A Brief Analysis of Halberstam’s Argument in, “Female Masculinity”
A Critical analysis of Halberstam's "Female Masculinity"
By Louis Chamberlain | April 11th, 2011
In Halberstam’s “Female Masculinity”, many pieces of evidence were put together to make a claim. The following quote deals with an argument Halberstam made that the idea of masculinity as a whole is only made justifiable by other expressions of manliness, such as female masculinity. “I claim that far from being an imitation of maleness, female masculinity actually affords us a glimpse of how masculinity is constructed as masculinity. In other words, female masculinities are framed as the rejected scraps of dominant masculinity in order that male masculinity may appear to be the real thing”(355). This is saying that the idea that other forms of masculinity are not socially accepted as correct, thus making male masculinity a much more defined, serious expression. The author wonders what it means to be masculine, and what the root definition really is. Through examples, she demonstrated that just because something is considered masculine, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it fits into all of our cultures stereotypes of the word. This leads the reader to believe that there is a fundamental gap in the way we interpret manliness. This misunderstanding is where she attempts to rest her argument on somewhat radical issues, such as gender neutral bathrooms.
On page 362, the author references various examples of famous examples of female masculinity; she lists a broad range of examples from professional bodybuilders to an example as extreme as a hermaphrodite, which is a condition that affects roughly one in 10,000 people. She uses examples such as these to back of a side argument of gender neutral bathrooms in public buildings as well as further broaden the idea that masculinity does not necessarily have a clear definition. The author’s main arguments to support her claim included the fake manliness of James Bond, and the general discouragement of the post-adolescent tomboy. James Bond in Goldeneye is used because Bond does not in fact possess the usual masculine traits such as strength, the affection of many women, and supreme respect, a big point that was made was that Bond is only as masculine as other people built him up to be, and that when stripped down, he is less masculine than a butch woman. The idea of the rejected teenage tomboy in the argument was central for two reasons; it made a strong example of how there is bias in the way masculinity is defined in the American culture, it also made Halberstam’s argument much more relatable to the average American, who most likely has had a relationship with a tomboy.
Overall the arguments made did not strongly support the claim. The author did a poor job organizing her thoughts into a coherent piece of writing. The idea of the loss of identity of masculinity is a very easy one to embrace, but when she started using extreme gender examples such as transgendered people and her own gender situation, the article as a whole lost a lot of credibility.
