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Female Masculinity
Masculinity without men. In Female Masculinity Jack Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two hundred years. Providing the first full-length study on this subject, Halberstam catalogs the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women from nineteenth-century pre-lesbian practices to contemporary drag king performances.
Through detailed textual readings as well as empirical research, Halberstam uncovers a hidden history of female masculinities while arguing for a more nuanced understanding of gender categories that would incorporate rather than pathologize them. He rereads Anne Lister's diaries and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness as foundational assertions of female masculine identity. He considers the enigma of the stone butch and the politics surrounding butch/femme roles within lesbian communities. He also explores issues of transsexuality among "transgender dykes"---lesbians who pass as men---and female-to-male transsexuals who may find the label of "lesbian" a temporary refuge. Halberstam also tackles such topics as women and boxing, butches in Hollywood and independent cinema, and the phenomenon of male impersonators.
Female Masculinity signals a new understanding of masculine behaviors and identities, and a new direction in interdisciplinary queer scholarship. Illustrated with nearly forty photographs, including portraits, film stills, and drag king performance shots, this book provides an extensive record of the wide range of female masculinities. And as Halberstam clearly demonstrates, female masculinity is not some bad imitation of virility, but a lively and dramatic staging of hybrid and minority genders.
Through detailed textual readings as well as empirical research, Halberstam uncovers a hidden history of female masculinities while arguing for a more nuanced understanding of gender categories that would incorporate rather than pathologize them. He rereads Anne Lister's diaries and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness as foundational assertions of female masculine identity. He considers the enigma of the stone butch and the politics surrounding butch/femme roles within lesbian communities. He also explores issues of transsexuality among "transgender dykes"---lesbians who pass as men---and female-to-male transsexuals who may find the label of "lesbian" a temporary refuge. Halberstam also tackles such topics as women and boxing, butches in Hollywood and independent cinema, and the phenomenon of male impersonators.
Female Masculinity signals a new understanding of masculine behaviors and identities, and a new direction in interdisciplinary queer scholarship. Illustrated with nearly forty photographs, including portraits, film stills, and drag king performance shots, this book provides an extensive record of the wide range of female masculinities. And as Halberstam clearly demonstrates, female masculinity is not some bad imitation of virility, but a lively and dramatic staging of hybrid and minority genders.
329 pages, Paperback
First published October 5, 1998
358 people are currently reading
11220 people want to read
About the author
J. Jack Halberstam
31 books583 followersJack Halberstam (born December 15, 1961), also known as Judith Halberstam, is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Gender Studies, and Comparative Literature, as well as serving as the Director of The Center for Feminist Research at University of Southern California (USC). Halberstam was the Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at the University of California at San Diego before working at USC. He is a gender and queer theorist and author.
Halberstam, who accepts masculine and feminine pronouns, as well as the name "Judith," with regard to his gender identity, focuses on the topic of tomboys and female masculinity for his writings. His 1998 Female Masculinity book discusses a common by-product of gender binarism, termed "the bathroom problem" with outlining the dangerous and awkward dilemma of a perceived gender deviant's justification of presence in a gender-policed zone, such as a public bathroom, and the identity implications of "passing" therein.
Jack is a popular speaker and gives lectures in the United States and internationally on queer failure, sex and media, subcultures, visual culture, gender variance, popular film and animation. Halberstam is currently working on several projects including a book on fascism and (homo)sexuality.
Halberstam, who accepts masculine and feminine pronouns, as well as the name "Judith," with regard to his gender identity, focuses on the topic of tomboys and female masculinity for his writings. His 1998 Female Masculinity book discusses a common by-product of gender binarism, termed "the bathroom problem" with outlining the dangerous and awkward dilemma of a perceived gender deviant's justification of presence in a gender-policed zone, such as a public bathroom, and the identity implications of "passing" therein.
Jack is a popular speaker and gives lectures in the United States and internationally on queer failure, sex and media, subcultures, visual culture, gender variance, popular film and animation. Halberstam is currently working on several projects including a book on fascism and (homo)sexuality.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 173 reviews
June 4, 2020
Halberstam is name that'll always drag me back to my university days. His writings on gender theory were always pitched as more readable (and fun) than Butler's since he generally read gender through culture rather than Butler's impenetrable poststructuralist lens. Female Masculinity was a gospel but I never actually got around to reading it.
A couple years later and I can finally call myself a Halberstan. Female Masculinity is a thorough exploration of the history of the masculine female and everything that entails. Ranging from the pre-Victorian era up to its time of publication, Halberstam looks at famed masculine females in history such as Anne Lister and Radclyffe Hall, the difference categories of female masculinity from tomboys to stone butches to FTMs, and even dedicates a chapter to the state of the drag king scene in the 90s.
Despite being a book about gender theory and sexuality, it is incredibly readable and often entertaining as Halberstam has a knack for explaining even his most complex arguments in plain language (take THAT Butler). My one major criticism of the book is that Halberstam had the misfortune of writing it in 1998. A lot of the discussion, especially in the chapter about Butch/FTM border wars, seems very rudimentary and under-researched. This isn't a fault of Halberstam, there simply just wasn't enough research at the time for him to create a truly nuanced discussion that would survive the next twenty years. But thanks to his writing here, we now have troves of discourse on this topic, so it balances out.
This is an excellent and expansive work of gender theory that will leave you questioning why men getting in touch with their feminine side is seen as good but women getting in touch with their masculine side is seen as strange and unpleasant. Why are feminine gay men lauded but masculine butch lesbians treated as outsiders? Ultimately the question that Halberstam asks us in this books is: what exactly does masculinity have to do with men?
A couple years later and I can finally call myself a Halberstan. Female Masculinity is a thorough exploration of the history of the masculine female and everything that entails. Ranging from the pre-Victorian era up to its time of publication, Halberstam looks at famed masculine females in history such as Anne Lister and Radclyffe Hall, the difference categories of female masculinity from tomboys to stone butches to FTMs, and even dedicates a chapter to the state of the drag king scene in the 90s.
Despite being a book about gender theory and sexuality, it is incredibly readable and often entertaining as Halberstam has a knack for explaining even his most complex arguments in plain language (take THAT Butler). My one major criticism of the book is that Halberstam had the misfortune of writing it in 1998. A lot of the discussion, especially in the chapter about Butch/FTM border wars, seems very rudimentary and under-researched. This isn't a fault of Halberstam, there simply just wasn't enough research at the time for him to create a truly nuanced discussion that would survive the next twenty years. But thanks to his writing here, we now have troves of discourse on this topic, so it balances out.
This is an excellent and expansive work of gender theory that will leave you questioning why men getting in touch with their feminine side is seen as good but women getting in touch with their masculine side is seen as strange and unpleasant. Why are feminine gay men lauded but masculine butch lesbians treated as outsiders? Ultimately the question that Halberstam asks us in this books is: what exactly does masculinity have to do with men?
July 7, 2013
Wow, fifteen years old. In many ways it’s kind of depressing that, in general, our culture hasn’t moved beyond a gender binary.
I always had three main peeves with Halberstam. One is zir insistence that “masculinity” is not a synonym for “men or maleness” (p. 13). Well, yes it bloody is. No matter how much we want to challenge language and forge reclaimings, masculinity is, in our culture, a synonym for maleness. Therefore as soon as one talks about female masculinity, one is talking about women/transgendered/butches/men/whoever behaving in a way that is (in our culture) manly. Throughout the book Halberstam discusses behaviour as feminine and masculine. I would be happier renaming behaviours in a way that is separate from gender, rather than trying to reframe masculinity (which seems akin to banging a head against a brick wall).
Secondly, hear my hollow laughter as Halberstam discusses the gendering of children.
“I believe that society has altered its conception of the appropriate was to raise girls; indeed, a plethora of girl problems, from eating disorders to teenage pregnancy to low intellectual ambitions, leave many parents attempting to hold femininity at bay for their young girls. Cultivating femininity in girls at a very early age also has the unfortunate effect of sexualizing them and even inducing seductive mannerisms in pre-teen girls. The popularity of the tomboy is one indication that many parents are willing to cultivate low levels of masculinity in their female children rather than undergo the alternative.”
Even back in 1998 it seemed to me to be incredibly naive to believe that little girls were being raised in a more gender-neutral way, and that this trend would intensify. I’m sure Halberstam too is choking on zir words when zie watches Dance Moms (watch the routine in the second video down. If you can stomach it**).
Thirdly, and most relevantly to this book, I utterly refute Halberstam's assertion that:
”Female masculinity seems to be at its most threatening when coupled with lesbian desire” but “hetero female masculinity . . . represents an acceptable degree of female masculinity.”
Halberstam’s examples of hetero female masculinity are Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, and Sigourney Weaver in Alien/s. It’s a goddamn superpower: watch Halberstam sweep aside challenging hetero female masculinity in less than a paragraph. Zie picks here very specific forms of “female masculinity:” ones that explicitly do not threaten because they are still feminine enough (I mean, they're ones created by Hollywood: you don't get much more manufactured and appropriately consumable than that). There’s no need to divide and conquer, Halberstam, there’s quite enough disapproval to go around female masculinity of all sexual orientations.
What’s even more annoying is that having made this distinction, Halberstam accuses others of mis-aligning female masculinity with lesbianism: “by making female masculinity equivalent to lesbianism . . . or by reading it as proto-lesbianism awaiting a coming community, we continue to hold female masculinity apart.”
With all these criticisms, this was an important book, that all interested in gender should read (although I liked the suggestion of one reviewer on GR, that it's better cited than read).
If there’s one thing I’m grateful to Halberstam for it is critiquing the 1990s framing of identifying as transgender as “being in the wrong body.” Halberstam states,”The idea that only transsexuals experience the pain of a ‘wrong body’ shows an incredible myopia about the trials and tribulations of many varieties of . . . embodiment. It . . . efficiently constructs a model of ‘right body’ experience that applies, presumably, to [other people].”
“If the borderlands are uninhabitable for some transsexuals who imagine that home is just across the [gender] border, imagine what a challenge they present to those subjects who do not believe that such a home exists, either metaphorically or literally. [Gender theorist Jay] Prosser’s cartography of gender relies on a belief in the two territories of male and female, divided by a flesh border and crossed by surgery and endocrinology . . . Some bodies are never at home, some bodies cannot simply cross from A to B, some bodies recognize and live with the inherent instability of identity.”
It’s why I get annoyed by Halberstam for talking about gender territories “in between” and “geographies of ambiguity” at the same time as saying things like “the category of stone butch lies on the boundary between lesbian and transgendered.” I don’t find categories and boundaries a very useful way of re-envisioning gender.
Still, a great re-read.
**Bonus creep factor: check out the male judge getting a camera out to take photos at 00:40.
I always had three main peeves with Halberstam. One is zir insistence that “masculinity” is not a synonym for “men or maleness” (p. 13). Well, yes it bloody is. No matter how much we want to challenge language and forge reclaimings, masculinity is, in our culture, a synonym for maleness. Therefore as soon as one talks about female masculinity, one is talking about women/transgendered/butches/men/whoever behaving in a way that is (in our culture) manly. Throughout the book Halberstam discusses behaviour as feminine and masculine. I would be happier renaming behaviours in a way that is separate from gender, rather than trying to reframe masculinity (which seems akin to banging a head against a brick wall).
Secondly, hear my hollow laughter as Halberstam discusses the gendering of children.
“I believe that society has altered its conception of the appropriate was to raise girls; indeed, a plethora of girl problems, from eating disorders to teenage pregnancy to low intellectual ambitions, leave many parents attempting to hold femininity at bay for their young girls. Cultivating femininity in girls at a very early age also has the unfortunate effect of sexualizing them and even inducing seductive mannerisms in pre-teen girls. The popularity of the tomboy is one indication that many parents are willing to cultivate low levels of masculinity in their female children rather than undergo the alternative.”
Even back in 1998 it seemed to me to be incredibly naive to believe that little girls were being raised in a more gender-neutral way, and that this trend would intensify. I’m sure Halberstam too is choking on zir words when zie watches Dance Moms (watch the routine in the second video down. If you can stomach it**).
Thirdly, and most relevantly to this book, I utterly refute Halberstam's assertion that:
”Female masculinity seems to be at its most threatening when coupled with lesbian desire” but “hetero female masculinity . . . represents an acceptable degree of female masculinity.”
Halberstam’s examples of hetero female masculinity are Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, and Sigourney Weaver in Alien/s. It’s a goddamn superpower: watch Halberstam sweep aside challenging hetero female masculinity in less than a paragraph. Zie picks here very specific forms of “female masculinity:” ones that explicitly do not threaten because they are still feminine enough (I mean, they're ones created by Hollywood: you don't get much more manufactured and appropriately consumable than that). There’s no need to divide and conquer, Halberstam, there’s quite enough disapproval to go around female masculinity of all sexual orientations.
What’s even more annoying is that having made this distinction, Halberstam accuses others of mis-aligning female masculinity with lesbianism: “by making female masculinity equivalent to lesbianism . . . or by reading it as proto-lesbianism awaiting a coming community, we continue to hold female masculinity apart.”
With all these criticisms, this was an important book, that all interested in gender should read (although I liked the suggestion of one reviewer on GR, that it's better cited than read).
If there’s one thing I’m grateful to Halberstam for it is critiquing the 1990s framing of identifying as transgender as “being in the wrong body.” Halberstam states,”The idea that only transsexuals experience the pain of a ‘wrong body’ shows an incredible myopia about the trials and tribulations of many varieties of . . . embodiment. It . . . efficiently constructs a model of ‘right body’ experience that applies, presumably, to [other people].”
“If the borderlands are uninhabitable for some transsexuals who imagine that home is just across the [gender] border, imagine what a challenge they present to those subjects who do not believe that such a home exists, either metaphorically or literally. [Gender theorist Jay] Prosser’s cartography of gender relies on a belief in the two territories of male and female, divided by a flesh border and crossed by surgery and endocrinology . . . Some bodies are never at home, some bodies cannot simply cross from A to B, some bodies recognize and live with the inherent instability of identity.”
It’s why I get annoyed by Halberstam for talking about gender territories “in between” and “geographies of ambiguity” at the same time as saying things like “the category of stone butch lies on the boundary between lesbian and transgendered.” I don’t find categories and boundaries a very useful way of re-envisioning gender.
Still, a great re-read.
**Bonus creep factor: check out the male judge getting a camera out to take photos at 00:40.
Read
September 21, 2019Halberstam’s inclusion of loving, wishful interpretation of often lesbian-free (at best; lesbian-hating at worst) media encourages us to settle for scraps made by others instead of creating what we need. Queer theorists continually amaze me with the way “sex positivity” mandates celebration of every other form of sexual behavior (no matter how genuinely damaging it is!) yet does not keep them from scornfully mocking any feminist attempt at relating sexually without eroticizing oppression; Halberstam goes so far as to describe sex between two women relating as peers working collaboratively towards mutual pleasure as entirely asexual. This tendency betrays the reality that acting out forbidden behavior (including behavior forbidden for very good reason) is actually much more important to a lot of people than sex itself, which does not inherently require recreating conditions of oppression.
The whole concept of “female masculinity” is not intelligible without buying into sexist, limiting ideas of what a woman can be to some degree. Nothing I do, nothing I wear, and nothing about my body is masculine to me; it all fits readily, without any contradiction at all, into my expansive concept (inclusive of everything anyone female is/does) of what being a woman can mean. It requires no further explanation. What’s called “female masculinity” here could also generally just be referred to as “female personality”; sometimes being butch or transitioning or whatever does mean a genuine difference, usually in how someone treats you, but often I think we’re just playing weird not-like-other-girls games. I like how I am and wouldn’t change it. That doesn’t mean the framework of “female masculinity” is useful to me. I’m glad I moved away from it because I found those ideas made me more alienated from my body, not less.
If I hadn’t read anything else acknowledging the existence of women like me this book might be better than nothing but luckily that wasn’t the case.
The whole concept of “female masculinity” is not intelligible without buying into sexist, limiting ideas of what a woman can be to some degree. Nothing I do, nothing I wear, and nothing about my body is masculine to me; it all fits readily, without any contradiction at all, into my expansive concept (inclusive of everything anyone female is/does) of what being a woman can mean. It requires no further explanation. What’s called “female masculinity” here could also generally just be referred to as “female personality”; sometimes being butch or transitioning or whatever does mean a genuine difference, usually in how someone treats you, but often I think we’re just playing weird not-like-other-girls games. I like how I am and wouldn’t change it. That doesn’t mean the framework of “female masculinity” is useful to me. I’m glad I moved away from it because I found those ideas made me more alienated from my body, not less.
If I hadn’t read anything else acknowledging the existence of women like me this book might be better than nothing but luckily that wasn’t the case.
February 6, 2008
Halberstam makes some generalizations about the slippage between butch dyke and FTM identity that come off as troubling (even though her blurring of butch/transman resonated strongly for me personally). Perhaps it was her style or her lack of "theory power" as writer, but I remember that her tone towards female masculinity - "trans guy, butch dyke, we're really all the same!" - bothered me at times. I did benefit, however, from her discussion about female masculinity and film.
November 23, 2011
I think that part of the reason that I didn't love this book as much as I had hoped is because it's a bit outdated. It was published in 1998, and certainly the queer and gender equality movements have changed dramatically over the past decade. Had I read this book closer to when it had been written, it may have resonated with me more.
Female Masculinity is incredibly well-researched and includes a lot of fascinating information about the history of female masculinity. Several chapters focus on pre-twentieth century female masculinity, which I found particularly interesting, as most of the information in those chapters were completely new to me.
My favorite chapter is the second to last chapter, which explores masculinity as performance and the drag king culture. Halberstam did an excellent job of highlighting the differences between the ways that masculinity and femininity are performed and how these performances are illustrated in drag culture. I've always been a fan of drag, but I am much less familiar with the drag king world than I am with the drag queen world, and reading about "kinging," as Halberstam calls it, has made me very interested in learning more.
It's also important to mention that Halberstam's writing is very approachable, and, as a whole, Female Masculinity is one of the most accessible academic texts I've ever read. It's very theoretical, of course, but it contains much less jargon than other books I've read on similar topics.
My biggest problem with Female Masculinity is that it exclusively explored masculinity in queer women. While the relationship between female masculinity and lesbianism is critical and worthy of extensive examination, I was hoping to read about a more diverse assortment of female masculine identities. One of my biggest pet peeves is when gender identity and sexual orientation are conflated, and I felt that the exclusive focus on lesbianism perpetuated that kind of conflation. The implication that only queer women are masculine is incredibly problematic, and though I don't think Halberstam meant to imply that, it does come across that way at points.
I was also troubled by the way Halberstam compared butch female identity with trans male identity. Again, I don't think Halberstam meant to imply that masculine-presenting women and transgender men have the same identities and struggles, but there are moments where the arguments come across that way. Since trans men are men, and not masculine women, I felt the comparisons between trans men and butch women to be oversimplified and not entirely accurate.
Overall, I enjoyed Female Masculinity, but it is not the definitive text on the subject I was hoping it would be. I am curious to see what else has been written on the subject since this book's release.
Female Masculinity is incredibly well-researched and includes a lot of fascinating information about the history of female masculinity. Several chapters focus on pre-twentieth century female masculinity, which I found particularly interesting, as most of the information in those chapters were completely new to me.
My favorite chapter is the second to last chapter, which explores masculinity as performance and the drag king culture. Halberstam did an excellent job of highlighting the differences between the ways that masculinity and femininity are performed and how these performances are illustrated in drag culture. I've always been a fan of drag, but I am much less familiar with the drag king world than I am with the drag queen world, and reading about "kinging," as Halberstam calls it, has made me very interested in learning more.
It's also important to mention that Halberstam's writing is very approachable, and, as a whole, Female Masculinity is one of the most accessible academic texts I've ever read. It's very theoretical, of course, but it contains much less jargon than other books I've read on similar topics.
My biggest problem with Female Masculinity is that it exclusively explored masculinity in queer women. While the relationship between female masculinity and lesbianism is critical and worthy of extensive examination, I was hoping to read about a more diverse assortment of female masculine identities. One of my biggest pet peeves is when gender identity and sexual orientation are conflated, and I felt that the exclusive focus on lesbianism perpetuated that kind of conflation. The implication that only queer women are masculine is incredibly problematic, and though I don't think Halberstam meant to imply that, it does come across that way at points.
I was also troubled by the way Halberstam compared butch female identity with trans male identity. Again, I don't think Halberstam meant to imply that masculine-presenting women and transgender men have the same identities and struggles, but there are moments where the arguments come across that way. Since trans men are men, and not masculine women, I felt the comparisons between trans men and butch women to be oversimplified and not entirely accurate.
Overall, I enjoyed Female Masculinity, but it is not the definitive text on the subject I was hoping it would be. I am curious to see what else has been written on the subject since this book's release.
February 15, 2017
This book at times irritated me, but often interested me. I learned a new word "tribadism" (google it but not in a public place like I made the mistake of doing). Many of the observations are true, and as she reaches what seem like conclusions she seems to trouble them enough to add complexity, depth and honesty- there are no answers.
At times it seemed to me the idea of "female masculinity" was built upon essentialist assumptions (although at other times Halbestram deconstructed that). I thought the connection between female masculinity and feminism was a bit contrived and the connection between female masculinity and making any real change to the negative excesses of white male masculinity was wishful thinking. The book ended weakly.
Nevertheless it is rich with complexity, thought provoking and full of types and versions of women you may never have thought of. I sort of found myself in there, not directly but at its best the text allowed the reader to differ from the types it was presenting. Initially I read it from a lgbtiq perspective but in fact I think it would be a useful book for any women, even very deliberately "feminine"/femme straight women.
If you can cope with the idealisation and almost idolisation of the butch (I realise where it comes from but still...)
Anyway it never bored me...
At times it seemed to me the idea of "female masculinity" was built upon essentialist assumptions (although at other times Halbestram deconstructed that). I thought the connection between female masculinity and feminism was a bit contrived and the connection between female masculinity and making any real change to the negative excesses of white male masculinity was wishful thinking. The book ended weakly.
Nevertheless it is rich with complexity, thought provoking and full of types and versions of women you may never have thought of. I sort of found myself in there, not directly but at its best the text allowed the reader to differ from the types it was presenting. Initially I read it from a lgbtiq perspective but in fact I think it would be a useful book for any women, even very deliberately "feminine"/femme straight women.
If you can cope with the idealisation and almost idolisation of the butch (I realise where it comes from but still...)
Anyway it never bored me...
January 31, 2016
I've taken months to read this one, and taken the time to watch a number of the movies and read a few of the other books Halberstam references. This book is equivalent to a graduate/PhD level semester long class. It's dense, it's logical, it's no-nonsense at the same time as being masterfully written, it takes into consideration past writings (both of the author and others), and it offers a few bold insights. Even though it was first published in 1998, the vast majority of the book remains completely up to date. Halberstam is an incredible writer and an extremely detail oriented teacher. Highly recommended, but not for the faint of heart or anyone who just wants a basic introduction. Take the time to fully understand this one, it's worth it.
February 21, 2008
Groundreaking, awesome, and unfortunately, subtly (and on occasion not-so-subtly) less than glowing about femmes! Get with it, people: you CAN glorify one identity without putting others down.
September 30, 2010
To anyone in technical or hard science fields, "social science" is a contradiction at best, and sociology and queer studies are social science's less rigorous younger siblings. At one point near the beginning, Halberstam debates whether the more scientific approach to studying female masculinity is surveying people in a nonrandom way and subjectively interpreting the results--and here you say, OK, finally someone is rejecting this completely flawed methodology as legitimate research--or, wait for it...watching a lot of movies. I don't think I'll be spoiling the plot to point out that the movies won.
This aside, there's a lot of interesting history of gender ambiguity and the choices available to women who didn't fit in the limited available roles open to them in and before the mid-20th century. The exploration of film could be made more concise or include more examples, but it's good information as well. I was disappointed that Halberstam's research seems to focus, however, exclusively on women and transmen who date women. It might not be interesting to Halberstam, but I was a little disappointed to see masculinity (which, oddly enough, never seems to be defined by any of the books on it) regarded as mostly defined by sexuality and outward characteristics. No space whatsoever is given to straight, cis-women performing traditionally male careers or otherwise adopting traditionally male roles despite their lack of gender ambiguity in other areas.
At the same time as she's completely ignored straight women, though, I have a feeling that Halberstam will have managed to upset transmen pretty severely. She doesn't really touch on identity issues much at all, which seems like it would be an important point in creating the boundaries of the "border wars" between butch lesbians and FTM transsexuals. It seems like the easiest way to find out "what people are" is to ask them, and actually pay attention to the responses. The resistance to self-definition is odd in a context that is generally supportive of various deviant gender expressions.
In any case, the academics in this field will find Female Masculinity an interesting book; to most other people it will probably read like the PhD dissertation I suspect it was. There are interesting points here, and it will slightly change how you view many characters in film (most recently for me, Cate Blanchett in Robin Hood), but I had to force myself through it for book club's sake.
This aside, there's a lot of interesting history of gender ambiguity and the choices available to women who didn't fit in the limited available roles open to them in and before the mid-20th century. The exploration of film could be made more concise or include more examples, but it's good information as well. I was disappointed that Halberstam's research seems to focus, however, exclusively on women and transmen who date women. It might not be interesting to Halberstam, but I was a little disappointed to see masculinity (which, oddly enough, never seems to be defined by any of the books on it) regarded as mostly defined by sexuality and outward characteristics. No space whatsoever is given to straight, cis-women performing traditionally male careers or otherwise adopting traditionally male roles despite their lack of gender ambiguity in other areas.
At the same time as she's completely ignored straight women, though, I have a feeling that Halberstam will have managed to upset transmen pretty severely. She doesn't really touch on identity issues much at all, which seems like it would be an important point in creating the boundaries of the "border wars" between butch lesbians and FTM transsexuals. It seems like the easiest way to find out "what people are" is to ask them, and actually pay attention to the responses. The resistance to self-definition is odd in a context that is generally supportive of various deviant gender expressions.
In any case, the academics in this field will find Female Masculinity an interesting book; to most other people it will probably read like the PhD dissertation I suspect it was. There are interesting points here, and it will slightly change how you view many characters in film (most recently for me, Cate Blanchett in Robin Hood), but I had to force myself through it for book club's sake.
January 5, 2021
A masterful analysis of the masculine woman throughout history and culture; from Ann Lister to Radclyffe Hall to Greta Garbo to Queen Latifa—Halberstam uncovers a layered and textual history of mannish lesbians, transgender butches, male impersonators and more.
April 23, 2022
‘trans men can’t be lesbians!’ tiktok discourse ppl should read this x
June 30, 2019
Like most theorists, Halberstam sometimes comes across like a person who has never interacted with other humans. This book regularly falls back on using the passive voice (for example, that 'butchness is seen as being XYZ' or similar) to avoid having to give more concrete evidence that a particular notion exists at all, let alone is as wide-spread as Halberstam would have you believe. One segment that had me flabbergasted was in the first chapter in which he asserts that men's restrooms are not just homosocial but "homoerotic" spaces. There's no follow up or explanation to this ludicrous statement. I did an informal poll of six men of my acquaintance, not a big sample size I know, and 0% of them owned up to any "homoerotic" experiences in men's restrooms ("It's possibly about the least sexy place I could think of. It stinks in there.")
If we are going to attempt to make academia a more accessible place, I think saying things that are true ought to be high on the priority list.
I also struggle with Halberstam's reluctance to form a coherent definition of masculinity. Halberstam argues that masculinity is not aping male behavior, since even cisgender men strive for masculinity. Not to be a Jungian or anything but I don't see any contradiction in the idea that men strive idealized male archetype, that seems logical to me (not that I think that is ideal.) I think that an ordinary writer might have instead listed traits that are masculine, but that would probably give Halberstam away as someone who dislikes and distrusts femininity. He has no fond words whatsoever for femininity, which he characterizes as ridiculous and artificial in the chapter about drag or dangerous and unhealthy in the chapters about cisgender, heterosexual feminine women. I can think of too many examples of ways that femininity can be performed by women in ways that are not encouraged by society as a whole, and "too much" femininity is definitely a critique I have seen before from [cis, hetero] men as well as [cis, hetero] women.)
Because of this disconnect with the lived experiences of actual butches and other masculine women, I also worry about the implications of some of Halberstam's points. One of those that has stuck with me is the idea that masculine women and Butches constitute a separate gender (or cluster of genders.) Some butches do identify as gender non-conforming or non-binary, but many do not, and so I think that othering butchness from womanness and from lesbianism is not only historically untenable but also extremely dangerous. Butches and masculine women do not universally have "male privilege" that protects them from patriarchal scrutiny or violence and it is important for those of us who construct safe communities to carve out room for butches or other masculine women (Side note: This is why I am extremely opposed to use phrases like "women and femmes" that exclude Butches and other masculine women from the protections offered by feminist and other LGBT-inclusive spaces.)
It was not all bad and there were definitely sections in this book that I flagged for later reference (reading this the same month as reading Alison Bechdel's The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues, and two biographies of Anne Lister has been very interesting.) This book shines in chapters where Halberstam actually has to talk to other people, such as the chapter about drag kings or even the conclusion which discusses his own experiences as a masculine child who wanted to box but was prevented from doing so by his parents. The final chapter ends with a meditation on what encouraging masculinity could do for young girls who are often encouraged to be feminine to the point of sexualization and I also found that very interesting to think about, although I would argue that either encouraging androgyny or encouraging neither would be better long-term solutions.
If we are going to attempt to make academia a more accessible place, I think saying things that are true ought to be high on the priority list.
I also struggle with Halberstam's reluctance to form a coherent definition of masculinity. Halberstam argues that masculinity is not aping male behavior, since even cisgender men strive for masculinity. Not to be a Jungian or anything but I don't see any contradiction in the idea that men strive idealized male archetype, that seems logical to me (not that I think that is ideal.) I think that an ordinary writer might have instead listed traits that are masculine, but that would probably give Halberstam away as someone who dislikes and distrusts femininity. He has no fond words whatsoever for femininity, which he characterizes as ridiculous and artificial in the chapter about drag or dangerous and unhealthy in the chapters about cisgender, heterosexual feminine women. I can think of too many examples of ways that femininity can be performed by women in ways that are not encouraged by society as a whole, and "too much" femininity is definitely a critique I have seen before from [cis, hetero] men as well as [cis, hetero] women.)
Because of this disconnect with the lived experiences of actual butches and other masculine women, I also worry about the implications of some of Halberstam's points. One of those that has stuck with me is the idea that masculine women and Butches constitute a separate gender (or cluster of genders.) Some butches do identify as gender non-conforming or non-binary, but many do not, and so I think that othering butchness from womanness and from lesbianism is not only historically untenable but also extremely dangerous. Butches and masculine women do not universally have "male privilege" that protects them from patriarchal scrutiny or violence and it is important for those of us who construct safe communities to carve out room for butches or other masculine women (Side note: This is why I am extremely opposed to use phrases like "women and femmes" that exclude Butches and other masculine women from the protections offered by feminist and other LGBT-inclusive spaces.)
It was not all bad and there were definitely sections in this book that I flagged for later reference (reading this the same month as reading Alison Bechdel's The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues, and two biographies of Anne Lister has been very interesting.) This book shines in chapters where Halberstam actually has to talk to other people, such as the chapter about drag kings or even the conclusion which discusses his own experiences as a masculine child who wanted to box but was prevented from doing so by his parents. The final chapter ends with a meditation on what encouraging masculinity could do for young girls who are often encouraged to be feminine to the point of sexualization and I also found that very interesting to think about, although I would argue that either encouraging androgyny or encouraging neither would be better long-term solutions.
March 16, 2021
An excellent book on the subject of female masculinity in all its many guises.
Halberstam covers everything from the "butch" in cinema and literature, to drag king performing, LGBTQ continuum discussion, transgender and much in between.
Her book pulls no punches and some of the first half is weighty in issues, making it quite "heavy" reading. Nevertheless, persevere and you'll be rewarded with a thorough study and critique of this fascinating subject.
Halberstam covers everything from the "butch" in cinema and literature, to drag king performing, LGBTQ continuum discussion, transgender and much in between.
Her book pulls no punches and some of the first half is weighty in issues, making it quite "heavy" reading. Nevertheless, persevere and you'll be rewarded with a thorough study and critique of this fascinating subject.
May 25, 2012
Basically, "Where's my phallus?" Butch, please.
Read
July 31, 2022Read this if you have any interest in butch lesbians... so good
January 28, 2020
This books touches base on almost every curiosity we might have surrounding the idea of a female masculinity.
Halberstam explains with precision the points of divergence and congruence between sex assignment and conscious gender adoption.
Halberstam also presents a good case for the Stone Butch revealing how valid and full of an identity the Stone Butch is even as it is the only sexual and gender identity that’s defined by what the beholder will or will not do intimately; by the fact that the beholder is deemed “untouchable”.
Throughout the book we’re welcomed to think of female and alternative masculinities as imaginatively recreated through writing and other forms of cultural production as opposed to hegemonic.
I enjoyed the chapters on Perverse Presentism, Transgender Butches and Lesbian Masculinity.
What’s disappointing though—like with most progressive books I’ve read from the 70s-90s—is how little we’ve transgressed the binary or escaped normatives that were well theorized against decades ago.
It’s time for a cataclysmic shift. Highly recommend!
Halberstam explains with precision the points of divergence and congruence between sex assignment and conscious gender adoption.
Halberstam also presents a good case for the Stone Butch revealing how valid and full of an identity the Stone Butch is even as it is the only sexual and gender identity that’s defined by what the beholder will or will not do intimately; by the fact that the beholder is deemed “untouchable”.
Throughout the book we’re welcomed to think of female and alternative masculinities as imaginatively recreated through writing and other forms of cultural production as opposed to hegemonic.
I enjoyed the chapters on Perverse Presentism, Transgender Butches and Lesbian Masculinity.
What’s disappointing though—like with most progressive books I’ve read from the 70s-90s—is how little we’ve transgressed the binary or escaped normatives that were well theorized against decades ago.
It’s time for a cataclysmic shift. Highly recommend!
May 19, 2025
I think I would have gotten more out of this book with more of an understanding of gender studies or queer studies/theory but overall I found it really interesting and it verbalized thoughts that I related to/understood a lot. There were a lot of great quotes and intersectional points in this book about gender, race, sexuality, and their performance. It also addressed the big question of what does it actually mean to be a “masculine woman” by looking at male masculinity and presenting female masculinity as not a copy but as an alternative to MM.
I enjoyed the points about the limits of “acceptable” female masculinity especially with tomboys and heterosexual women which mostly concluded that FM is acceptable, desirable, even, when it does not threaten or dislodge existing patriarchal power structures (also meaning that patriarchy has defined clear “boxes” and timelines for what it means to perform gender and that girls/women may acceptably display masculinity so long as they stay in those confines). This goes along with one of JH’s other points that under patriarchy gender must be readable immediately.
I think the chapter on FTM/butch border wars was a little too broad and didn’t account for the variety of relevant experiences in the queer community. But it was published in 1998 so I don’t think this is Halberstam’s fault, there just wasn’t enough research.
There was a lot of importance in differentiating between the visibility of lesbians and how there is relative safety in different levels of visibility. Not all lesbians are equally invisible. Black lesbians, working class butches, and lesbian inmates pay an extraordinary price for their visibility, and therefore allow for white, white collar, lesbians to enjoy relative invisibility/be able to openly participate in their gayness to whatever degree they want.
Overall this was a great read, digestible, and interesting. I’d recommend this to anyone interested in gender studies that doesnt have a ton of background in it.
I enjoyed the points about the limits of “acceptable” female masculinity especially with tomboys and heterosexual women which mostly concluded that FM is acceptable, desirable, even, when it does not threaten or dislodge existing patriarchal power structures (also meaning that patriarchy has defined clear “boxes” and timelines for what it means to perform gender and that girls/women may acceptably display masculinity so long as they stay in those confines). This goes along with one of JH’s other points that under patriarchy gender must be readable immediately.
I think the chapter on FTM/butch border wars was a little too broad and didn’t account for the variety of relevant experiences in the queer community. But it was published in 1998 so I don’t think this is Halberstam’s fault, there just wasn’t enough research.
There was a lot of importance in differentiating between the visibility of lesbians and how there is relative safety in different levels of visibility. Not all lesbians are equally invisible. Black lesbians, working class butches, and lesbian inmates pay an extraordinary price for their visibility, and therefore allow for white, white collar, lesbians to enjoy relative invisibility/be able to openly participate in their gayness to whatever degree they want.
Overall this was a great read, digestible, and interesting. I’d recommend this to anyone interested in gender studies that doesnt have a ton of background in it.
December 5, 2024
“This book has not only been a philosophical inquiry into the whys and wherefores of female masculinity, it is also a seriously committed attempt to make masculinity safe for all women and girls.”
This book is very important to me, for the above reasons and more, and I’m glad to have finally read the whole thing now :)
This book is very important to me, for the above reasons and more, and I’m glad to have finally read the whole thing now :)
September 3, 2021
MY MIND IS EXPLODING
December 14, 2017
canonical! fun/sad/sexy/opening up possibilities in language/queerness
March 5, 2019
"Next came gender-appropriate clothes and all manner of social prohibitions. I personally experienced adolescence as the shrinking of my world." (BIG MOOD)
"Whether we are confronted with the hormonally and surgically altered bodies of transgender men or the tattooed and pierced and scarred skin of the butch dyke, we look at bodies that display their own layered and multiple identifications."
Those were my favorite lines of the book. This was published in the 90s, and now people say that using the word "transexual" instead of "transgender" is taboo - so maybe some of the terms are outdated, as transgender no longer seems to be an emerging identity, but an established fact.
I would also say, however, that this book brings home the fact on how naive and simplified tumblr "discourse" is when it discusses identity politics. The chapter about the early inverts and masculine women drove this home. Instead of being thrown under the label of lesbian, these people deserve to have their identities examined and respect the terms they used for themselves.
I admit I spedread through the film chapter - I'm not a big fan of films or film discussion (I think the only time I enjoyed a film class was my Chinese film class in college) but again, the discussions about Calamity Jane is in sharp relief to the clumsy reading of a popular tumblr video post about Calamity Jane (it also completely skips over the butch part and the feminizing of the butch and the inherent issues with that.)
This was worth reading for me, but I think I'd rather read some of the queer fiction cited in this book rather than more heavy theory.
"Whether we are confronted with the hormonally and surgically altered bodies of transgender men or the tattooed and pierced and scarred skin of the butch dyke, we look at bodies that display their own layered and multiple identifications."
Those were my favorite lines of the book. This was published in the 90s, and now people say that using the word "transexual" instead of "transgender" is taboo - so maybe some of the terms are outdated, as transgender no longer seems to be an emerging identity, but an established fact.
I would also say, however, that this book brings home the fact on how naive and simplified tumblr "discourse" is when it discusses identity politics. The chapter about the early inverts and masculine women drove this home. Instead of being thrown under the label of lesbian, these people deserve to have their identities examined and respect the terms they used for themselves.
I admit I spedread through the film chapter - I'm not a big fan of films or film discussion (I think the only time I enjoyed a film class was my Chinese film class in college) but again, the discussions about Calamity Jane is in sharp relief to the clumsy reading of a popular tumblr video post about Calamity Jane (it also completely skips over the butch part and the feminizing of the butch and the inherent issues with that.)
This was worth reading for me, but I think I'd rather read some of the queer fiction cited in this book rather than more heavy theory.
September 8, 2024
Vote: 3.4
It’s honest to say I was expecting more from this book. But it’s also honest to say that I had different expectations.
This is definitely a seminal and essential book for the history of transmasc, butch, masculine female people. It is a collection of historical milestones for the community, extremely well researched and put together.
However in my case I had mainly two problems: 1) I read it already years into my own transition; 2) I was expecting more theoretical ideas over historical archives material. For problem 1) The thing is I was already familiar with many of the concepts that Halberstam presents here, through simply lived experience in my transmasc identity, sharing with others in the community, and reading up, so it did not add much to what I already knew unfortunately; 2) I was expecting more theoretical examination of these concepts, more theoretical analysis, and I feel this is mainly an historical archive - a very important one - of examples of female masculinity from 18th century up to the 90s.
It’s an essential book that fills gaps in knowledge, showing that examples of female masculinity have always existed, despite having been largely disregarded, it was just not fully what I expected. I appreciated the chapters on film representation and drag kings’ history, which were topics I was less familiar with.
Still recommended.
It’s honest to say I was expecting more from this book. But it’s also honest to say that I had different expectations.
This is definitely a seminal and essential book for the history of transmasc, butch, masculine female people. It is a collection of historical milestones for the community, extremely well researched and put together.
However in my case I had mainly two problems: 1) I read it already years into my own transition; 2) I was expecting more theoretical ideas over historical archives material. For problem 1) The thing is I was already familiar with many of the concepts that Halberstam presents here, through simply lived experience in my transmasc identity, sharing with others in the community, and reading up, so it did not add much to what I already knew unfortunately; 2) I was expecting more theoretical examination of these concepts, more theoretical analysis, and I feel this is mainly an historical archive - a very important one - of examples of female masculinity from 18th century up to the 90s.
It’s an essential book that fills gaps in knowledge, showing that examples of female masculinity have always existed, despite having been largely disregarded, it was just not fully what I expected. I appreciated the chapters on film representation and drag kings’ history, which were topics I was less familiar with.
Still recommended.
October 30, 2023
I really, really loved this book. It was so informative, and I loved how it outlined so many different forms of alternative masculinities. It’s explained so many things I’ve heard and experienced personally, and given me so many new recommendations of queer media. Definitely a favorite.
This book does have its issues, but those are very few and far between. I think that they’re greatly overshadowed by the fact that this book actually discusses and brings to light many, many aspects of female masculine culture and identity that have been so heavily overshadowed within our culture, especially that within the lesbian community. And it even outlines some kind of history of representation within various media of butches, which has become a stigmatized and misunderstood aspect of lesbian subcultures. I think that this is a very important work, and that it should be noted that this is possibly one of the only books out there (at least that I’ve been able to find) about female masculinity that doesn’t subject it to less-than, and actually written by and for those within that subculture.
This book does have its issues, but those are very few and far between. I think that they’re greatly overshadowed by the fact that this book actually discusses and brings to light many, many aspects of female masculine culture and identity that have been so heavily overshadowed within our culture, especially that within the lesbian community. And it even outlines some kind of history of representation within various media of butches, which has become a stigmatized and misunderstood aspect of lesbian subcultures. I think that this is a very important work, and that it should be noted that this is possibly one of the only books out there (at least that I’ve been able to find) about female masculinity that doesn’t subject it to less-than, and actually written by and for those within that subculture.
February 23, 2025
Indiscutivelmente este livro do pesquisador de gênero Jack Halberstam é um tratado sobre a butchness. Não temos uma palavra brasileira que se equipare à butch e eu só consigo pensar em machorra. Então butchness seria algo como machorrice, que seria um nome popular para a masculinidade feminina do título deste livro e que Halberstam se aprofunda nas mais diferentes apresentações e níveis desse tipo de performatividade de gênero. É muito interessante ver a masculinidade por esse prisma, da mesma forma que Judith Butler viu a feminilidade nas drag queens. Contudo, apesar da intensidade deste livro, a parte teórica, que mais me interessa, ficou relegada ao começo e ao final da obra, que são sensacionais. Por outro lado o recheio do livro ficou cheio de cases e na minha percepção faltaram mais discussões teóricas que resultaram dessas análises de casos. Claro, é um livro muito bom e seminal, com o perdão da expressão masculinista, mas eu ainda prefiro o que o autor fez em A Arte Queer do Fracasso, ficou um livro mais redondinho.
March 8, 2024
This is an interesting piece of queer theory history, but for the initiated the insights are not profound; they’ve been integrated into common sense (at least, they have down our way). The best part is undoubtedly Chapter 5 on ‘butch/FTM border wars’. As the name suggests, it’s filled with 90s American queer, feminist, and trans activism drama. This brings up wonderful lines like this one: ‘My article was received […] as a clumsy and ignorant attack on the viability of FTM transsexuality, and there was a small debate about it in the pages of the FTM Newsletter’ (p. 146). One can’t help but be nostalgic for a small world made up of paper newsletters! By virtue of temperament, I’m probably more sympathetic with Jay Prosser, but I still appreciate what Halberstam is trying to say throughout the book. And of course the discussion has in many ways moved on since 1998. I found the concluding autobiographical chapter moving.
May 15, 2025
Halberstam is phenomenal, loved The Queer Art of Failure and this was no different. I have too many notes from this so, readers, two takeaways will have to suffice ...
Butch is playful and dangerous. It allows people who aren't men, or have never been seen as one, to access a plane of existence: to play with the fire that is gender in our time is a delight indeed.
Women just want access to masculinity that is not threatening, and doesn't want to threaten them, so if you occupy that ... power to you.
Butch is playful and dangerous. It allows people who aren't men, or have never been seen as one, to access a plane of existence: to play with the fire that is gender in our time is a delight indeed.
Women just want access to masculinity that is not threatening, and doesn't want to threaten them, so if you occupy that ... power to you.
January 15, 2021
I learned quite a bit from this book, especially the distinction between androgyny and masculinity. These two presentations of being are not equal, and for me this was an important point in understanding female masculinity. Halberstam excellently explains the power and politics that keep masculinity toxic, violent, and heavily policed by society. This is a straightforward read. I always appreciate Halberstam for being detailed in their philosophical reasoning and explanation without making me feel like I'm trying to read a foreign language. I feel this is a must read for anyone desiring to live in a gender equitable world.
December 5, 2023
Defining masculinity as separate from male bodies let's us also define gender in general as separate from the body. It is simply brilliant. The book is on top of that written with zest and humour and is very well researched. I kinda leaves me thinking that drag kings are masculinity's last and only hope.
January 28, 2024
Such an interesting deep dive into the rich history of female masculinity, its depiction and significance. It is definitely an academic text, but feels quite readable. Although I certainly missed a lot of points, not only because I am terrible when it comes to pop culture references and did not know a single one of the mentioned movies...
August 15, 2024
I used this in several essays I wrote for university but never got the right chance to read the whole thing. Listening to fiction in audio format is always difficult for me, so I thought I would try listening to non-fiction, and it worked! This was a great listen for when I walked my dog or did chores. It felt a lot like listening to a video essay in the background of daily life.
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