Critical Femininities

This book presents a multidimensional framework for re-thinking femininity. Moving beyond seeing femininity as a patriarchal tool, it considers the social, historical, and ideological forces that shape present-day norms surrounding femininity, particularly those that contribute to femmephobia.

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What would change about our existing world if we re-imagined and re-valued femininity? Critical Femininities presents a multidimensional framework for re-thinking femininity. Moving beyond seeing femininity as a patriarchal tool, this book considers the social, historical, and ideological forces that shape present-day norms surrounding femininity, particularly those that contribute to femmephobia: the systematic devaluation and regulation of all that is deemed feminine.

Each chapter offers a unique application of the Critical Femininities framework to disparate areas of inquiry, ranging from breastfeeding stigma to Incel ideology, and attempts to answer pressing questions concerning the place of femininity within gender and social theory. How can we conceptualise feminine power? In what ways can vulnerability act as a powerful mode of resistance? How can we understand femininity as powerful without succumbing to masculinist frameworks? What ideological underpinnings maintain Critical Femininities as an emergent field, despite traceable origins pre-dating second-wave feminism?

As the provocative entries within this volume will certainly generate additional questions for anyone invested in society’s treatment of femininity, this book offers a launching pad for the continued growth of a field that cultivates insight from a feminine frame of reference as a means of rendering visible the taken-for-granted presence of masculinity that remains pervasive within gender theory.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Psychology & Sexuality.