Heterosexual Femininity Research Articles

Mundane matters: Mapping the becomings of heterosexual girlhood in the emerging sexual cultures of elementary school children

This article explores the vital roles of matter in the emerging sexual cultures of elementary school children. Based on a case study of a seven-year-old girl, it draws from ethnographic research on the gendered and sexual power relations of students in Northern Finland. Inspired by feminist, new materialist theories, the analysis indicates how everyday objects may be seen as co-constituting heterosexual femininity by attaching even young girls to teenage cultures and emphasizing femininity and distancing them from childhood and masculinity. This article shows, furthermore, how materiality acts in generating “cross-pulls” that may evoke popularity and admiration, but also cause restrictions to the agency of girls in the ambiguous entanglements of child sexual cultures.

A “very politically correct, wholesome family show”: Jane Seymour’s white, heterosexual femininity in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

In January 1993, the US television station CBS premiered a new TV drama about Michaela Quinn—a Boston doctor who moved alone to the Colorado frontier to establish her medical practice. Seymour’s biography played a critical role in the initial promotion of the show. The character of Dr. Quinn, as Seymour played her, was a feminist in the Hillary Rodham Clinton vein, and the show’s drama primarily revolved around Quinn’s gender deviance and issues arising from white patriarchy. Given this progressive, feminist bent, it’s surprising that the show resonated with conservative audiences and, in U.S. syndication, found a home on evangelical Christian networks such as PAX-TV and INSP. Combining media analysis, cultural analysis, and biographical research, this article analyzes how Jane Seymour’s star image and biography enabled Dr. Quinn to interrogate and challenge gender roles while also working to bolster the show’s position as “family values” TV. Ultimately, this analysis reveals the powerful role a star’s biography can play in disseminating ideas to diverse, sometimes potentially resistant, audiences.

Frankenstein Redux

Frankenstein Redux

Because You’re Worth It! The Medicalization and Moralization of Aesthetics in Aging Women

In this article—based on the fieldwork I conducted in Lisbon (Portugal) between 2018 and 2021, employing in-depth ethnography and self-ethnography—I describe the experience of the medicalization and moralization of beauty in Portuguese women aged 45–65 years. I examine the ways in which practitioners inscribe their expert knowledge on their patients’ bodies, stigmatizing the marks of time and proposing medical treatments and surgeries to “repair” and “correct” them. Beauty and youth are symbolically constructed in medical discourse as visual markers of health, an adequate lifestyle, a strong character and good personal choices (such as not smoking, and a healthy diet and exercise habits). What beauty means within the discourse of anti-aging and therapeutic rejuvenation is increasingly connected to an ideal gender performance of normative, white, middle-class, heterosexual femininity that dismisses structural determinants. The fantasy of eternal youth, linked to a neoliberal ideology of limitless enhancement and individual responsibility, is firmly entrenched in moralizing definitions of aesthetics and gender norms. Finally, my article highlights the ways in which the women I interviewed do not always passively accept the discourse of the devaluation of the ageing body, defining femininity and ageing in their own terms by creating personal variants of the hegemonic normative discourses on beauty and successful ageing.

Susan: Wha's Like Her?

Susan: Wha's Like Her?

Out of Reach: The Ideal Girl in American Girls' Serial Literature by Kate G. Harper

Reviewed by: Out of Reach: The Ideal Girl in American Girls' Serial Literature by Kate G. Harper Agapi Theodorou-Shapiro (bio) Out of Reach: The Ideal Girl in American Girls' Serial Literature, by Kate G. Harper. Routledge, 2020. In the concluding chapter of her book, Out of Reach: The Ideal Girl in American Girls' Serial Literature, Kate G. Harper questions whether the figure of the ideal girl in series literature has progressed into a more "empowering figure for girl readers" (125) over the course of the twentieth century. The short answer is: not really. The longer answer is more complex and requires additional context. In her last chapter, Harper takes us back to Obama's landmark presidential win, calling out the post-gender and postrace discourses that equated Obama's presidency with ultimate progress, a sign that the US had finally "turned its back on oppression and was embracing equality" (121). In 2016, Harper writes, "what had been obvious to some became clear on a national and international stage—racism and sexism had continued to fester beneath the façade of progress" (121). We all have different fantasies about what this country is. But the idea that US history follows a progressive teleology is one of the most dubious. Along the same lines, though one might imagine that the figure of the ideal girl in serial literature has been on a track toward greater diversity and empowerment—and some series have certainly made waves in that more progressive direction—all of the series discussed in this book ultimately reinscribe "a predictable norm of white, middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual young femininity" (125). Harper reaches that [End Page 254] conclusion by tracing the genealogy of the ideal girl trope in several popular girls' series: Dorothy Dale, Nancy Drew, Vicki Barr, Cherry Ames, the Baby-Sitters Club, and Sweet Valley High (5). In the first chapter, "A Girl of Today: Merging Models of Girlhood in Dorothy Dale," Harper introduces the Dorothy Dale series that launched this genre "and paved the way for the serial heroine as ideal girl in American culture" (14). Harper details women's shifting roles at the turn of the century, noting specifically that the Victorian model of "true womanhood" was being complicated by modern tropes of American femininity, a development that alarmed family experts. Additionally, fear-inducing was the discourse surrounding adolescence. Within this framework, adolescents were viewed as lacking reason and in need of firm "discipline and punishment" (17). And of course, parents were especially concerned about girls' sexual behavior. It is hardly surprising, then, that early volumes of the Dorothy Dale series remained beholden to their Victorian predecessors, celebrating obedience and self-sacrifice rather than adventure and independence (14). Harper reads Dorothy Dale within this cultural backdrop and analyzes the relationship between Dorothy and her friend Tavia as a way to chart the development of the ideal girl figure that emerges in the series. Dorothy and Tavia have different physical appearances and socioeconomic backgrounds: blonde-haired, blue-eyed Dorothy is "a well-bred lady," whereas "dark-haired, brown-eyed" Tavia has less economic power, is socially awkward, and often gets into trouble (22). Harper's close reading reveals the ways in which Tavia's character serves as a foil to Dorothy's, thereby further reinforcing Dorothy's ideal status. Ultimately, however, these two characters merge their best qualities in a kind of middle-ground position between the Victorian and modern conceptions of femininity: through their friendship, "Dorothy sheds her shyness and passivity, [and] Tavia reins in her fiery temper and flightiness" (26). Thus emerges the defining qualities of the ideal girl: "brave and intelligent yet appropriately feminine" (26). Another element in setting the stage for future girls' series is establishing a recurring theme of Othering those who do not inhabit the idealized standard of white, financially stable, heterosexual femininity. In Dorothy Dale, this kind of exclusionary behavior functions in two ways. Othered characters are either ignored or they are stereotyped: "the surly maid, the greedy counter clerk," the nonwhite immigrant "seeking to infiltrate American society" (26, 28). The contrast between Dorothy, for example, and Othered characters like Viola Green, a girl [End Page 255] with a...

Prosthetic Soul Mates: Sex Robots as Media for Companionship

Prosthetic Soul Mates: Sex Robots as Media for Companionship

Greta Gerwig's Gestures: Agamben in the Land of Stardom

In a brief essay, “For an Ethics of the Cinema”, Giorgio Agamben names the film star as the twentieth century figure representing an elision of what is individual and what is collective. It is impossible, he argues, to separate the actor from the character in the thorough commodification of the star, drawing examples from classical Hollywood cinema. Yet consideration of contemporary film provides for a different account of stardom in which the common language of performance is seen to be an inheritance to be inhabited critically and citationally by the star. This article brings Agamben's cinema essays on ethics and gesture respectively into dialogue with Greta Gerwig's emphatically gestural style of performance, a style that belongs to what Erin Manning has named the minor gesture. Incomplete and imperfect performances of heterosexual femininity, Gerwig's gestures are incisive in their revelation precisely of binary gender identity as the major, the defining and delimiting paradigm of adulthood that her characters consistently resist.

Gender and Queer Fan Labor on Tumblr

Dominated by LGBTQ+ and female-identified fans from various backgrounds, Tumblr blogs dedicated to queer readings of the BBC television series Sherlock (2010–ongoing) are a breeding ground for less-discussed forms of unremunerated queer labor: utopian, heuristic, and care work. In their digital fanworks, Tumblr queer users marry crafts associated with domestic heterosexual femininity (collage and scrapbooking) with established female fan practices (slashing and shipping) to articulate complex sexual and gender identities and navigate neuro-divergent mental health statuses. This article examines the shifts real-time digital interactivity and transmedia storytelling have introduced to viewer/producer power relations. Unpacking “queer cryptography” as a form of reception labor offers a feminist reading of the diverse modes of LGBTQ+ identification, kinship, and activism performed by queer female viewers on Tumblr, while questioning the vulnerability and possible exploitation of the unsanctioned affective labor produced by such a desperately underrepresented demographic.

‘Dulling it down a bit’: managing visibility, sexualities and risk in the Night Time Economy in Newcastle, UK

Drawing on qualitative interviews with young women in the UK, this article highlights how gendered and sexualised negotiations of visibility intersect and continue to be important in the ways in which young women self-regulate bodies and identities to manage risk in the Night Time Economy (NTE). Adopting visible markers of normative, heterosexual femininity on a night out can be understood as simultaneously mitigating against the risks of experiencing certain types of harassment, whilst increasing the risks of experiencing others. This article reaffirms the relevance of negotiations of visibility in shaping non-heterosexual women’s dress as a strategy for managing the risk of homophobic abuse and demonstrates some of the ways in which all young women – regardless of actual or perceived sexual identification – are required to police their bodies in order to manage the additional risks of ‘heterosexualised’ harassment in the NTE. These include threats of sexual violence and harassment primarily associated with women’s positioning as subordinated gendered subjects rather than with the policing of ‘non-normative’ sexualities, with findings suggesting that young women are more concerned with managing the risks associated with a heterosexualised male gaze rather than a homophobic gaze. ‘Everyday’ experiences of harassment are trivialised and normalised in bar and club spaces, and adopting markers of normative, heterosexual femininity was felt to increase the risks of receiving this kind of ‘unwanted attention’. Clearly, young women face challenges as they attempt to negotiate femininities, sexualities and safety and manage intersections of gender and sexuality in contemporary leisure spaces.

Gender-Fluid Geek Girls

How do technically-skilled women negotiate the male-dominated environments of technology firms? This article draws upon interviews with female programmers, technical writers, and engineers of diverse racial backgrounds and sexual orientations employed in the San Francisco tech industry. Using intersectional analysis, this study finds that racially dominant (white and Asian) women, who identified as LGBTQ and presented as gender-fluid, reported a greater sense of belonging in their workplace. They are perceived as more competent by male colleagues and avoided microaggressions that were routine among conventionally feminine, heterosexual women. We argue that a spectrum of belonging operates in these occupational spaces dominated by men. Although white and Asian women successfully navigated workplace hostilities by distancing themselves from conventional heterosexual femininity, this strategy reinforces inequality regimes that privilege male workers. These findings provide significant theoretical insights about how race, sexuality, and gender interact to reproduce structural inequalities in the new economy.

Performing (heterosexual) femininity: female agency and role in sexual life and contraceptive use – a qualitative study in Australia

Women’s liberation and the sexual revolution have changed the social landscape for heterosexual women in the West over the past 50 years, but exploration of women’s lived experiences of contraceptive use in the context of their sexual lives is comparatively recent. We conducted 94 in-depth open-ended interviews with women of reproductive age (16–49 years) living in New South Wales, Australia. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using an inductive thematic approach. Four major themes are explored here: (1) what women do and do not do: unspoken gendered assumptions; (2) focus on partner’s pleasure; (3) juggling responsibilities: sex as a chore; and (4) women’s sexual motivations. Findings suggest sexual double standards and gender expectations continue to pervade women’s sexual and contraceptive practices. We found that women performed their femininity by focusing on enabling their male partner’s pleasure, while simultaneously ignoring their own sexual desires, wishes or interests. Accompanying new-found freedoms are new-found responsibilities, as women now add managing modern contraceptives and a good sex life to their list of tasks alongside paid employment, domestic labour and childrearing. Our research findings suggest that women may derive different pleasures from sex, including what we term ‘connection pleasure’.

‘We’re, like, a cute rugby team’: How whiteness and heterosexuality shape women’s sense of belonging in rugby

This article considers how race and sexuality mutually inform the ways women experience their sense of belonging in sport. An examination of how white and heterosexual privilege structure belonging for 15 women rugby players in the sport finds that the ways in which some players assert their belonging runs the risk of reifying oppressive norms associated with heterosexual femininity and white privilege. This analysis provides a nuanced understanding of how individual women may rely on certain structures of domination to take up space in sport in ways that rely on and reproduce inequality. Although women rugby players may challenge norms of (white) heterosexual femininity, they experience these norms as mediated through their particular social locations. As a result, how women rugby players take up space in sport may be complicated by their specific relationship to social constructions of gender, sexuality, and race.

‘If your life feels empty, perhaps it’s time to find a partner?’ Constructions of heterosexual coupledom and femininity through astrological advice in a Norwegian women’s magazine

The notion that happiness is found in heterosexual coupledom is a persistent theme in popular women’s genre such as women’s magazines. The emergence of post-feminist discourses demonstrates that such conventional scripts are presented in new manners, now emphasising freedom, choice and female empowerment. The present article explores the expressions of post-feminism in an understudied cultural and media context: the Norwegian women’s magazine Det Nye’s horoscope section. The article compares horoscopes published over three decades (1988, 1998 and 2008), covering periods before and during the rise of post-feminism. Through the themes of how to meet, choose and catch men, the article asks: In what ways does the astrologer talk of the quest for heterosexual coupledom? What kinds of femininity are promoted through the quest for love? What changes are there in constructions of femininity, and what prevails? The article finds that the couple relationship alters from being constructed as an inevitable happy object that makes few demands on women, to a happy choice and an achievement that subsequently involves an all-encompassing project into which women need to put all their efforts. The study reveals a shift from a discourse of luck in 1988 to post-feminist and neo-liberalist discourses of empowerment and self-management particularly evident in 2008.

‘Good girls’: emphasised femininity as cloning culture in academia

Gender inequality in academia might be understood as an effect of the belief of a contradiction between woman and science, which make it difficult for women to appropriate the right to author and authorise acts of knowing and thinking in science. In relation to this concern, the aim of this article is to explore how a group of successful women researchers do science and uphold their position as researchers. It is based on evidence from participant observation and qualitative interviews. Theoretical understandings of femininity and cloning culture are used to analyse how the women united as a group that displays a subordinate, heterosexual femininity. Their strategies might be understood as a form of cultural cloning. By expressing a collective emphasised femininity grounded in white, heterosexual, middle-class norms, the women experienced a sameness that rendered them strong as a group and well adapted in academia.

Gender and jockography: post-feminism and resistance in female sports autobiographies

While research consistently shows news media’s devaluation of female athletes, “the jockography,” or sports autobiography, is one form of widely-consumed media through which female athletes can construct their own representation. However, there has been little consideration of the genre. This essay addresses this gap by analyzing how thirty women’s jockographies published since 1992 rhetorically construct female athletic identity and sports practice. It finds that most athletes, regardless of their sport or racial or class background, constitute their identities and participation in ways that reinforce post-feminist notions of upward mobility and heterosexual femininity while failing to confront inequalities affecting women in sport. Nevertheless, a few recent jockographies challenge normalizing discourses, asking readers to recognize differences between women and confront inequities shaping their athletic experiences.

“Not a good look”: Impossible Dilemmas for Young Women Negotiating the Culture of Intoxication in the United Kingdom

This paper investigates young women's alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom within a widespread culture of intoxication in relation to recent debates about postfeminism and contemporary femininity. Young women are faced with an “impossible dilemma,” arising from the contradiction between a hedonistic discourse of alcohol consumption and postfeminist discourse around attaining and maintaining the “right” form of hypersexual heterosexual femininity. Drawing on a recent interview study with 24 young white working-class and middle-class women in the South-West of England, we explore how young women inhabit the dilemmas of contemporary femininity in youth drinking cultures, striving to achieve the “right” form of hypersexual femininity and an “optimum” level of drunkenness.

Watching Pink Reality TV

In the post-socialist, post-war, neo-liberal, commercial media landscape in the former Yugoslavia, ethno-national, heterosexual femininity continues to be a dominant frame of reference. This article explores how the portrayal of gender is closely connected to ethno-nationalism on one of the most popular reality TV shows, The Palace, produced by the Serbian commercial broadcaster Pink TV. We analyse how female audiences in Bosnia and Herzegovina read and interpret the show and its main celebrity, the Slovene participant Urška. We argue that the different reading positions of audience groups reinforce the hegemony of a specific type of neo-liberal femininity.

The Revised MRS

Using an ethnographic and longitudinal interview study of college women and in-depth interviews with their parents, I argue that mid-tier flagship universities still push women toward gender complementarity—a gender-traditional model of economic security pairing a career oriented man with a financially dependent woman. Combining multilevel and intersectional theories, I show that the infrastructure and campus peer culture at Midwest University supports this gendered logic of class reproduction, which reflects an affluent, white, and heterosexual femininity. I argue that this logic may only work for a minority of students, and plays a role in reinforcing class inequities among women.

A töredezett (kulturális) test írása Polcz Alaine "Asszony a fronton" című művében

In this paper I will discuss Alaine Polcz’s Asszony a fronton (1991) ‘ Woman on the Front,’ subtitled Egy fejezet az életemb?l ‘A Chapter from My Life,’ as an extreme example of self-contradictory life writing, offering a fragmented self-representation of the author’s subjectivity through the narrative itineraries of both her privatized and publicized body through the last year of the Second World War. The term life writing is a particularly useful categorization for this text, since Hungarian critics have referred to it variously, sometimes in the same article, as ‘memoir, novel, autobiographical novel, documentary novel, memorial records’(memoár, regény, önéletrajzi regény, dokumentum regény, emlékiratok). I will consider how Polcz narrativizes her identity in the two parts of her story. In the first, writing about her young married life with an abusive alcoholic husband during wartime Transylvania in 1944-45 she is unable to step outside the conventional romance plot, narrating her life in terms of the most conservative conceptualization of heterosexual femininity and wifehood, premised on self-renunciation. At the same time, she subverts her surface story of masochistic other-centeredness with manipulation of gaps and secrets, creating an ongoing tension between the concealed and revealed.