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Gender and identity. Gender and identity French Court Dress , c. 1670: bisexual curls ans furbelows. Gender and identity. “Some portion of what we men call ‘the enigma of women’ may perhaps be derived from this expression of bisexuality in women’ s lives .”
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Gender and identityFrench Court Dress, c. 1670: bisexualcurlsansfurbelows
Gender and identity • “Some portionofwhatwemencall ‘the enigma of women’ mayperhapsbederivedfromthisexpressionofbisexuality in women’slives.” • Sygmund Freud, “Femininity”, New IntroductoryLectures on Psychoanalysis, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1973, 165. Originallypublished 1933.
Gender and identity • “Writtenby a feminist (Virginia Woolf), for a bisexual (Vita Sackville-West) about and androgyne (Orlando)” • Pamela Caughie, “Virginia Woolf’sDoubleDiscourse”, p. 41.
Gender and identity “cross-dressinghasoftenbeen the signofanextraordinarydestiny. In manyshamanisticculturestransvestites are regardedassorcerers or visionarieswho, becauseoftheirdouble nature asmendressedas women,are sourcesof divine authority within a community….Itisnotsurprisingthatthisdouble nature shouldbeseenas a signof the sacred, whenweconsider the androgynous or at leastbisexual nature of the deities [that] are worshiped….Androgyny, in which the twosexesco-exist in oneform and which the transvestitepriestimitates in hisownperson, isanoriginal state ofpower.'.” Peter Ackroyd, Dressing Up: Tranvestism and Drag; The HistoryofanObsession
Gender and identityFashion Show at Bullock’sWilshire ca. 1929
Gender and identity • Romantic • Statuesque • Artistic • Picturesque • Modern • Conventional
Gender and identity • Eleganceisreally just housework; bymeansofit the woman whoisdeprivedofdoinganythingfeelsthatsheexpresseswhatshe is. To care forher beauty, todress up is a kindof work whichenablesherto take possessionofherpersonasshetakespossessionofher home throughhousework; her ego thenseemschosen and re-createdbyherself. Social custom furthersthistendencytoidentifywithherappearance (Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1953.).
Gender and identity • The nineteenthcenturybegantouse women withoutreservation in the production processoutside the home. Itdid so primarily in a primitive fashion byputtingthem in factories. Consequently, in the courseoftimemasculinetraitswereboundtomanifestthemselves in these women. Thesewerecausedparticularlybydisfiguringfactory work. Higherformsof production aswellas the politicalstruggleassuchwereabletopromotemasculinefeaturesof a more refined nature. • Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A LyricPoet in the Era of High Capitalism
Gender and identity • “a repeated stylization of the body that congeals over time and produces the appearance of substance.” • “continues to hold fast to and maintain the very binary system it would seem to escape (173).” • Cervetti, Nancy. “In the Breeches, Petticoats, and Pleasures of Orlando.” Journal of Modern Literature. Vol 20, No. 2. Winter 1996, p. 165-175, 174.
Gender and identity • “two powers preside, one male, one female” (96) • “live in harmony together, spiritually cooperating” (96) • Woolf, Virginia. A RoomofOne’sOwn. London: Penguin Group, 2000
Gender and identity • Woolf, Virginia. Orlando. London: Penguin Group, 1993. • “He,” (Woolf 11) • “slicing at the head of a Moor” (Woolf 11), • “for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it” (11).
Gender and identity • “crimson breeches, lace collar, waistcoat of taffeta” (Woolf 16) • “scoured”, “pared” and “thrust” (Woolf 16) “shoes with rosettes on them big as double dahlias” (Woolf 16)
Gender and identity • “oyster-coloured velvet” (Woolf 26), “her” (Woolf 26) • “ready to tear his hair with vexation that the person was of his own sex (Woolf 26)
Gender and identity • “…spending her morning in a China robe of ambiguous gender among her books; then receiving a client or two…in the same garment; then she would take a turn in the garden and clip the nut trees – for which knee-breeches were convenient; then she would change into a flowered taffeta which best suited a drive to Richmond and proposal of marriage from some great nobleman; and so back again to town, where she would don a snuff-coloured gown like a lawyer’s and visit the courts to hear how her cases were doing… and so, finally, when night came, she would more often than not become a nobleman complete from head to toe and walk the streets in search of adventure” (Woolf 153).
Gender and identity • “different though the sexes are, they intermix” (Woolf 132) • “is excessively tender-hearted” (Woolf 133) • “she detested household matters” (Woolf 133) • “bold and active as a man” “would burst into tears on slight provocation” (Woolf 133)
Gender and identity • “seemed to vacillate; she was man; she was woman” (Woolf 113) • “the most deplorable infirmities” (Woolf 113). • “indisputably, and beyond the shadow of a doubt” (Woolf 176) • “wedding ring on her finger to prove it” (Woolf 182).
Gender and identity • “men cry as frequently and as unreasonably as women…women should be shocked when men display emotion…so, shocked she was,” (Woolf 127)
Gender and identity • “The skyisblue,' hesaid, 'the grassis green.' Looking up, hesawthat, on the contrary, the skyislike the veilswhich a thousandMadonnashaveletfallfromtheirhair; and the grassfleets and darkenslike a flight ofgirlsfleeing the embracesofhairysatyrsfromenchantedwoods. 'Uponmy word,' hesaid [...], 'I don'tseethatone's more truethananother. Both are utterly false.”
Gender and identity • “Forhereagain, we come to a dilemma. Differentthough the sexes are, they intermix. In everyhumanbeing a vacillationfromone sex to the othertakesplace, and oftenitisonly the clothesthatkeep the male or femalelikeness, whileunderneath the sex is the veryoppositeofwhatitisabove.” • Virginia Woolf, Orlando, p. 132.
Gender and identity • “costumes (and selves) toreveal the pure, sexless (or third-sexed) beingbehind gender and myth” • Sandra Gilbert, “Costumesof the Mind: TransvestismasMetaphor in ModernLiterature” (214-215)
