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.

Social Markers in Language and Speech

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Jane Pitts ◽  
Cindy Gallois
Keyword(s):  
Skin Color ◽  
Intergroup Bias ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Communication Accommodation ◽  
Ethnolinguistic Vitality ◽  
Communication Accommodation Theory ◽  
Social Markers ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Accommodation Theory

Social markers in language and speech are cues conveyed through verbal and nonverbal means that serve to identify individuals to the groups to which they belong. Social markers can be linguistic, paralinguistic, or extralinguistic in form, and can range from intentional and purposive (e.g., language selection or dialect accentuation) to unintentional and uncontrollable (e.g., vocal features that mark age or sex). They help to provide context for social organization. Extralinguistic cues are those that may be conveyed through gesture and physical appearance (i.e., skin color). However, social markers in language and speech focus on the paralinguistic (i.e., vocal cues such as pitch and tone) and linguistic cues (i.e., language choice, language style, accent, dialect, code-switching, and multilingualism) that mark social categories. Relevant social categories that are made distinctive through language and speech markers include age, sex and gender, social class, ethnicity, and many others. Scholars across disciplines of psychology, social psychology, linguistics, and communication have approached the study of social markers from different perspectives, resulting in theoretical (e.g., communication accommodation theory, ethnolinguistic vitality theory, linguistic intergroup bias) and methodological (e.g., matched-guise technique and ethnography of communication) advancements.

Rethinking sex and gender identities

2009 ◽  
pp. 153-187
Author(s):  
Georgia Warnke
Keyword(s):  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
And Gender

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.

Queering Prehistory on the Frontier

2019 ◽  
pp. 55-80
Author(s):  
Mark P. Toussaint
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship

The Mierzanowice Culture (MC) is the name given to an archaeological complex that existed from about 2400/2300–1600 BCE, in the Early Bronze Age of Central Europe. Mierzanowice Culture cemeteries provide a unique opportunity to investigate and theorize the relationship between sex and gender in prehistory, due to their tradition of mirror-opposite, seemingly sex-differentiated burials. This chapter questions interpretations of these burial characteristics in terms of rigid, sex-based binaries, and investigates whether they may correspond more closely with social constructions of identity, including gender and status. Furthermore, it explores the relationship between salient biological and social categories and health in Mierzanowice communities. Although the case study explored in this chapter was based on a small sample of individuals, a few patterns have begun to emerge. Certain aspects of burial orientations may correspond more to gender than to sex. Furthermore, it is not out of the realm of possibility that some atypical burial orientations may correspond to a non-binary gender category. This preliminary study also indicated that while all individuals were at fairly equal risk of perimortem trauma, females were more likely than males to incur antemortem trauma.

scholarly journals The whole woman: Sex and gender differences in variation

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penelope Eckert
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Female Speech ◽  
Northern Cities ◽  
Detroit Area ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Linguistic Behavior

ABSTRACTSpeaker's sex has emerged as one of the most important social factors in the quantitative study of phonological variation. However, sex does not have a uniform effect on variables or even on variables that represent sound change in progress. This is because sex is not directly related to linguistic behavior but reflects complex social practice. The correlations of sex with linguistic variables are only a reflection of the effects on linguistic behavior of gender — the complex social construction of sex — and it is in this construction that one must seek explanations for such correlations. Sociolinguists generally treat sex in terms of oppositional categories (male/female), and the effects of sex on variation are generally sought in linguistic differences between male and female speakers. However, because gender differences involve differences in orientation to other social categories, the effects of gender on linguistic behavior can show up in differences within sex groupings. Data on sound changes in progress (the Northern Cities Chain Shift) among Detroit area adolescents show that gender has a variety of effects on variables and that the significance of gender in variation cannot be reduced to notions of male or female speech as “more or less conservative.”

scholarly journals Of Masks and Men? Gender, Sex, and Protective Measures during COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 1052-1062
Author(s):  
Dan Cassino ◽  
Yasemin Besen-Cassino
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Telephone Survey ◽  
Face Mask ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Masculine Gender

AbstractSince the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, men have been consistently less likely to report wearing a protective face mask. There are several possible reasons for this difference, including partisanship and gender identity. Using a national live-caller telephone survey that measures gender identity, we show that men's gender identities are strongly related to their views of mask wearing, especially when gender identity is highly salient to the individual. The effects of this interaction of sex and gender are shown to be separate from the effects of partisanship. While partisanship is a significant driver of attitudes about face masks, within partisan groups, men who report “completely” masculine gender identities are very different from their fellow partisans.

scholarly journals New menstrual terminology in the context of Judith Butler's gender theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 107-131
Author(s):  
Ana Huber
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Radical Feminism ◽  
Gender Theory ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Main Field ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Neutrality

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the new menstrual terminology in the context of certain principles of Judith Butler's gender theory. Over the last few years, it has been emphasized, in public and academic discourse, that menstruation is not exclusively a feminine question, but it also affects people who do not feel or identify as cis women. It is about trans, intersexual, genderfluid, and non-binary people. Menstrual movements are formed to plead the linguistic reformulation of menstrual terminology and its gender neutrality. We will briefly expose the elements of Judith Butler's gender theory that are relevant to this topic. We will focus on Butler's thesis that sex and gender are socially, performatively constructed categories and that language is the main field of its origin and reformulation. We will study the origins and causes of this terminology, its consequences, and how the new menstrual concepts affect the redefinition of female and gender identities in general, considering the arguments of the trans movement and the arguments of radical feminism.

Migrating through Cultures, Deconstructing Masculinities and Gender Identities in Modern Islamic Literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Babatunde Ogunyemi
Keyword(s):  
Gender Performance ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religion And Literature ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Gender Constructions ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Political Understanding ◽  
Islamic Literature

Matters arising around feminism, sexualities and masculinities, male dominance and hierarchies, gender identities and the configuration of patriarchy in religion and literature have constituted some major trends in modern women’s writings, particularly women’s writings in the Islamic enclave. This work probes the motifs of women’s marginalisation, cultural masculinities, and gender constructions as they affect some selected modern Islamic fictions around the world. The work utilises Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction to delineate and redefine women’s subjugation and freedom by foregrounding the political, cultural, social, and moral elements redefining the pragmatic Islamic societies arising from technology. Constant division and the discriminatory roles assigned to women in the Islamic enclave have had some negative influences in literature, which can be found in some analyses of Frantz Fanon’s works and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. These discriminatory and divisible roles for women can sometimes have negative cultural and social implications for an economic and political understanding of Islamic literature. This work reconfigures and redefines gender performance, masculinities, and Islamic metaphysics in the selected Islamic fictional works of Saudi Rajaa Alsanea’s Girls of Riyadh, Sudanese Leila Aboulela’s Minaret and Kuwaiti Randa Jarrar’s Map of Home.

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.

scholarly journals Sex and Marriage in Machiavelli’s Mandragola: A Close(t) Reading

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-36
Author(s):  
Konrad Eisenbichler
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Sexual Desire ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Désir Sexuel ◽  
The Difference ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Sexual Interests

This article carries out a close reading of Niccolò Machiavelli’s play Mandragola (The mandrake root) from the perspective of sex and gender studies. In so doing, it takes into consideration what the play says or suggests about sexual desire, sexual practices, and conjugal life. This somewhat less conventional examination reveals that, under cover of entertainment and humour, Machiavelli was raising important questions about contemporary marriage conventions and sexual practices that ranged from the difference in age between the spouses to the difference in their sexual interests, from a couple’s desire for progeny to the partners’ (un)willingness to pay the marriage debt, from the matter of a man’s “honour” to the question of a woman’s “worth.” Cet article propose une lecture approfondie de la pièce de théâtre Mandragola (La Mandragore) de Nicolas Machiavel du point de vue du sexe et des études de genre. On y considère ce que cette pièce exprime ou suggère à propos du désir sexuel, des pratiques sexuelles et de la vie conjugale. Cette approche quelque peu non conventionnelle fait apparaître que Machiavel, sous les apparences du divertissement et de l’humour, y soulève d’importantes questions quant aux conventions de mariage et aux pratiques sexuelles de son époque, depuis la différence d’âge entre les conjoints jusqu’à leurs différences d’intérêt sexuel, en passant par le désir de procréer et le consentement à payer la dette de mariage, ainsi que par le sujet de « l’honneur » de l’homme et les interrogations sur la « valeur » de la femme.

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