scholarly journals Seeing Flesh: Naked Body Protests and Gender Performance in Post-Soviet Ukraine

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-73
Author(s):  
Sarah Labahn
Keyword(s):  
Gender Performance ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Gender Performances ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Naked Body ◽  
A Site ◽  
Feminist Movements

Butler’s theory of gender performativity, I attempt to draw connections between how the body interacts in Ukraine’s public and private sphere since the emergence of Femen in 2008. My research explores the ways in which deviant gender performances – such as the use of sextremism and hypersexualized acts in a hyper-masculine domain - have the ability to alter past meanings associated with the body. In such, the body becomes empowered through its own redefinition. Despite conflicting opinions about the effectiveness of this form of protest, this paper argues that Femen has successfully challenged conventional norms of femininity in the public sphere through its naked body protests by redefining the body as a political tool and as a site of liberation – thereby creating a space for politically active women in the traditionally masculine sphere of politics. The implications of this research provide insight into similar radical feminist movements that engage the body in overtly sexual and public ways. By understanding the body through Butler’s theory of gender performance, these feminist movements can be critically understood as resistant, empowering, and liberating.

Flânerie for Cyborgs

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 209-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Shields
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Body ◽  
Work Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
Social Science Fiction ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
A Site ◽  
Clinic Hospital

As a literary figure or conceit, Haraway’s cyborg is kin to Dumas’ and Balzac’s flâneur. As a social science fiction, crossing and mixing categories, the cyborg is an abject quasi-body who does not fit the Enlightenment model of the political subject and actor. The ‘Manifesto’ has a geography of sites - Home, Market, Paid Work Place, State, School, Clinic-Hospital and Church - which this article updates and to which it adds the Body and the Web. However, Haraway’s ‘cyborg-analysis’ directs attention to the nanotechnological scale of biotechnology. The spatialization implied in the ‘Manifesto’ is more like a surface, a site of regeneration, not a space of the body or of rebirth or the space of institutions such as the Market or School. The cyborg cannot be an Enlightenment political actor, but challenges the traditions, scale and space of the public sphere even as she carries ethical qualities and potentials for less normative forms of politics.

Transing Normative Boyhood Masculinity in Alain Berliner’s Ma Vie en Rose

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Gust A. Yep ◽  
Sage E. Russo ◽  
Ryan M. Lescure
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Gender Performance ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Cultural Expectations ◽  
Social Circle ◽  
Gender Performances ◽  
And Gender

Offering a captivating exploration of seven-year-old Ludovic Fabre’s struggle against cultural expectations of normative boyhood masculinity, Alain Berliner’s blockbuster Ma Vie en Rose exposes the ways in which current sex and gender systems operate in cinematic representations of nonconforming gender identities. Using transing as our theoretical framework to investigate how gender is assembled and reassembled in and across other social categories such as age, we engage in a close reading of the film with a focus on Ludovic’s gender performance. Our analysis reveals three distinct but interrelated discourses—construction, correction, and narration—as the protagonist and Ludovic’s family and larger social circle attempt to work with, through, and against transgression of normative boyhood masculinity. We conclude by exploring the implications of transing boyhood gender performances.

scholarly journals Be a Man, do not Cry like a Woman: Analyzing Gender Dynamics in Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-371
Author(s):  
Abdul Razaque Channa ◽  
Tayyaba Batool Tahir
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Gender Performance ◽  
Gender Construction ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Third ◽  
Informal Discussion ◽  
And Gender

Contrary to the view that gender is fluid, as concurred by several social scientists, in traditional Pakistani understanding, gender is seen in fixed binaries, i.e., either you are a man or a woman. The third category is known as the third gender in Pakistan. It is interesting to note that although gender is seen as fixed in Pakistani cultures, in informal discussions, varied shades of gender are highlighted by informants based on gender performativity. By drawing on the postmodern feminist theory of gender performativity, this paper does a discourse analysis of informant’s views about gender construction and dynamics in rural Sindh. Ethnographic fieldnotes have been used as primary data to analyze gender nuances implicit in Pakistani men's informal discourse. This paper argues that contrary to unchanging gender identities as endorsed by Pakistan society's patriarchal structure, men dismiss these fixed identities during an informal discussion. Instead, they shuffle gender identities by branding men and women as feminine men and masculine women, respectively, based on their gender performativity. We conclude that irrespective of physical outlook, the power lies in hegemonic forms of agency. Gender relationships and gender performance shape the sexual and gender identity of subjects.

scholarly journals Identity Crisis and Gender Performativity: Critical Discourse Analysis of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 37-46
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hadi Jahandideh ◽  
Sakineh Shahnoori
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Gender Performance ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Domestic Values

This study provides a conceptual discussion by using Judith Butler’s theory of “Gender Performativity” that analyzes the tensions between self-identity and social identity. It proposes that identity is reflective of the correlation between the roles that people enact in society. The researchers scrutinized the role of gender and identity in the selected story of Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. It will be investigated in the light of cultural and feminist criticism as well as their theoretical concepts. This study is conducted by using descriptive-analytic methodology as well as the materials available in the valid libraries. To conclude, the application of Butlerian theories to the selected short story provides the best opportunity for creating a balance between gender and identity spheres. It endorses the theory that gender performance is not the real hallmark of one’s identity. Indeed, formulating identity based on gender performativity is not necessarily incompatible with domestic values.

The corporeality of sound: drag performance, lip-synching and the popular critique of gendered theatrics in Australian film and television

2021 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2110315
Author(s):  
Rob Cover ◽  
Rosslyn Prosser ◽  
Duc Dau
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Subversion

This article investigates the representation of male and trans drag performance in Australian film to interrogate drag’s continuing potential for gender subversion. We argue that while drag has become mundane through repetition and recognisability, attention to the disjuncture between the visual and the sound (or lip-synching’s non-sound) in drag opens new possibilities for film depictions to disrupt gender norms. We begin with an account of how lip-synching provides new critical ways to think about drag, identity and gender performativity, and then analyse how three Australian films represent drag performance in the context of sound. By showing how drag frames performance through layers of sound emanating from different corporeal sources (the body, the recording), we argue that contemporary drag subverts the cultural demand for the seamlessness of vocal sound and visual embodiment for authentic gender identity, thereby pointing to the precarity of gender normativity.

Beyond the Shadow State: The Public–Private Food Assistance System as Networked Governance

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 1433-1455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Rosenthal ◽  
Kathe Newman
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Food Assistance ◽  
Assistance System ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Networked Governance ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Food Needs ◽  
A Site

The public–private food assistance system (PPFAS) emerged during the 1970s to address “emergency” food needs and has since grown into a regularized social welfare system of grocery and meal provision and related program delivery, realized through the collective efforts of organizations and individuals. We explore the context, history, and organization of the PPFAS to better understand how and why public and private actors work together to provide for the social welfare of poor people. We find that the PPFAS is organized as a multiactor, multiscalar network within which the relations between state, market, and civil society are continuously negotiated. The PPFAS may seem like the quintessential example of privatized governance with its attendant movement of decision making outside of the public sphere Rather than consider the PPFAS as a neoliberal fait accompli, we view the PPFAS as a site of contestation about how social welfare and, more broadly, democratic governance is organized.

scholarly journals Between the Screens: Brain Imaging, Pornography, and Sex Research

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Anna E Ward
Keyword(s):  
Brain Imaging ◽  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Imaging Technologies ◽  
Means Of Measurement ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
And Gender ◽  
A Site ◽  
Representation Of Sexuality

This essay focuses on the use of brain imaging technologies to understand sexual arousal and orgasm and the issues that this practice raises for feminist theories of embodiment, visuality, and gender. In the first section, the paper examines the use of brain imaging technologies to measure the brain’s role during sexual arousal and orgasm and its circulation in popular culture, with a particular focus on fMRI and PET technology. The second section examines the interplay between brain imaging technologies as the means of measurement and film pornography as the means of arousal, bringing together scholarship on pornography studies, visual studies, and science and technology studies. By interrogating the technology behind research into the neurology of sexual response and critically examining the use of one representation of sexuality to produce another, the paper investigates how gendered difference is manifested in this research and how the body is produced as a site of intervention.

scholarly journals Images of Breastfeeding on Instagram: Self-Representation, Publicness, and Privacy Management

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511770719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabetta Locatelli
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Body ◽  
Feminist Studies ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Breastfeeding Support ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Public Breastfeeding ◽  
The Relationship

As recent feminist studies have recognized, breastfeeding is an interesting area of investigation since it encompasses several social and cultural issues involving both the private and the public sphere. These range from how motherhood is lived and interpreted, the representation of the body, how children are reared, women’s self-representation, breastfeeding support, and maternal work. The article illustrates a qualitative analysis of a sample of Instagram images tagged with breastfeeding-related words, with the aim of analyzing how breastfeeding is represented and the relationship between private and public discourses. For this reason, images coming from both mothers and breastfeeding promoters were analyzed. The analysis shows that breastfeeding representation on Instagram confirms, and also goes beyond, the common image of breastfeeding a newborn, showing toddlers’ breastfeeding or mothers pumping breastmilk. It also shows that breastfeeding may be connected with a wider approach to parenthood, based on proximity, and that children are active subjects of the decisions taken. The research indicates that the relationship between public and private discourses is an overlapping of shades. On one hand, research results showed several strategies enacted by parents for protecting their children’s privacy; on the other hand, the functions of images posted veer between fixing a private moment and creating public discourses using specific hashtags aimed, for example, at normalizing public breastfeeding or offering new types of support. Instagram appears, then, as a platform where personal choices and beliefs can flow into public discourse and a place for investigating how public discourses and social and cultural issues (such as breastfeeding promotion and representation) shape the way that breastfeeding is lived.

Gender and the Body

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Sousa
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Central Case ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Behavior

Chapter 2 draws on theories of the body, gender performativity, and dress, to show how gender was inscribed on the body to create the appearance of difference, which, in turn, shaped all social relations. The chapter analyzes aspects of indigenous gender ideology and concepts of the body as expressed in life-cycle rituals, native-language metaphors and terminology, and beliefs pertaining to the calendar, tonalism, and nahualism. The chapter argues that concepts concerning the fluidity of the body and gender identity undermined essentializing ideologies. The work examines the construction of gender through labor, drawing on Nahua and Bènizàa rituals as two central case studies. The chapter also considers clothing and adornment and speech and behavior, which served as mechanisms to stabilize the body and impose identity. Chapter 2 concludes with a discussion of cross-gendering which occurred when individuals adopted the dress, labor roles, and mannerisms of the “opposite sex.”

scholarly journals Playing it Fashionably Queer: Mae West’s Performing Sexuality

Pólemos ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
Giada Goracci
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Body Language ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract “Marriage is a fine institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.” With this challenging innuendo, the American actress and author Mae West offers an insight into gender performativity and heteronormativity through marriage in a period, the “Roaring Twenties,” in which sexual and gender politics could not be put into scrutiny. Her vamp persona and the elaborated iconography that she crafted on her character gave birth to a meticulous semiotics of the body that eventually undermined the American social context of the time fostering on the one hand, an image of heterosexual desire, and on the other hand an appealing icon to a gay market. This article ventures a queer-oriented perspective on West’s charismatic character and on the intertwined effects that tie semiotics to body language, especially focussing on the plays Sex (1926) and The Drag (1927).

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