Feminine Behavior Research Articles

Femininity, bulimia, and distress in college women.

This study investigated differences in the scores on perceived Distress and Bulimia among college women with varying scores on the Behavioral Self-report of Femininity. Distress was assessed using The Psychological Distress Inventory and Bulimia was measured using the Bulimia Cognitive Distortions Scale. Women who reported low numbers of stereotypic feminine behaviors scored lower on the Bulimia Cognitive Distortions Scale than women reporting moderate to high numbers of stereotypic feminine behaviors. Distress scores were not significantly different between women scoring high and low on Bulimic Cognitive Distortions, and Bulimic Cognitive Distortion scores did not vary as a function of scores on Distress and Femininity. A multiple regression indicated that one factor of the Behavioral Self-report of Femininity, Social Connectedness, made a significant contribution to the prediction of Bulimia scores.

‘Patriotic Femininity’: Women's Morals and Men's Morale During the Second World War

The Second World War was a period which witnessed struggles for the definitions of appropriate ‘patriotic’ feminine identities and behaviours as much as it placed demands on men and their masculinities. The disruption to normality led to a heightened sense of heterosexuality. There were contests for the definition of femininity, contests which contradicted the centrality of discourses constructing domesticity and passivity. The way history has been constructed the heroic myths of the Second World War are male, thus there is a need for other kinds of critical knowledge to provide an understanding of women's lives and another, feminine, kind of heroism.

How Muscular was Victorian Christianity? Thomas Hughes and the Cult of Christian Manliness Reconsidered

Despite the enduring popularity of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, which has never been out of print since its publication in 1857, the reputation of its author, Thomas Hughes, has suffered from the general reaction against Victorian values which characterized the first part of the twentieth century. Even as late as 1965, out of sympathy both with Hughes’s Christian beliefs and with his moral didacticism, Kenneth Allsop could dismiss him as a writer ‘fluctuating between a facetious smugness and a creepy piety’. However, in recent years scholars such as George Worth and Norman Vance have provided us with a more sensitive and nuanced picture of his thought, and one which severely qualifies the traditional image of Hughes as an exponent of a muscular Christianity which exalted an anti-intellectual credo of schoolboy athleticism and adult male toughness perfectly attuned to the ethos of high Victorian imperialism. This paper examines some of the ambiguities which are to be found in Hughes’s attempts to encapsulate and transcend the ideals of appropriate masculine and feminine behaviour within the specifically Christian context from which they arose, and in so doing cast some light on the way in which Victorian Christianity both contributed to, and was influenced by, the construction and maintenance of gender roles for both men and women.

Gender Construction in Early Modern England and the Conduct Books of William Whately (1583–1639)

Conduct books, or household manuals offering advice about marriage and the ordering of domestic relationships, attained their greatest popularity in early modern England between the late sixteenth century and the Civil War. Many of these works, including William Whately’s popular A Bride-Bush, which ran into three editions between 1617 and 1623, and William Gouge’s influential Of Domesticall Duties, which first appeared in 1622, originated as sermons and were written by puritan preachers. They are also a valuable source of information about the construction of ideal masculine and feminine behaviour in the early modern period. At the start of A Bride-Bush, which was based on a marriage sermon, Whately asserted ‘I will make the ground of all my speech, those words of the Apostle Paul, Ephes. 5. 23. where hee saith, The Husband is the Wives head.’ Towards the end of the book he noted that the male sex is ‘preferred before the female in degree of place & dignity, as all men will yeeld that read what the Scriptures speake in that behalfe’.

Keeping Social Work Honest: Evaluating as Profession and Practice

Studies, University of Wales Cardiff. His recent books include Evaluating in Practice (1996, Ashgate) and A Case of Neglect? (with Ian Butler, 1996, Avebury). He researches on homelessness, rough sleeping, prostitution, and on professional decision making. His book, Social Care and Housing (with Susan Thomas and David Clapham), is to be pub lished by Jessica Kingsley in 1998. Alison Shaw is a doctoral student in the School of Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. She was previously a researcher in the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol, undertaking research on aspects of the interface between primary and secondary care. Her substantive research interests focus on the aspects of the soci ology of the body, in particular experiences of embodiment in relation to 'ideals' of feminine behaviour. Her methodological interests centre on qualitative and feminist approaches to social research. Her book, The Body in Qualitative Research (with John Richardson), is to be published by Avebury in 1998.

The Allure of the Nile: Jane Franklin’s Voyage to the Second Cataract, 1834

When Jane, Lady Franklin, set off on a voyage up the Nile as far as the Second Cataract, she abandoned many of the prescriptions of genteel feminine behaviour. Yet she dreaded social condemnation, and shrank from being thought ‘masculine’. Her diary of the voyage represents her complex negotiation of two alternative identities, as authoritative, imperialist traveller and as self‐conscious, vulnerable lady. These identities were irreconcilable, and the possibility of an alternative was constantly defeated both by Jane Franklin’s cultural prejudices and by her debilitating awareness of herself as object, susceptible to criticism and dependent on admiration.

Androgynous leadership style: an integration rather than a polarization

Previous leadership studies indicate that stereotypically masculine behaviours characterize task‐oriented leadership style and that stereotypically feminine behaviours (relations‐oriented leadership style) are devalued. However, it has been frequently observed in the past that organizational goals could not be exclusively achieved by either masculine or feminine characteristics of leaders. Suggests that an integration rather than a polarization becomes necessary for leaders and organizations. That is, an androgynous leadership style can be the most appropriate for achieving high performance in many organizations.

The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860-1890 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS87 information, but, curiously, some of the data in Gibson's main source—House Executive Document 337, the 1 868 quartermaster report—is omitted. For example , the report cites the vessel's owner and the per diem rates and distinguishes between "chartered," "hired," "employed," and "pressed" vessels. The report includes barges, which the Dictionary excludes because they are not "self-propelled." Admittedly, the Dictionary is already lengthy, and adding such omitted information would expand it to an unmanageable length. From that perspective, then, the Dictionary should not be faulted for its omissions. On one matter of interpretation Gibson misses the mark. He makes the valuable point that the traditional interpretation of a "flight from the flag" during the war fails to take into account the construction of many coastal steamships. There are, of course, alternative views on the "flight" (such as this reviewer's, propounded in this journal). Yet it is undeniable that the American merchant marine was decimated during the war—and for the rest of the century. Pointing to the construction of coastal steamships illuminates the postbellum coastal trade but obscures our understanding of the postbellum merchant marine and foreign trade. A sharp-eyed editor could have made the volume better. Too many words are misused, and there are too many punctuation and typographical errors. Nevertheless, this book is a monumental accomplishment and has already won the prestigious Lyman Award of the North American Society for Oceanic History. The volume demonstrates once again the importance of steamships during the war and will be useful for anyone tracing merchant ships ofthe early postbellum era, since many of them had been chartered by the Union army. It will be critical for anyone attempting to understand the Civil War in all its complexity. Kenneth J. Blume Albany College of Pharmacy, Union University The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860-1890. By Lee Ann Whites. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995. Pp. 288. $35.00.) Lee Ann Whites's study of Augusta, Georgia, offers a gendered analysis of the violent and chaotic years of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and redemption. Although she researched only one Southern city, her study provides important insights into Confederate ideology and the Myth of the Lost Cause. Whites's gendered approach includes analyses of both masculine and feminine behavior. Criticizing historians who treat white men's behavior as if it were gender- or race-neutral, she deftly interweaves race, class, and gender into a complex study of one Southern city's transformation. Because scholars typically focus on gender and race as categories of oppression, she explains, they tend to equate gender with women, race with blacks. Consequently, they are 88CIVIL WAR HISTORY able to describe the Confederacy's defense of white men's prerogatives of race and gender as ifonly a defense of"freedom" and "honor," as though such ideals existed apart from white men's domination of women and blacks. Although Augusta's white women experienced the war differently than men, most initially supported the Confederacy. As the war dragged on, however, Whites finds that gender united white women in criticism of the war, while class interests divided them. Rich and poor alike deplored "unmanly" merchants and speculators whose behavior impoverished women and children. Whereas lower-class women increasingly criticized the Confederacy itself, however, elite women hesitated to do so. Their class interests were too closely allied with those of Confederate leaders. Whites emphasizes that Northern defeat of the Confederacy destroyed a key component of Southern white manhood—the right to own black people. In the aftermath of the Confederacy's crushing defeat, Augusta's elite women struggled to redeem their fallen men. On April 26, 1875, in the middle of the city, amid parades and crowds of people, a monument to the Confederate dead was erected under the auspices of the Ladies' Memorial Association. In towns and cities throughout the South, similar organizations commemorated Confederate soldiers. The Myth of the Lost Cause was soon to flourish. Organizations such as the Confederate Survivors Association and the Daughters of the Confederacy "redeemed" Southern (and ultimately national) Civil War lore. In Augusta and throughout the New South, schoolchildren learned that noble white men...

Making a Spectacle of Suffrage: The National Woman Suffrage Pageant, 1913

On March 3, 1913, day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, National American Woman Suffrage Association sponsored first national woman's suffrage pageant. Although public demonstrations for woman's suffrage had been part of American suffragists agenda since 1910' (Bland, Techniques 26-30), 1913 pageant was unprecedented in its scale-thousands of women from across United States and of ages and social classes marched through capitol city demanding vote-while pageant itself was characterized by an elaborate combination of theatricality, allegory, decorative pictorial effect, and radical politics. Daring to make a spectacle of themselves, organizers of and participants in National Woman Suffrage Pageant stood completely outside of conventional standards of feminine behavior and propriety while negotiating new definitions and boundaries of women's roles in society. At same time, pageant betrayed conflict within suffrage movement itself between conciliatory and militant voices. Self-consciously positioned at intersection of and production of meaning and construction of femininity, National Woman Suffrage Pageant of 1913 galvanized highly charged current debates on role of women and underscored woman question, in capital letters, as a topical political issue. The decision to stage a suffrage pageant was not without precedent with respect both to suffrage movement, which was enjoying a renewed vigor and militancy, and to pageant craze which swept United States during first two decades of twentieth century. In fact, pageantry's mandate for social reform and optimistic belief in change through democratic cooperation reflected confidence, positivism, and soaring rhetoric of civic idealism that characterized Progressive Era. Between roughly 1905 and 1920, literally hundreds of pageants were staged in United States-as one observer noted, ...the country's gone pageant mad (Beard 239)with overarching orientation toward social reform as their common denominator. Resonating with rhetoric of civic idealism that characterized much of Progressive Era, one contemporary observer declared pageantry the greatest, most characteristic form of democratic art (Rainwater 267, 281). In 1912, Percy MacKaye, one of most active and outspoken proponents of civic ideal in pageantry argued for pagentry as an of civilization in contemporary society in his 1912 book, The Civic Theatre in Relation to Redemption of Leisure: A Book of Suggestions. Pageantry is poetry for masses...[and due to its dedication] to civic education, [does] more than any other agency to provide popular symbolic form and tradition for stuff of a noble national drama (176-77). Moreover, MacKaye argued that pageants not be restricted solely to historic themes of past but rather that all vital modern forces and institutions of our nation...might appropriately find symbolic expression in majestic masques, educative and entertaining to people (176). In 1913, leading reformers and professional artists organized American Pageant Association (APA) which attempted to promulgate standards for new pageantry movement and sought to guide its development through publications, training programs, conferences, and even certification of pageant masters.2 The American Pageant Association Bulletin, published monthly between 1913 and 1916, included technical information and featured chronological lists of pageants sanctioned by Association. A heady mix of idealism, patriotism, and belief in power of pageantry to counteract centrifugal forces of diverse and heterogeneous communities guided American Pageant Association which flourished in teens. Seeking to diminish impact of dislocations and transformations brought about by industrialization, shifting roles of women, vigorous immigration, urbanization, among others, APA sponsored pageants that gave tangible form to such intangible concepts as social cohesion, civic idealism, citizenship, and nationalism through organized and aestheticized rituals. …

The Analysis of a Pre-Homosexual Child with a Twelve-Year Developmental Follow-up

This paper presents clinical material from the three-year psychoanalysis of an eight-year-old boy and his fight to assume his normal gender-defined self-identity. It also outlines a twelve-year follow-up when the patient returned for consultation during crucial periods in his life.The analysis illustrates the psychodynamics underlying the anxieties that led to gender-defined self-identity confusion. The child's attempts to appease an engulfing mother resulted in severe separation anxiety and a tendency toward a resolution of his intrapsychic conflicts by engaging in homosexual acts. Mother presented significant obstacles to the treatment, which continued even as the child began to adopt masculine interests. Father, who was dominated by his wife, was distant, unavailable, and ashamed of his son's effeminate tendencies. He could not express pride in the boy's considerable intellectual abilities and was unable to provide a strong male identity figure. The parents refused to seek psychotherapy for themselves which would have benefited their son.Despite these obstacles, the child's progress in analysis was seen in (1) his ability to function at school, (2) the disappearance of his transvestism, (3) the decrease and near-obliteration of feminine behavior, (4) improvement in aggression control, and (5) a lessening of narcissistic overinvestment in the self. Also, his fears of death and his most prominent anxieties were overcome. What remained was a search for the father, which manifested itself, in his middle to late adolescence, in an attraction toward men. The men he chose to pursue, however, were not homosexuals, and this revealed the patient's ambivalence about embarking on homosexual relationships.At the twelve-year follow-up I encouraged the patient to pursue referrals to an adult analyst. My experience is in child analysis, and he did not seem ready to modify the good child/adult therapeutic imago that was sustaining him. In the subsequent four years, there has been no further contact with the patient.

Performing Femininities: Listening to White Working‐Class Girls in Rural Maine

In this article, I explore the ways in which sixth, seventh, and eighth grade White girls from poor and working‐class families in rural Maine understand, express, and react to dominant cultural definitions of femininity. Using a qualitative method, The Listening Guide, to interpret data gathered over the course of a year from weekly videotaped focus group conversations and individual interviews, I identify and underscore the contradictory nature of what constitutes appropriately feminine discourse and behavior for these girls — discourse and behavior that is radically different from the dominant White middle‐class cultural ideal and that offers these girls a wide range of physical and verbal expression not usually considered under the rubric of conventional femininity. I then examine the girls' ambivalent relationship with middle‐class propriety, as well as their anger, their longing, and, in some cases, their resistance to dominant cultural ideologies of femininity. Although such resistance may serve them well in their local community, it puts them at odds with the expectations of their teachers and other adults invested in the conventional feminine ideal and thus underscores their displacement in school and society. The Listener's Guide, I contend, provides a way to elucidate the struggles these working‐class girls experience as they negotiate and contest contradictory voices and visions of appropriately feminine behavior and constructions of self vying for their attention and allegiance.

Performing Femininities: Listening to White Working-Class Girls in Rural Maine

In this article, I explore the ways in which sixth, seventh, and eighth grade White girls from poor and working-class families in rural Maine understand, express, and react to dominant cultural definitions of femininity. Using a qualitative method, The Listening Guide, to interpret data gathered over the course of a year from weekly videotaped focus group conversations and individual interviews, I identify and underscore the contradictory nature of what constitutes appropriately feminine discourse and behavior for these girls — discourse and behavior that is radically different from the dominant White middle-class cultural ideal and that offers these girls a wide range of physical and verbal expression not usually considered under the rubric of conventional femininity. I then examine the girls' ambivalent relationship with middle-class propriety, as well as their anger, their longing, and, in some cases, their resistance to dominant cultural ideologies of femininity. Although such resistance may serve them well in their local community, it puts them at odds with the expectations of their teachers and other adults invested in the conventional feminine ideal and thus underscores their displacement in school and society. The Listener's Guide, I contend, provides a way to elucidate the struggles these working-class girls experience as they negotiate and contest contradictory voices and visions of appropriately feminine behavior and constructions of self vying for their attention and allegiance.

Femmes et sida en Inde Méridionale : accusation et reconstruction de l'immoralité

In Southern India, the evolution of woman's place in society, particu¬ larly noticeable in the middle and upper classes, was not accompanied by an improvement of their social and symbolic status. With the appea¬ rance of AIDS, the autonomy some of them acquired, is perceived as a threat, and strengthens conservative ideologies on the uncontrolled na¬ ture of woman and on the ideal feminine behaviour.

Resistance and compliance in women’s prisons: Towards a critique of legitimacy

This article explores how power is negotiated in women’s prisons. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in three penal establishments in England, the author analyses the ways by which women negotiate restrictions of imprisonment and the manner in which they attempt to resist institutional control. It is proposed that power is negotiated on a private, internalised level, as women often resist the institution simply by trying to maintain an image of control over their own lives. However, this image of themselves as active, reasoning agents is undermined by institutional constraints that encourage them to exhibit traditional, passive, feminine behaviour at the same time as they deny them their identities and responsibilities as mothers, wives, girlfriends, and sisters. The author concludes that women’s modes of resistance indicate that imprisonment is contested and embattled in ways reflecting broader, social norms of behaviour and identity, and thus, that the ‘legitimacy’ of imprisonment rests, at least in part, upon gender.

Sex-Role Identity and Leadership Style: Looking for an Androgynous Leadership Style

This study examines the relationship between sex-role identity and leadership style by developing an androgynous leadership style model. Previous leadership studies indicate that stereotypically masculine behaviors characterize task-oriented leadership style and that stereotypically feminine behaviors (relations-oriented leadership style) are devalued. In contrary to them, this study suggests that an androgynous leadership style can be the most appropriate for achieving high performance and effectiveness in many organizations.

Danger Delights: Texts of Gender and Race in Aerial Performance

Circus artists, especially aerial performers and wire-walkers, transgress and reconstruct the boundaries of racial and gender identity as part of their routine. In the following article, Peta Tait analyzes the careers of two twentieth-century Australian aerialists of Aboriginal descent who had to assume alternative racial identities to facilitate and enhance their careers. Both Con Colleano, who became a world-famous wire-walker in the 1920s, and Dawn de Ramirez, a side-show and circus aerialist who worked in Europe in the 1960s, undermined the social separation of masculine and feminine behaviours in their acts. Theories of the body and identity, including those of Foucault and Judith Butler, inform this critique of the performing body in circus. The author, Peta Tait, is a playwright and drama lecturer at the University of New South Wales. She is author of Original Women's Theatre (1993) and Converging Realities: Feminism in Australian Theatre (1994).

Children's appraisals of sex-typed behavior in their peers

Four experiments evaluated the effect of variations in sex-typed behavior in hypothetical peers on children's ratings of friendship. In all four studies, the children were heterogeneous with regard to social class, ethnicity, and race. In Experiment 1, children (71 boys, 90 girls) in Grades 3–6 read five stories about a target boy and in Experiment 2 (102 boys, 137 girls) about a target girl who displayed four sex-typed behaviors that ranged from exclusively masculine to exclusively feminine. In Experiment 1, boys preferred the exclusively masculine boy most as a friend. With each addition of a feminine behavior (and corresponding subtraction of a masculine behavior), the friendship ratings became increasingly negative. In contrast, the girls preferred the exclusively feminine boy most as a friend and, with each addition of a masculine behavior, the friendship ratings became increasingly negative. In Experiment 2, the converse was found although girls' ratings of friendship were less sharply affected by the target girl's sex-typed behavior than was observed for boys' ratings in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, children (33 boys, 38 girls) in Grades K—2 were read three stories about a target boy, accompanied by detailed chromatic illustrations, whose four sex-typed behaviors were exclusively masculine, equally masculine and feminine, or exclusively feminine. The boys had significantly more favorable friendship ratings than the girls; however, in contrast to Experiments 1 and 2, the target boy's sex-typed behavior did not affect friendship ratings of either boys or girls. Experiment 4 (28 boys, 27 girls) repeated the procedure of Experiment 3 with children in kindergarten and Grade 1; in addition, the children made forced-choice friendship ratings for each of the three possible story pairs. In contrast to Experiment 3, boys' friendship ratings were affected by the target boy's sex-typed behavior, as observed in Experiment 1, but girls' friendship ratings were not. However, in the forced-choice situation, the boys significantly preferred the exclusively masculine boy whereas the girls significantly preferred the exclusively feminine boy. The results were discussed in relation to the influence sex-typed behavior has on modifying the effects of a peer's sex on affiliative preference and sex differences in appraisals of cross-gender behavior, including the concept of threshold effects.

The hormone-sensitive early postnatal periods for sexual differentiation of feminine behavior and luteinizing hormone secretion in male and female rats

The purpose of this study was to determine the duration of the hormone-sensitive postnatal period during which a single injection of testosterone propionate (TP) influences feminine behavior and luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion in male and female rats. Male pups were castrated on the day of birth (day 1) between 6 and 12 h postpartum. On postnatal day 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 female pups and castrated males (fales) were injected subcutaneously with testosterone propionate (TP-500 μg). The females were laparotomized at 60 days of age, and ovarian tissue was removed for histological analysis. Female behavior was evaluated at 100 days of age. At 150 days of age, the ability of steroids to facilitate LH secretion was determined. Tests for lordosis indicated a diminished lordotic quotient (LQ) with both females and fales treated with TP on postnatal day 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7. On day 8 or 9, however, the lordotic response was at control levels. Females in all TP treated groups had significantly reduced number of corpora lutea. Females and fales treated with TP on postnatal day 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 failed to exhibit an LH surge as adults. The results indicate that the neural control of feminine behavior (LQ) is hormone-sensitive to a single injection of TP up through the 7th day of postnatal life, whereas the neural substrate regulating LH secretion was sensitive in the present study at least up through day 9 in both fales and females.

Gender Characteristics and Adjustment-Related Outcomes: Questioning the Masculinity Model

Previous reviews have concluded that there is a significant positive relation between masculinity and adjustment. The present study examined the generality of this relation by measuring gender characteristics and adjustment-related outcomes in a multidimensional manner. Results showed that although masculine traits were significantly positively associated with life satisfaction and positive affect for both men and women, they were not related to negative affect. A significant positive relation emerged between masculine traits and dyadic adjustment for both men and women, but this relation was not confirmed by partner reports. Masculine behaviors were unrelated to life satisfaction and positive affect but were positively related to negative affect. Feminine traits were predictive of the experience of pleasant interpersonal emotions and good dyadic functioning for men. A sex difference emerged for feminine interests and behaviors, indicating that they tended to be associated with negative outcomes for men but positive outcomes for women. Together, the results call into question the scope of the masculinity model of adjustment.

Speaking of Death: the Revision of Women's Fate in Wolf, Sanders-Brahms, and Bachmann

For years feminist literary scholars have pointed to the traditionally miserable fates of female characters in canonical Western narratives. In The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar demonstrated the centrality of women's death, illness, and insanity within the tradition of English literature. They argued that, not only were historical women denied the power of the pen, of telling and transmitting their stories, but their fictional counterparts were often silenced in the most direct and irrevocable manner, through death (12-16). Even though the female heroine often died in order to achieve a kind of immortality, death confined her to a passive role, robbing her of subjecthood. Rachel Blau DuPlessis has explained the narrative logic of this traditional ending: comes for a female character when she has a jumbled, distorted, inappropriate relation to the `social script' or plot designed to contain her legally, economically, and sexually (15). Death is the payment extracted from the woman who digresses from the path of prescribed feminine behaviour. The German literary canon of the last two centuries reveals a similar tendency with an impressive number of main female characters who are killed or die. A rather grand tradition of female death extends from Emilia Galotti, Lenore, Gretchen, Luise Miller, and Maria Stuart by way of Hebbel's Maria Magdalene or Agnes Bernauer and Fontane's Effi Briest to Wedekind's Lulu. This is not to say that women characters have a monopoly on death in German literature, but the relative number of main female characters who suffer some sort of victimization or sacrifice is undeniably high. It seems to be the price women must pay to be a title character. As Sigrid Weigel has argued, historically there has been a clear division between the active honour and glory of male heroism compared with passive innocence and sacrifice of female heroism (145). Given this canonical tradition of female sacrifice in German literature, we might ask what alternatives to these female fates have been explored in works by late twentieth-century feminist authors. Certainly, contemporary feminist