer scholarship. Illustrated with nearly forty photographs, including portraits, film stills, and drag king performance shots, this book provides an extensive record of the wide range of female masculinities. And as Halberstam clearly demonstrates, female masculinity is not some bad imitation of virility, but a lively and dramatic staging of hybrid and minority genders.
Reviews / Votes
"Female Masculinity is a very important work that scholars in cultural studies will be talking about for years. Nothing like it exists, period."-Esther Newton, author of Cherry Grove, Fire Island "Thank goodness for the dashing Judith Halberstam! Her new book is a smart, entertaining and informed tour of that most threatening of cultural identities: the masculine female. Oh, yum!"-Kate Bornstein, author of My Gender WorkbookMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
38 b&w photographs
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
594 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-2243-6 (9780822322436)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Halberstam Jack Halberstam
Female Masculinity
E-Book
10/1998
1st Edition
Duke University Press Books
€208.99
Available for download
Previous edition

Judith Halberstam
Female Masculinity
Book
10/1998
Duke University Press
€123.30
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Judith Halberstam is Professor of Literature at the University of California in San Diego. She is the author of Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters, also published by Duke University Press, and writes a regular film review column for Girlfriends magazine.
Content
Illustrations; Preface 1.An introduction to female masculinity: Masculinity without men; 2. Perverse presentism: The androgyne, the tribade, the female husband and other pre-twentieth-century genders; 3. "A writer of misfits": John Radclyffe Hall the discourse of inversion; 4. Lesbian masculinity: Even stone butches get the blues; 5. Transgender butch: Butch/FTM border wars and the masculine continuum; 6. Looking butch: A rough guide to butches on film; 7. Drag kings: Masculinity and performance; 8. Raging bull (Dyke): New masculinities Notes; Bibliography; Filmography; Index