Female Identity Research Articles

Women's Identity Construction and Identity from the Perspective of Gender Theory: Examination of Gender Discourse based on the Film Barbie

The Barbie film directed by Greta Govig became a new milestone in feminist cinema when it set a box office record in 2023. The film not only presents the portrayal of women in a patriarchal society, but also critiques gender stereotypes with humour, triggering a global feminist discussion. This paper focuses on the construction of women's identity and the representation of women's identity in the film Barbie from the perspective of gender theory and in four parts. The first part is the introductory section, mainly covering the research background and significance of this paper; The second part explores the female identity construction of Barbie from the aspects of appearance and social image; The third part explores the female identity of Barbie from the perspectives of male and female; The fourth part mainly combines and summarizes the previous content, and at the same time, combines social scholars' and film critics' interpretations of the film to deepen readers' understanding of the modern portrayal of women on screen.

Association of Recalled Childhood Sex-Typed Behavior with Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Iranian Adult Males and Females

ABSTRACT Same-sex sexual attraction in both males and females has been associated with childhood sex-atypical behavior. Gynephilic females recall behaving in a manner that is less female-typical and more male-typical compared to cisgender androphilic females, whereas androphilic males recall behaving in a manner that is less male-typical and more female-typical compared to cisgender gynephilic males. In addition, male and female ambiphilic individuals exhibit intermediate levels of childhood sex-atypicality. In this study, we examined recalled childhood sex-typed behavior among Iranian cisgender gynephilic males (n = 236), cisgender ambiphilic males (n = 51), cisgender androphilic males (n = 191), transgender androphilic males (n = 60), cisgender androphilic females (n = 243), cisgender ambiphilic females (n = 96), cisgender gynephilic females (n = 32), and transgender gynephilic females (n = 122). Both cisgender androphilic males and cisgender gynephilic females recalled elevated childhood sex-atypicality, scoring intermediate between cisgender gynephilic males and cisgender androphilic females. Male and female ambiphilic participants scored intermediate between their other- and same-sex attracted cisgender counterparts. Transgender androphilic males exhibited hyper-feminized childhood behavior, scoring even more female-typical than cisgender androphilic females. Transgender gynephilic females recalled behaving as male-typical as cisgender gynephilic males. Consistent with previous research, our findings from Iran – a non-Western, Middle Eastern culture – provide cross-cultural support for the universality of childhood sex-atypicality as a normative developmental precursor of monosexual or ambisexual same-sex attraction in both males and females who are cisgender and transgender.

Fiona Volpe: A New Perspective on James Bond's Iconic <em>Femme Fatale</em>

While narratives of gender politics and female identity in Western visual culture have become more dynamic with the passage of time, one of the most contentious spheres of discussion in mass media surrounds that of Ian Fleming’s ultimate fictional creation, James Bond. Female sexuality and gender politics in the Bond universe has been robustly, and rightfully, scrutinised by academic and casual spectators for at least 50 of the 70 years since his inception. Yet, one of the most enduring characters in the cinematic canon has not yet been given this discerning treatment, in earnest. Originally called "Fiona Kelly" by screenwriters Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins, Fiona Volpe was portrayed by Italian actress Luciana Paluzzi-Solomon in Terence Young’s 1965 film adaptation of Thunderball. In November 2017, I had the opportunity to interview Mrs. Paluzzi-Solomon for a now-abandoned book concept. As one of the few actresses from the Sean Connery-era who are still living, she was remarkably forthcoming regarding her professional and personal experiences on set. Without pride or prejudice, Mrs. Paluzzi-Solomon’s account proved to be not only to be illuminating in and of itself as an interview, but also served as a foundation to better understand the origins, development, and public reception of the gold standard femme fatale of the Bond films. This article will explore the character of Fiona Volpe, her origins, plot function, and legacy, from the unique perspective of the woman who brought her to life.

Morisot and Cassatt the Exploration of Female Identity in the 19th Century

This paper explores the limitations of church and social influence on women in Europe prior to the 19th century. The author argues that the decline of the domestic economy in the mid-18th century made domestic work more associated with women, leaving most women unable to pursue elite professions such as music, dance, and art. During this period, influenced by the patriarchal social concept, most women did not have the opportunity to pursue these industries, but spent a lot of time and energy in the family, becoming slaves to the family and children. However, the birth of Impressionism reduced the constraints and restrictions of the academic art style and promoted the rise of female artists in the 19th century. This paper will compare the themes, perspectives and self-cognition of the two artists, Berrit Morisot and Mary Cassatt, to show that under the influence of Enlightenment thought, the two artists integrated female identity and family into their painting career, but expressed their different identities.

Fertility Preservation in the Era of Immuno-Oncology: Lights and Shadows.

In recent years, immuno-oncology has revolutionized the cancer treatment field by harnessing the immune system's power to counteract cancer cells. While this innovative approach holds great promise for improving cancer outcomes, it also raises important considerations related to fertility and reproductive toxicity. In fact, most young females receiving gonadotoxic anti-cancer treatments undergo iatrogenic ovarian exhaustion, resulting in a permanent illness that precludes the vocation of motherhood as a natural female sexual identity. Although commonly used, oocyte cryopreservation for future in vitro fertilization and even ovarian cortex transplantation are considered unsafe procedures in cancer patients due to their oncogenic risks; whereas, ovarian stem cells might support neo-oogenesis, providing a novel stemness model of regenerative medicine for future fertility preservation programs in oncology. Recent scientific evidence has postulated that immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) might in some way reduce fertility by inducing either primary or secondary hypogonadism, whose incidence and mechanisms are not yet known. Therefore, considering the lack of data, it is currently not possible to define the most suitable FP procedure for young patients who are candidates for ICIs. In this report, we will investigate the few available data concerning the molecular regulation of ICI therapy and their resulting gonadal toxicity, to hypothesize the most suitable fertility preservation strategy for patients receiving these drugs.

Towards a Robust Definition of Sport Sex.

Elite individual sports in which success depends on power, speed or endurance are conventionally divided into male and female events using traditional binary definitions of sex. Male puberty creates durable physical advantages due to the 20-30-fold increase in circulating testosterone producing a sustained uplift in men's muscle, bone, hemoglobin, and cardiorespiratory function resulting from male puberty and sustained during men's lives. These male physical advantages provide strong justification for separate protected category of female events allowing women to achieve the fame and fortune from success they would be denied if competing against men. Recent wider social acceptance of transgender individuals, together with the less recognized involvement of intersex (46 XY DSD) individuals, challenge and threaten to defeat the sex classifications for elite individual female events. This can create unfair advantages if seeking inclusion into elite female events of unmodified male-bodied athletes with female gender identity who have gained the physical advantages of male puberty. Based on reproductive physiology, this paper proposes a working definition of sport sex based primarily on an individual's experience of male puberty and can be applied to transgender and various XY intersex conditions. Consistent with the multidimensionality of biological sex (chromosomal, genetic, hormonal, anatomical sex), this definition may be viewed as a multistrand cable whose overall strength survives when any single strand weakens or fails, rather than as a unidimensional chain whose strength is only as good as its weakest link.

Balcony of Disgrace: The Intersection of Patriarchy and Honor in Arab Societies

The paper explores the complex issue of patriarchal principles that shape the socialization of men in Arab societies, where the criterion for masculinity is deeply rooted in adherence to cultural norms. Through the lens of Nasrallah’s novel Balcony of Disgrace (2010), the study analyzes the impact of the societal concept of honor on male identity and the difficult choices faced by men in such societies. The novel highlights the oppressive nature of patriarchal societies, which link male honor with female sexuality and legitimize the murder of women to preserve man’s image. The paper argues that patriarchal oppression not only extends to women but also to men who face public criticism for not conforming to patriarchal norms. The study aims to fill the gap in the existing literature on honor killings by highlighting the crises of both male and female identities. Overall, this paper provides a critical analysis of the impact of patriarchal norms on male identity and the societal consequences of gender-based violence in Arab societies.

Spatial Imagination, Embedded Female Agency, and Women’s Networks in Early Christianity

Abstract Using spatial and intersectional analysis as well as theory dedicated to embedded gender agency, this article argues that the religious identities of female Christians were dynamic and pluriform not static and singular. These tools help to identify the ways in which one or more aspects of simultaneously co-existing female gendered identities became salient in different situations, through specific social practices. Documents for analysis include references to urban women in Pauline literature with special attention to widows/single women in 1 Timothy, ascetical women rejecting marriage as represented by the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, and the representations of female Christ followers and the gendering of Christianity by first and second century Greek and Roman polemicists/magistrates against Christ religion (Celsus, Lucian, Caecilius, Pliny).

Prozac-propelled Postmodern Poetry, Partly (II)

Conventionally singled out of the class of antidepressants, Prozac is further associated in what follows with poetic activity in terms of postmodern female identity. The two women under consideration, Liza Porter and Martha Silano, are lost and adrift in their stressed-out dysfunctional families, not in the least because of their mood disorders, major depression and respectively postpartum psychosis. Psychotherapy turning out to be inefficient for them in the long run, antidepressants or rather a combination of them come into play, and they restore a sense, even if more or less altered, of some poetic identity. In their interviews, they actually admit they are both cases of a definite progress from non-poetry to poetry. We will take either at her word, intent as we are on relating poet restoration to human recuperation.

The Construction of Female Identity in Beloved from the Perspective of Post-Colonialism

Beloved is one of the historical trilogy by the African-American writer Toni Morrison. This paper interprets the process of the three black women's self-consciousness awakening and identity construction in Beloved from the perspective of post-colonialism by Homi K. Bhabha. Morrison depicts the painful revealing of the disremembered past of black people in Beloved. Through the depiction of Sethe as well as other ex-slaves, the novel expresses that only by confronting ghosts and rediscovering history can the characters be able to break down their constructed otherness, and embark on the obtaining of a subjective position.

Second-Person Narration and Self-Reflectivity: The Effectivity of the Narrative Technique in Empathizing with and Identifying the “Other” in N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth (2015-17) Trilogy

ABSTRACT The paper aims to disabuse the critics of their consensus regarding the strangeness and unpredictability of the second-person “you” and subsequently highlight the potential that it possesses. While exploring the ambiguous yet multi-faceted identities of the “other” has often been one of the central concerns of the black science fiction and fantasy genre, the employment of second-person narration to reconcile the dilemma posed by the ambivalent selves of the “other” is the hallmark of science fiction and fantasy writer N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy (2015–17). To that end, the paper attempts to close read the alternate identification and displacement feature of “you” as an effective technique to construct the “black female identity” that is constituted of fluid and multi-dimensional representations of female selves. It also highlights the self-reflective nature, that is, the tendency of the “you” in the text to reflect on its own slippery self while concurrently negotiating with the refracted selves of Essun. The final section engages with the significance of second-person narration in the theory of mind debate and how Jemisin’s execution of it makes the story of Essun readily available to the readers by making them partake of her experience, thus triggering the readers’ empathy.

Female Identity in Sports: A Discourse Analysis of Eileen Gu’s Narrative

Sport is considered to be mainly dominated by male in the general perception, while female athletes have historically been in a ‘disadvantaged’ position. Eileen Gu, a promising young female skier, has shattered this stereotype to some extend by demonstrating her female power. This paper takes the narrative model as the theoretical framework to analyze the self-narrative in Gu’s interview, aiming to decipher the significance beyond the literal by examining brief words, phrases, or sentences, and explore the process of constructing her female identity as a female athlete as well as the factors that influence her.

Adult Outcome After Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: Diagnosed and Assigned Female in Infancy.

This patient, now in her 40s, was evaluated because of genital ambiguity and diagnosed with pAIS in infancy based upon elevated testosterone and gonadotropin levels and significantly reduced binding affinity of the androgen receptor. Such reduced binding is consistent with a structural abnormality of the receptor protein precluding expected activity of the androgen receptor. Based on this information and counseling, her parents chose a female sex assignment. She had clitoral recession and testes removal as an infant and neovaginal surgery using a distal ileum segment at age 11 years and was begun on estrogen therapy at age 12 years. She is being reported now to point out that the data known at her birth provided as specific information to guide sex assignment and genital surgery as is currently available. More importantly, long-term outcome data is very positive showing clear female gender identity, successful marriage of more than 20 years, excellent social relationships including family and friends, an active social life. Since this diagnosis is lifelong, it is inevitable that there will be reminders, hopefully rare, that may be traumatizing. Unfortunately, in this patient, such reminders have been related to access to health care.

Rokeya’s Dream Vision: An Indian Lady Philosophy and Conversion to Feminism

This essay examines Begum Rokeya’s pivotal work Sultana’s Dream (1905) in the context of medieval dream vision by foregrounding its matches with the dream vision genre. With Sultana’s Dream, Rokeya takes women in the Indian community to a realm of freedom away from purdah and the zenana via mainly treating the concerns of gender and education. Rokeya endeavours to raise female consciousness in her story written in a dream format featuring Sister Sara as the guide to forging a self-sufficient female identity equal to men. I read Sister Sara as a wise woman, an exemplar of Boethius’ Lady Philosophy, appearing in medieval dream visions to bring people to the truth, the conversion to Christianity in the medieval setting as in The Dream of the Rood. The essay concludes that, apart from her community, Rokeya’s call in Sultana’s Dream stretches out from medieval to contemporary society within the milieuof a dream vision to a feminist utopia respectively. 

Model Revision of Female Identity and Mythical Images in Modern Woman Poets’ Fairy Tales: Anne Sexton and Carol Ann Duffy

This article explores the approaches that modern women poets use in their revised mythical notions to expose and implicate the inappropriate effects of patriarchal norms and conventions on women and gender inequality. This study addresses Anne Sexton and Carol Ann Duffy as modern woman poets who redefine archetypal myths and revise fairy tales to narrate the stories of those who have been left out of historical and cultural narratives within female characters. Sexton and Duffy shake up gender stereotypes with determined humorous plot complexities, allowing women to shed the secondary classic roles assigned to them. The female characters in the poems recapture their power through literary reconstruction, confronting male dominance and instilling guilt for feeling worthless. These modern women poets focus on what the female characters in their fairy tales think, feel, react, and decide what they look like in appearance, which is not employed in these writing norms in common fairy tales. Sexton and Duffy are the innovative versions of fairy tales, in which the poets not only satirize the patriarchal society in which they grew up but also reject the female stereotype that their upbringing assumed. This study examines the feminist messages that Sexton and Duffy's fairy tales intended to convey to reveal the poets' position on feminism and their relationship with the female role models and male characters they portray in their fairy tales. The findings confirm that these revising approaches and changing writing fairy tale norms can aid in creating a female identity and generate a critical return to the patriarchy’s despotic discourse.

UMA PROPOSTA PEDAGÓGICA CRÍTICA E INCLUSIVA NO ENSINO MÉDIO: o romance   ‘O Alegre Canto da Perdiz’, de Paulina Chiziane, e suas possíveis abordagens para o ensino da Literatura Africana

This article aims to present a pedagogical proposal for High School, through the approach of teaching African literature, focusing on the work "The Merry Song of the Partridge" (CHIZIANE, 2008). The need to expand literature education seeks to promote an approach that goes beyond the Eurocentric paradigm, exploring African literature as a way to enrich students' cultural repertoire, including the development of critical and reflective awareness among learners. The article mentions the inclusion of African literature in the school curriculum, emphasizing the importance of Law 10.639/2003 in this regard, which mandates the teaching of Afro-Brazilian History and Culture. Additionally, it discusses the most recent document guiding and standardizing education: the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC, 2019), which addresses the need to rethink how literature is taught in school, aiming to make reading and writing enjoyable activities for students. The proposed methodology involves collective reading of the work, followed by group discussion; historical and social contextualization of the novel's plot, and reflection on themes such as the sexualization of the black female body, whitening, and identity. This pedagogical proposal aims to promote a more inclusive and diversified education, providing high school students with a critical experience regarding African literature

Gender Identity Orientation and Sexual Activity-A Survey among Transgender and Gender-Diverse (TGD) Individuals in Norway.

The understanding and conceptualizing of gender and sexuality are continuously negotiated between individuals and cultures. Recently, new gender identity orientations have emerged, fighting pathologization and establishing new spaces and options for being sexually active gendered beings. To investigate variations in sexual activities across different gender identity orientations. A questionnaire used in France was adapted to the Norwegian context and implemented in this study. The participants were recruited through therapists, TGD organizations, and social media. A total of 538 individuals responded to the questionnaire, of which 336 provided a written description of their gender identity. Based on an analysis of the degree of male gender identity orientation, the degree of female gender identity orientation, and the degree of nonbinary gender identity orientation, three clusters appeared and were used in the analyses of sexual activities and preferences. Some findings could be attributed to lingering aspects of traditional gender roles, while others may be indicative of sexual expression stemming from societal acceptance of gender diversity and new identity orientations.

Monstrous Pedagogy at the Intersections of White Privilege, Visible Disability

This autoethnographic article centers my White, disabled, and female body as a site of knowledge and struggle within the context of teaching an introductory communication course. I chronicle through key experiences I have had as an official instructor. I draw from various scholars whose work explicates the official teacher’s body as consequential. As a White woman with a visible disability, I use Calafell’s articulation of monstrosity to process through how I perform my White, disabled, female identities in the classroom.

Polish mental and sexual health specialists working with transgender and gender diverse persons - who are they and what is their background?

This study aimed to present the demographic and professional characteristics of Polish mental and sexual health specialists (MSHS) and their experience in clinical work with transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people. This cross-sectional study was conducted using the LimeSurvey platform. A total of 239 MSHS with a diverse professional background, at different stages of their careers, with experience of working with TGD patients, completed the survey. Participants were asked to provide demographic (e.g., gender and sexual identity) and professional (e.g., knowledge of leading standards and guidelines of care) data. Descriptive statistics were used. The mean age of participants was 39.5 years (SD 7.92) and the majority were assigned female at birth (73.2%). The sample was composed predominantly of psychotherapists (70%), then psychologists (53%), medical doctors (31%) and certified sexologists (5.9%). The majority (72%) practised in large cities (>500,000); 68.6% reported female gender identity, 24.7% a male identity and 6.3% were TGD; 63.2% were heterosexual, 12.1% homosexual, 12.6% bisexual, and 12.1% reported other sexual identity. Both the significance of religion and religious practice were significantly decreased compared to general Polish population. Most participants declared that they either do not know the basic guidelines of care for TGD people at all or know them very little. The majority of MSHS rated their professional training as insufficient. People providing clinical services to TGD patients are a professionally diverse group. There is an urgent need to expand and intensify professional training directed at MSHS on topics related to the health care dedicated to TGD people.

Reshaping Gendered Narratives: Reinterpreting Female Art, Identity and Social Change in the Late Nordic Bronze Age

This paper explores the changes to art on artefacts attributed to females in the Late Nordic Bronze Age (ca. 1100–500 BC) from a gender critical, feminist perspective. Traditionally, Scandinavian research has focussed on the art of male artefacts, which is believed to represent a cosmological narrative, whilst female art has been considered devoid of cosmological motifs – concomitantly, it is often assumed that prominent social standing was reserved males. Through analytical discussion, the paper shows how the same motifs as are considered cosmological in male objects can be found on female objects, too, in compositions diverging from the male use, suggesting a gender differentiated use of art and association to cosmology. Through a gender theoretical lens, the paper explores what the social use of the art on these objects may suggest regarding identity and power relations in society, linking up with a reconfiguration of female identity at this time.