Femininity revisited – A round table

Abstract

Women's Studies has been the paradox that femininity has posed for feminist theory. As we wrote in the introduction, it remains relatively under-scrutinised in the journal as well as, to some extent, more broadly in women's/gender studies: on the one hand, a central problem especially for (white) women, on the other, a seemingly undertheorised concept. Curiously, while we have deconstructed 'woman' as a unified subject and object of feminism, femininity itself seems to still need further reconfiguration. As an afterword to this issue, special issue editors Ulrika Dahl and Jenny Sundén have worked with Open Forum editor madeleine kennedy-macfoy on inviting a few scholars who have influenced our own work and whose work in turn has developed theoretical discussions around femininity to a virtual round table discussion. We thank Professor

Constructing respectability from disfavoured social positions: exploring young femininities and health as shaped by marginalisation and social context. A qualitative study in Northern Sweden

“…Methodological and theoretical limitations include the lack of research questions and demographic information about gender and sexualities beyond ‘cisgendered female bodies’ [41] and ‘normative white femininities’ [17]. There may be participants in the sample who represent sexual and/or ethnic national minorities which were not explored.…”

“…It may also mirror our own normative and biased lens and view as the research team [40], despite being gender and feminist researchers with a mission to challenge power and to reveal inequities in health and living conditions. A promising future direction in health research on gender and femininities is to broaden the scope toward truly intersectional approaches and critical femininity studies [7,15,17,40,41], and to explore health, lived experiences and social constructs beyond patriarchal white femininity. Further investigations of eventual general devaluation and discrimination of femininity in various social contexts, including ‘femmephobia’ and masculine privilege [15], are also important future analytical and theoretical directions.…”

“…Critical femininity studies, intersectional feminist approaches, and ‘queer fem(me)inist’ scholars question the understandings and theories of femininity that are limited to white, cisgender, heterosexual, female (able) bodies [7,12,15,17,40,41]. As pointed out by Hoskin [7] in concepts on femme theory and intersectionality, and Dahl and Sundén [41], ‘hegemonic’, ‘normative’ or ‘patriarchal’ femininity is not only tied to dominant gender norms, but also to class (upper-middle), race/ethnicity (whiteness), ability (able-bodied) and sexuality (heterosexuality). According to Deliovsky [17], the white patriarchal discourse and normative white femininity represent white women as the ‘benchmark woman’.…”

“…3–4). According to Dahl [41], with reference to Skeggs [27], the default mode of ‘respectable’ and idealised heteronormative femininity is failure . And the risk of failure is tied to class (not bourgeois) and race (not white).…”

Beauty: What Makes Us Dream, What Haunts Us

“…In Istanbul's white‐ and pink‐collar service sectors, “employable femininity” (Dahl et al. 2018) has recently shifted toward a more sexualized look that relies on intensive beauty consumption, including facial fillers, injections, and cosmetic surgery. For individual women, investments in beauty are often a balancing act, one that may be required within competitive job and marriage markets, indulged in for pleasure, but also one possibly risky due to beauty's sexual connotation in a conservative gender climate.…”