Innovative essays that explore how men perform femininity and what femininity looks like
without women What counts as male femininity?? Is it simply men behaving in effeminate ways or
is it the absence of masculinity? Male Femininities presents a nuanced critical collection of
essays that highlight the extent to which male femininities are neither an imitation of
femaleness nor an emptying of masculinity. These innovative essays focus on both gay and
straight men and transmasculine and genderqueer people in their construction and performance
of femininity thereby revealing the possibilities that open up when we critically examine
femininity without women. Male Femininities asks What does femininity look like for men? The
contributors?highly regarded scholars and rising stars?cover a range of topics including drag
queens cosmetic enhancements trans fertility and gender-non-conforming childhoods. Male
Femininities illuminates what happens when we decouple femininity from female bodies and how
even the smallest cracks and fissures in the normative order can disrupt challenge and in
some cases reaffirm our existing sex-gender regime. This volume pluralizes the concept of male
femininities and leads readers through an exploration of how gender sex and sexuality are
manifested in the United States today.
