‘A woman should one day write the complete philosophy of clothes’ (Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, ed. Donald Pizer, Norton, 1970 [1900], p. 4). Explore the meanings of women’s clothing (men’s clothing, too, if you wish) in any American cultural text of your choice.
The French feminist theorist Hélène Cixous writes of the power of women’s creativity ‘to break up the “truth” with laughter’ (‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, translated by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, Signs, vol. 1, no. 4, Summer 1976, p. 888). What role is played in feminist American culture, and how effectively, by laughter and comedy?
‘I’m not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff’ (US photographer Cindy Sherman, interviewed by Betsy Berne in ‘Studio: Cindy Sherman’, Tate Research Publication, 1 June, 2003). While being careful to avoid ‘bullshit’, consider what a feminist perspective can tell us about Sherman’s series, Untitled Film Stills (1977-80: for a selection, see here).
In 2004, bell hooks wrote that ‘Negative stereotypes about the nature of black masculinity continue to overdetermine the identities black males are allowed to fashion for themselves’ (We Real Cool, Routledge, p. xii). As you consider contemporary representations by and of Black men in the United States, does hooks’s point still stand, or do you detect progressive and varied Black masculinities?
Michael Warner speaks of ‘the heterosexualization of society’ (‘Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet’, Social Text, vol. 29, 1991, p. 7). Take the most recent examples of American culture that you have read, or seen, or listened to: do they contribute to or, rather, do they contest this pervasive ‘heterosexualization’?
Speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona shortly before he became US President for the second time, Donald Trump declared that ‘With the stroke of my pen, on day one, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy’ (qtd. in report on NBC, KYMA/KECY, 22 December, 2024). Keep ‘the transgender lunacy’ going, however, by offering a detailed reading of this community’s portrayal in Sean Baker’s film, Tangerine (2015).
Study Activities
Assess the state of American gender relations at the turn of the nineteenth century by reading the first chapter, suggestively entitled ‘The Magnet Attracting: A Waif Amid Forces’, of Theodore Dreiser’s important Naturalist novel, Sister Carrie (1900). It is important, of course, not to generalise unduly from a single text. Nevertheless, observing due caution, the extract is illuminating. What does it suggest about women’s power at that time, relative to men’s? How is the young protagonist Carrie Meeber seen to negotiate public space, compared with the easefulness of her interlocutor here, the male travelling salesman Drouet? Bearing in mind our chapter’s interest in intersectionality, the idea that multiple factors combine in our social formation, you might explore, also, gender’s entanglements with class in this chapter.
Though a venerable text now, Laura Mulvey’s essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975) remains a touchstone in feminist film studies for its interrogation of ‘the male gaze’. First, read Mulvey’s essay, then consider how useful it is as a resource for thinking about gender representation in this selection of recent Hollywood movies: a) A Star is Born (dir. Bradley Cooper, 2018); b) Black Panther (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2018); c) Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig, 2023); d) Oppenheimer (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2023); e) Wicked (dir. Jon M. Chu, 2024). Are Mulvey’s insights still compelling, or do these films navigate away from patriarchal modes of imaging and narrating women?
Offer an analysis of these videos of four American women’s songs, notable for their play with imagery of gender and sexuality: a) Madonna, ‘Vogue’ (1990); b) Lady Gaga, ‘LoveGame’ (2008); c) Lana Del Rey, ‘Let Me Love You like a Woman’ (2020); d) Beyoncé, ‘Beywatch’ (2024). How would you compare and contrast them as feminist interventions?
The Australian sociologist R. W. Connell made a major contribution to gender studies with her book, Masculinities (1995, 2005). Connell challenges the notion that masculinity is monolithic, proposing instead that there are multiple masculinities, which vary in their power in any given social formation. These variants she terms hegemonic, subordinate, complicit and marginalised. Research what Connell has in mind by these categories and then apply them to an American cultural field of your choice. You might take the male star system in Hollywood, for example, and assess various contemporary performers according to Connell’s spectrum of masculine types. Or you could do the same with the world of hip-hop. And so on.
A number of humanities disciplines, including English (the institutional home of much work in American cultural studies), now offer their practitioners a chance to do critical-creative work, as against the narrowly critical. In this way, research questions are addressed by producing a creative artefact (a short story or poem, say), rather than standard work in the essay mode. To try out this methodology, begin by researching the debate in the United States around same-sex marriage, which was finally legalised by a Supreme Court decision in 2015. Then, adopting any perspective on this debate and any medium (it might be visual or auditory, rather than verbal), produce a critical-creative response. What do you gain by expressing your research findings in this way, instead of in essayistic prose?.
In the chapter, we consider moments in American trans culture from the Puritan era to the present. Construct your own miniature museum of the American trans experience by selecting ten cultural artefacts which, in your view, evoke this. Range widely in your understanding of ‘culture’ as you make your selections: e.g. you might choose an item of clothing or a piece of legislation, say, as well as drawing from novels, poems, plays, films, videos, photographs, etc.
A Celebration of Women Writers – maintained by Mary Mark Ockerbloom of Philadelphia: rudimentary in its homepage, but opening out into a colossal repository of texts by women writers (international as well as US in origin)
National Women’s History Museum – website of this (currently online) museum, with links to a host of resources on American women’s history (including women in the Civil War, in World War Two, the arts, sports, STEM subjects, etc.)
National Organization for Women – homepage of this major feminist campaigning group, ‘a multi-issue, multi-strategy organization that takes a holistic approach to women’s rights’
Gender and Women’s Studies – the Library of Congress’s research guide, opening onto collections devoted to subjects that range from the campaign for women’s suffrage to ‘African American Women in the Military and at War’
Who is Afraid of Gender? – excellent introduction to the thought of Judith Butler, discussed in this chapter: Butler presents her ideas in a two-hour seminar, hosted in 2020 by the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Kampala, Uganda
LGBTQ+ Open Resources – extremely helpful portal administered by the George A. Smathers Libraries of the University of Florida, giving access to a treasure trove of documentary and photographic archives, oral testimonies, blogs, podcasts, etc.
LGBTQ Rights – the American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920, with a remit to challenge repression at federal and state levels: here is documentation of the ACLU’s ongoing work specifically in the area of LGBTQ+ rights
Interactive Aids Quilt – website of this important and creative commemoration of the victims of AIDS (the majority of them, of course, from America’s gay community)
What Is Trans History? – helpful overview by Kritika Agarwal of key topics and issues in historical inquiry into the lives of trans people in the United States
Trans History in America – productively read alongside Agarwal’s essay above: a wonderful, engaging site, developed by Laura Trowbridge, that includes both a detailed timeline and a series of vivid individual profiles