Stilettos sees the strength of
femininity expressed with a row of shoes ready for battle.
Although, McClintock specifically refers to Victorian era, I believe that this dualistic notion of
femininity is still very much in practice today.
Until the 70s, it was accepted that masculinity and
femininity consist of a list of features and interests based on statistical differences according to sex (Butcher et al., 1989; Gough, 1952; Guilford and Zimmerman, 1949; Hathaway and McKinley, 1943; Strong, 1936; Terman and Miles, 1936).
I am not worried about losing my
femininity to breast cancer surgery; I'm worried about losing my future to the disease.
This construction of
femininity, in addition to social strictures concerning the worthlessness of marginalised figures such as women, girls and orphans, led to many women leading confined, deprived and limited lives.
(Gailey 84) Bonnie's experience of shame stems from internalised structural oppression, where women's bodies are meant to fit a certain mould of normative, white
femininity. In talking about normative white
femininity, I refer to Western beauty standards that dictate that for a woman to be desirable, she should be thin, white, heterosexual and feminine.
Statistical analysis of bipolar measures of the masculinity/
femininity (M-F) traits indeed demonstrated that the traits are multidimensional (Stockard and Johnson, 1992)-a person can be both masculine and feminine.
Each perspective sheds light on the nature of Diana's iconicity, and the intersection of whiteness and
femininity that she embodied, and examines what this means for understandings of Anglophone national modernities; and she also looks at what is at stake for people of colour within these discourses.
These expensive, ad-packed, hyper-visual glossies not only look different from the story-based local titles, they also advocate a "power
femininity," which celebrates women's assertive individualism, their power as consumerist agency, and a glamorous, increasingly globalized lifestyle.
femininity is a carefully constructed appearance and/or form of conduct" (1997, p.
The second definition erases this specificity, that of women and
femininity and more importantly, any hierarchy between the 'sexes'.
Advertising, Sex, and Post-Socialism: Women, Media, and
Femininity in the Balkans.
