Academic literature on the topic 'Feminine masquerade'

In this essay, I suggest that we may read Esther Summerson's narration in Bleak House through the lens of recent feminist theoretical speculations on mimicry and masquerade. I argue that Esther's narrative is a duplicitous one in that it redeploys masculine modes of discourse, calling attention to the production of women in that discourse. Writing a narrative about her life, Esther, in effect, copies masculine discourse, but she also writes over it imprinting her own signature. Esther's writing sheds much light on the text's obsessive focus on writing and copying; she produces copy, the copy of a Victorian ideal woman, but in doing so she engenders blots that preclude a unidimensional reading of her. I contend that Esther adopts a narrative veil; this then is her secret in the text which links feminine identity to mimicry and masquerade. At the center of the text is Dickens's mordant critique of the legal system and its machinations; similarly, I argue that Esther's narrative participates in the demolishing of the idea of a stable notion of feminine identity.

In 1990s America, the question of what made a ‘real’ man was at the forefront of debates about sex and gender. During this pivotal moment in American history, hegemonic masculinity in particular was experiencing numerous threats to its ontological security. For instance, masculinity was infamously pronounced in crisis, the advent of the ‘new man’ betrayed anxieties about an image-conscious and feminine performance of masculinity, and there was mounting social pressure from civil rights, feminist, and queer groups for straight, white, masculinity to be challenged as the centre of the patriarchal stage. In short, the issue for masculinity in the 90s was that of legitimacy. The response from Hollywood was an influx of films which featured leading men in costume, disguise, or masquerade. John Woo's Face/Off is one such film that betrays anxieties about the constructedness of hegemonic masculinity. Face/Off does so through the motif of plastic surgery. In this article, I will explore how Face/Off uses the image of plastic surgery to represent the masculinities of its male protagonists as masquerades. I will demonstrate how plastic surgery in Face/Off is a device which transforms hegemonic masculinity so that it may adapt to the climate of crisis and secure its continuation. Face/Off demonstrates that masculinity is a construct which masquerades as an ontology.

The prose novel by N. V. Nedobrovo Soul in A Mask, written in 1914, incorporates basic ideas of the writer’s work and continues development of gender (feminine) discourse of the modern era. To a large extent, the search for a “soul in a mask”, the ability to express a lyrical “I”, coupled with the theatricality of being, the need for a social masquerade, are characteristic of the majority of modernist works. The theme of masks is equally present in the lyrics of symbolism and close to Nedobrovo acmeism (for example, in the work of A. A. Akhmatova, Nedobrovo’s closest friend). The masquerade performs two functions in the novel — plot-forming and philosophical. Having made the center of the story of the reflecting heroine Olga, Nedobrovo displays a number of male characters, a collision which meant to reveal the title female character. Male / female opposition (masculinity / femininity) informs the main conflict of the novel, related to the inability of an intelligent woman of expressing herself in a male society without wearing a mask. The paper shows that the mask serves as a kind of gender projection and represents an attempt to overcome the social masquerade, which is always associated with an identity crisis. Mask, as applied to the heroine and her ready-made social mask gives an opposite effect, only emphasizing the gender difference and, accordingly, leading to the disclosure of the heroine’s femininity. Based on this, “female issue” raised in the story is resolved in compliance with patriarchal ideas of the conservative gender discourse of the turn of the century.

This contribution aims for a “corporeal reconstitution” (Irigaray) of Sophie Taeuber’s (1889-1943) dance performances at the Cabaret Voltaire and the Galerie Dada in 1916/17. This means that the movements from the static images informing the history of Dada art need to be re-imagined. It implies a rendering perceptible of Taeuber’s trained dancer’s body, its particular movements, and the quality of these movements. Through testimonies of contemporaries, it becomes clear that Taeuber not only dances in a costume or behind a mask but with the mask, the costume and sound poems. The reconstitution of the moving body with the mask thus points at a foregrounding of the masquerade to which she is convicted as a woman. Her mimetic strategy (Irigaray) or playful repetition of the masquerade entails a “radically new mode of relating” (Obler 2009, 223) between human and non-human materiality. Taeuber is not only moving in between puppet and puppeteer, movement and stasis, abstraction and expressivity, performer and mask, presence and absence, but also in between feminine and masculine. The hybrid movements in her mimetic strategy disrupt the binary nature of the oppositional pairs. In dancing the perpetual movement in between dualities, through a patchwork of genres and materials (her drawings, embroideries and tapestries are also driven by kinetic forces), Taeuber not only playfully rebels against patriarchal discourse, but also against the dehumanizing effects of World War One violently raging through Europe.

This essay explores Jennifer Jason Leigh’s portrayal of the young prostitute Tralala in Last Exit to Brooklyn (Uli Edel, 1989) as a case study in performance style that can be usefully understood as bisexual. Drawing firstly upon Joan Riviere’s concept of womanliness as a masquerade, it examines how Tralala’s feminine performativity masks a confused, neurotic and androgynous gender identity and a raging bid for phallic power. As played by Leigh, Tralala’s snarling speech and undulating swagger evokes the wounded rage, rebellion and alienation of 1950s Method “bad boy” stars such as Marlon Brando, James Dean and Montgomery Clift, and the result is a performance style that oscillates freely between male and female subjectivities. Reading the male Method stars in terms of alternative masculinities that transgress the social order, the article argues that Tralala’s essential masochism is fuelled by a similar disavowal of her biological gender. In this regard, she demonstrates a desire to annihilate the self that has less to do with standard screen representations of female masochism than with the explosive psychic processes of classic Method masculinity.

This study analyzes Marianne Moore’s poems Marriage, To be Liked by You Would be a Calamity and Feed Me, Also, River God from a poststructural feminist framework as posited in the writings of Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. The study approaches the poems as examples of ecriture feminine, which is literally the feminine writing aimed at relocating the feminine and female body back into discourse. Women’s non-representation in the male-centered discourse, female essentialization based on her biology and perception of the female body as the locus of male desire are among the primary concerns of these feminist thinkers. In line with the ideas of these theorists, Marianne Moore subverts the traditional patriarchal understanding of what a woman is through her poems and gains poetic subjectivity through re-writing the body. She mimes the language of the father, and masquerades gender roles showing the performativity of these roles while at the same time distorting and revising them to open up space for female subjectivity. Therefore, ecriture feminine turns into a means to politicize writing and female body through its subversive, revisionary, multiple and fluid aspect.

This project investigates the apparent contradiction of a female artist who prioritises embodied presence in her art works, but produces Minimalist installations. It does this by describing in detail and analysing, and thus re-evaluating the significance of, the full range of actions and processes that are performed to produce the work. It further proposes that, in the actions of crafting the individual elements and in designing, planning and installing the work in Modernist gallery spaces, conditions are set up for viewers of the finished work to experience a physical awareness that echoes that of the artist in those actions and processes.

This project investigates the apparent contradiction of a female artist who prioritises embodied presence in her art works, but produces Minimalist installations. It does this by describing in detail and analysing, and thus re-evaluating the significance of, the full range of actions and processes that are performed to produce the work. It further proposes that, in the actions of crafting the individual elements and in designing, planning and installing the work in Modernist gallery spaces, conditions are set up for viewers of the finished work to experience a physical awareness that echoes that of the artist in those actions and processes.

Blonde hair is a potent and highly visible sign in western culture. Although the popularity and desirability of blonde hair in the West is well documented, since the 1950s, blonde hair has also generated many negative associations and these have contributed to myths around blondeness. In particular, women who dye their hair blonde find themselves in a paradoxical position; they simultaneously evoke desire and derision. This thesis uses the model of feminine masquerade outlined by Joan Riviere (1929) as a locus for discussing the transgressive potential of the knowing use of blondeness as a sign. When women wear blondeness in this way they embrace it as an oblique means to access privilege. This self-reflexivity allows women to enter sites of power that they are otherwise excluded from. Drawing on ideas of the carnivalesque, as described by Mikhail Bakhtin (1968), this thesis also proposes that the carnivalesque is employed by women in order to transgress patriarchal boundaries through an ironic masquerade of the archetypal blonde. These paradoxical meanings of blondeness are evoked in the work of performance artist Vanessa Beecroft. Beecroft stages both the reflexive awareness of today's blonde woman and the way in which she is shaped by socio-cultural forces beyond her control. Through reference to Beecroft's art, this dissertation builds upon the optimism and transgressive potential of Bakhtin's 'carnival' and Riviere's 'feminine masquerade' to re-present the identity/position of blonde women as one of agency and power.

Blonde hair is a potent and highly visible sign in western culture. Although the popularity and desirability of blonde hair in the West is well documented, since the 1950s, blonde hair has also generated many negative associations and these have contributed to myths around blondeness. In particular, women who dye their hair blonde find themselves in a paradoxical position; they simultaneously evoke desire and derision. This thesis uses the model of feminine masquerade outlined by Joan Riviere (1929) as a locus for discussing the transgressive potential of the knowing use of blondeness as a sign. When women wear blondeness in this way they embrace it as an oblique means to access privilege. This self-reflexivity allows women to enter sites of power that they are otherwise excluded from. Drawing on ideas of the carnivalesque, as described by Mikhail Bakhtin (1968), this thesis also proposes that the carnivalesque is employed by women in order to transgress patriarchal boundaries through an ironic masquerade of the archetypal blonde. These paradoxical meanings of blondeness are evoked in the work of performance artist Vanessa Beecroft. Beecroft stages both the reflexive awareness of today's blonde woman and the way in which she is shaped by socio-cultural forces beyond her control. Through reference to Beecroft's art, this dissertation builds upon the optimism and transgressive potential of Bakhtin's 'carnival' and Riviere's 'feminine masquerade' to re-present the identity/position of blonde women as one of agency and power.
Thesis (Professional Doctorate)
Doctor of Visual Arts (DVA)
Queensland College of Art
Full Text

Le blog est un catalyseur idéal des transformations sociales et technologiques définitoires pour les sociétés occidentales. Il traduit une double prise de distance des individus: la première anti-hégémonique, par le refus du monopole de la production de modèles de genre et de l’information, et la deuxième expressiviste et identitaire liée à la prise de parole non-médiée des femmes dans l’espace public digital. Cette recherche prolonge les questionnements sur la possibilité de manifestation dans le numérique d’un expressivisme de genre. En ce sens, le blog personnel de mode est questionné comme une voie d’intervention dans la culture, un nouveau média de mode et un genre discursif émergent, un espace d’affirmation des contre-publics et une nouvelle technologie de genre qui permet la redéfinition de la féminité contemporaine. Son objectif majeur a été de comprendre comment les femmes se présentent, parlent et agissent dans le numérique en rapport avec le contexte, leur condition de femmes et surtout leurs intentions. Il s’agit de la mise en question de leur investissement numérique en tant qu’actrices qui assument les épreuves de la nouvelle socialité féminine.L’analyse exploratoire, qui a été à la base de la construction du corpus d’analyse, dévoile l’ampleur de la fragmentation de la blogosphère de mode. Il s’agit d’un travail de pionnier qui a le grand avantage de ne pas rester à la surface du phénomène investigué. La fragmentation de la blogosphère annonce moins la disparition du phénomène, mais son évolution dans des tendances qui anticipent des changements futurs et qui sont en synergie avec le développement d’Internet. Les blogs sont une source riche de données qualitatives qui nous a permis une triangulation méthodologique efficace: une observation ethnographique en ligne, une analyse de discours cadrée par l’éthos et une analyse visuelle. Ainsi, nous avons analysé un répertoire diversifié de l’éthos féminin (corporel, contestataire, professionnel et familial), dont l’intérêt a été de prouver qu’il y a une forme de détachement du modèle dominant de la féminité. A partir d’un corpus international de blogs personnels écrits par des femmes, nous avons identifié et analysé le modèle dominant de la blogueuse de mode, défini par la vision consensuelle sur la féminité et un positionnement de partenariat avec l’industrie de la mode, et toute une série de positionnements contre-hégémoniques. Cette recherche indique le passage de la féminité comme identité imaginée à une féminité conçue en relation avec le statut de l’acteur social. Dans ce basculement réside l’intérêt d’une pratique qui recèle un pouvoir représentationnel.Cette recherche propose la redéfinition des blogs personnels de mode en tant que nouvelles technologies de genre et contribue à l’analyse générique du blog de mode par l’identification des différentes scénographies dans la sous-catégorie visée. Celle-ci a produit la première typologie des blogs personnels de mode qui implique les catégories suivantes: male gaze, pratiques hédonistes, posture critique, activisme social. Suite à la neutralisation du social, à la réactivation persistante de la mascarade féminine et l’enfermement dans l’identité unique de femme, le blog personnel de mode devient un instrument d’aliénation participative. Par contre, suite au défigement de la mascarade féminine, la construction des communautés diasporiques en ligne, la mobilisation des identités féminine plurielles et des degrés variables d’ancrage social, le blog personnel de mode devient un instrument de soft power qui atteste de la prise en charge des femmes des représentations de leur propre genre. L’approche interdisciplinaire nous a permis d’analyser cet objet d’étude syncrétique qui est le résultat du développement technologique, de la transformation des conditions et des formes de communication et, finalement, des mutations sociales en cours
Nowadays, the blog actively mobilizes social and technological transformations that are characteristic for the Western society. As such, it encompasses two directions: a counter- hegemonic one, dismissing the monopoly of gender models and of information production, and an identity-related one, aspiring to the promise of unaltered self-expressionin the public sphere. This study aims to contribute to the body of research about the online manifestation of gender expressivism. Personal fashion blogs are analyzed as a form of cultural intervention, an emergent discourse, and a space of affirmation for contra-audiences, as well as a new gender technology, that facilitates the redefinition of contemporary femininity. The purpose is to explore how women represent themselves, how they relate to their social context, their gendered status, and how they communicate their intentions. To this end, I depart from the premise that their interventions in the digital space are enacted as agents seeking to validate new forms of feminine sociality. The corpus is built on an exploratory analysis revealing the fragmentation characterizing personal fashion blogs. Although this is a pioneering work, it does not treat superficially the investigated phenomena. Beyond the analysis, it emphasizes the future shifts of personal fashion blogs, in synergy with Internet developments. The blogosphere has constituted a rich source of qualitative data, which has allowed a methodological triangulation: an online ethnographical observation, a discourse analysis centering on the notion of ethos and a visual analysis. I selected and analyzed a varied repertoire of the contemporary feminine ethos (physical, disruptive, professional and familial), which demonstrates that in this media there is a trend to detach oneself from dominant model of femininity. By employing a cross-national corpus of fashion blogs, owned by women, I have identified the traits of the dominant fashion blog – presenting what it appears to be a consensual view on femininity, in partnership with the fashion industry - but also a series of counterhegemonic positionings. This research signals the transition from an imaginary femininity towards a feminine identity which materializes in close relationship with social status. In this shift of perspective resides our interest in a practice which grants access to self-representation.The study suggests defining personal fashion blogs as new gender technologies. It starts with a generic analysis of fashion blogs by circumscribing various scenographies based on which a series of visual sub-categories can be distinguished. Thus, I introduce an original typology of personal fashion blogs: male gaze, hedonistic practices, critical stance and social activism. On the one hand, personal fashion blogs neutralize the social context through the continuous activation of the feminine masquerade and by claiming a monolithic feminine identity, the blog becomes an instrument of participative alienation. On the other hand, through the deconstruction of the feminine masquerade, by building online diasporic communities, and shifting between identities, personal fashion blogs become an instrument of soft power, a place of resistance that establishes women’s representations as something achieved by them, not imposed upon them. An inter-disciplinary approach has made possible the analysis of this syncretic object of study, which is the result of digital technologies, but also of existing social transformations / of evolving gender relations

We live in a world constructed by predeterminations, divided by gender. It’s a masquerade that we’re all taking part in, men by their gaze and women by embodying it. I’ve investigated spaces where feminine attributes are interconnected to a female body, and aspects that shape the misleading mask. In my research I discovered that there are three areas where a woman and female attributes are merged: In media where the stereotype image of a woman is confirmed in glossy magazines and in reality shows. In the bathroom, a room that represents the starting point of the masquerade. And last in typical feminine rooms, beauty salons, where make-up and nail polish is applied to female bodies. By researching spaces I discovered that bodies are shaped by the exclusion of the other sex and by gender specific norms. Out from my own bodily perception I have investigated the feminine surface in the borderland between corpus and jewellery. In my process I shifted the perspective by creating wearable pieces that illustrate the undressing of femininity and by dressing traditionally masculine corpus in feminine materials. All together the objects make up a burlesque staging of a feminine scenography. It’s first when an object loses its initial function that we can create new reference points. It’s when lipstick is casted in the shape of soap and when a high heel is separated from the shoe that they become disconnected from the female body.

The full thesis contains copyrighted material which has been removed in the published version.

L'approche métapsychologique vise à décrire les processus psychiques déployés dans la mascarade féminine et dans la parade virile du point de vue topique. Les concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse permettent que soient interrogées les catégories du féminin et du masculin. Si l'on se fie au déséquilibre existant dans la littérature qui traite de la question du masculin et du féminin, on en déduit que l'énigme de la femme fait discourir là où la question du masculin ne ferait pas débat. Il est également courant d'associer la mascarade à la position féminine tandis que son corrélât pour l'homme se trouverait dans la parade. Aussi, le rapport entre un homme et une femme fait l'objet d'un spectacle et la comédie entre les sexes atteste des effets du rapport avec le signifiant phallique. Selon Lacan, le rapport de la femme au phallus joue dans le registre du manque et de la substitution et concerne le paraître être, là où le rapport de l'homme se situe du côté du leurre et désigne le paraître avoir le phallus. Ainsi, les deux sexes ratent singulièrement le rapport sexuel qui ne peut pas s'écrire. Nous voulons par cette thèse apporter une nuance majeure quant à l'articulation de la mascarade féminine et de la parade virile ainsi que ses répercussions sur toute position sexuelle. Sans omettre l'impact social sur la distribution des rôles sexuels, nous insistons sur le fait que la dimension culturelle ne peut pas déterminer les choix structuraux de la position sexuelle
The Metapsychological approach is focused on describing the psychic processes deployed in the feminine masquerade and in the virile parade from the topical point of view. The fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis allow the feminine and the masculine categories to be studied. If we take into account the imbalance existing il the literature which deals with the matter of the masculine or the feminine, we déduise that "the enigma of the woman" leaves much to be discussed, where the question of the masculine would not strip up controversy. It is also common to associate the masquerade with the feminine position while its correlate for the man would be in the virile parade. According to Lacan, the relationship between the man and the woman is indeed an object of a show and the comedy between the sexes represents the effects of the relationship with the phallic signifier. The attitude of the woman towards the phallus plays in the register of the lack and the substitution and refers to appear to being phallus, where the attitude of the man is on the side of the lure and indicates appear to having phallus. Thus, the two sexes individually miss the sexuel relation which cannot be written. By thise thesis, we want to add a major nuance to the articulation of the feminine masquerade and the virile parade, as well as to its repercussions on any sexual position. Without neglecting the social impact on the distribution of the sex roles, we insist that the cultural dimension cannot determine the structural choices of the sexual positions

The purpose of this thesis was to explore selected works from William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and John Keats, in order to expose textual instances of feminist thought. This analysis was aided with feminist theorists falling under the main strains of queer theory, materialism, and gender performance. Specifically, this thesis focused on the ways in which women, particularly virgin daughters, were viewed as property by their male kin. It also looked at how these women engaged in various symbolic masquerades and/or actual cross-dressing as a response to the aforementioned phenomenon. Finally, the thesis exposed how these masquerades can be construed as a queering of identity—manifested through reversals of power and rejection of patriarchal institutions like marriage.

I denna uppsats analyseras Disneyfilmen Mulan från 1998 ur ett feministiskt perspektiv. I en tid då feminismen återigen står högt upp på dagordningen och eftersom det fortfarande debatteras kring Mulan och feminism ville vi författare undersöka på djupet om Mulan kan kallas för feministisk. Med utgångspunkt i Judith Butlers feministiska teorier om hur genus konstrueras och är en maskerad kompletterat med Laura Mulveys teorier kring den manliga blicken i film samt Margareta Rönnbergs förklaring av den kvinnligt kodade hedoniska makten kontra den manligt kodade agoniska så har vi författare gjort en narrativ analys av filmen Mulan samt en karaktärsanalys av karaktären Mulan och hittat tydliga exempel på hur filmen bryter med rådande genusnormer, bekräftar maskeradbegreppet och bryter mot den manliga blicken. Filmen är dock problematisk då den innehåller scener som också bekräftar rådande makt- och genusstrukturer och där scener mellan kvinnor ges väldigt lite speltid, något vi utforskat genom Bechdel-Wallace-testet. Ser man dock till filmen i sin helhet, går in på djupet i dess narrativ och undersöker karaktären Mulan så är det denna uppsats mening att Mulan är en feministisk film.
In this essay the Disney-movie Mulan from 1998 has been analyzed through a feminist approach. In a time when feminism once again is a burning issue and since there is still a debate regarding Mulan and feminism this essay wanted to investigate if Mulan could actually be called a feminist movie. Based on Judith Butler’s feministic ideas regarding how gender is a construction and a masquerade combined with Laura Mulvey’s theory about the male gaze in movies and Margareta Rönnbergs explanation of the female coded hedonic power versus the male coded agonic we writers have made an narrative analysis of the movie Mulan and also an analysis of the character Mulan and found clear examples of how the movie breaks with current norms of gender, confirms the theory of masquerade and doesn’t conform to the male gaze. However, the movie is problematic since it contains scenes that also confirm current power and gender structures and scenes with just women are given very short screentime, something we have explored through the Bechdel-Wallace-test. If you look at the movie as a whole, goes in depth into the movies narrative and look at the character Mulan it is this essays conclusion that Mulan is a feministic movie.

Cecilia Mörner var examinator för den här uppsatsen medan Per Vesterlund var examinator för kursen och den som attesterade kursens betyg (och därför står som examinator på titelsidan men inte i metadata).

This chapter provides an interrogation of the relevant notions of postfeminist masquerade with regards to Marvel superheroines, a widely-occurring narrative phenomenon that is also inflected by contemporary postfeminist practices and a mode of representation that has noticeably proliferated in these texts. Building on existing scholarship, the chapter examines the notion of the superheroine undercover, a tradition that reaches back to foundational popular feminist texts such as Charlie’s Angels (ABC, 1976–1981) and questions the implications of this tradition in the context of contemporary superheroic feminine identity. Taking account of the constructed qualities of femininity, contemporary superheroines are often introduced in disguise with the film’s narrative positioning them as ordinary civilian women before divulging their heroism. This narrative turn occupies a specific ideological role relating to postfeminist culture. This concept is explored using The Avengers’ (2012) Natasha Romanoff and expanded on in a discussion of identity crisis in the superheroine Captain Marvel.

Marnie (1964, Alfred Hitchcock) is a film about sex and crime; in particular, about ‘the sexual aberrations of the criminal female’, according to the title of the book Mark Rutland reads to try to understand his new wife. The conduct of said criminal female, Margaret Edgar, Marion Holland, or just plain Marnie, is based on feminine masquerade and an aesthetics of what Michele Montrelay might call ‘dotty objects’: gloves, purses, handbags, nail files, hair combs, stockings and – most significantly – shoes. This chapter demonstrates the film’s deployment of shoes as a trope of Marnie’s identity, and explore how they symbolise different sides to Marnie at stages in her story. In so doing, the film imbues feminine artifice with significance and stature, enabling Marnie’s identity to be explored by elements of the mise-en-scene that might ordinarily be considered simply decorative.

This chapter makes the question of affective labor explicit as it works through Maureen Catbagan’s video series Crush (2010–2012), which features a woman in high heels crushing plastic toys. Catbagan’s decision to feature a white woman in this critique of domestic labor brings to light the pervasiveness of discourses of white feminine misery as read through Joan Riviere’s “Womanliness as Masquerade,” while also highlighting the object-centered nature of fetishism. Catbagan’s project asks viewers to read for race and sensuality in other modes because their Filipino identity is rendered invisible. This reorientation of representation produces brown jouissance in relation to mimesis and virality, thereby upending questions of value and commodification.

Eschewing a reductive reading, this chapter considers the complex and often ambivalent gender politics associated with the woman warrior figures—or nüxia, meaning literally “female knights-errant”—in Hong Kong martial arts films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In particular, it argues that the truly transgressive aspect of these fighting female characters lies not so much in their taking on of qualities (such as violent physicality) historically aligned with men; rather, what is potentially more radical is their adeptness in assuming and performing multiple gender identities, from female masculinity (the appropriation and refunctionalization of hegemonic masculine norms) to the feminine masquerade (the deliberate flaunting of femininity). Such gender play bears a more destabilizing potential by virtue of its ability to bring about a blurring of gender identities, and thus to undermine and challenge the notion of masculinity and femininity as fixed, immutable categories.