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Showing posts from March, 2012

Performance of Femininity: A Personal Journey

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Here’s a concept I like: Performance of Femininity. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_performativity Its basically the idea that gender is something we do rather than something we are. It’s the reason why I love that Caitlin Moran called her book “How to Be a Woman” because I’ve always felt that being a woman is something to be done, to be mastered, to be performed and I suspect that others feel the same way too. It’s nice for someone to say so; directly and in the title of a book. A well named book My performance of femininity is shit. I am not polished, I am not convincing. I stumble over my lines. If you followed the wikipeadia link, you will know that performance of femininity takes in the way we act as well as the way we dress and present our appearance but I’m going to focus on appearance here because that’s the part I’ve historically had most trouble with. Growing up, we were skint; permanently. I can only remember feeling actively frustrated by this for a s