femininity

Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia.

femininity

the characteristics associated with the female sex. The historical (often masculinist) study of femininity documents feminine identity linked to passivity nurturing, co-operation, gentleness and relation to motherhood, with an emphasis upon the relegation of women to the private sphere, the sphere of domesticity Feminists and sociologists have challenged the stereotypes relating to ‘femininity’, ‘feminine identity’ and the binary categories man/mind, woman/nature which dominate many conceptions of sexual difference, including the reduction of sociocultural processes to biological givens. For French feminist theorists (e.g. CIXOUS, KRISTEVA) ‘feminine’ is an arbitrary category given to woman's appearance or behaviour by patriarchy For Sue Lees (Sugar and Spice: Sexuality and Adolescent Girls, 1993), changing the social constructions of masculinity and femininity will mean a fundamental shift in our conceptions of femininity and MASCULINITY within the context of dominant conceptions of rationality and morality

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

Femininity

Belphoebe

perfect maidenhood; epithet of Elizabeth I. [Br. Lit.: Faerie Queene]

Darnel, Aurelia

personification of femininity. [Br. Lit.: Sir Launcelot Greaves]

Miss America

winner of beauty contest; femininity high among virtues desired. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 445]

References in periodicals archive ?

The presenter is also accused of saying overweight women lose their femininity over time and were less happy.

Egyptian presenter Riham Saeed banned for a year after 'obesity' insult

The works seem to derive from the portrait genre, with the faces of women figures partly obscured by floral depictions that appear to enhance their femininity.

Lanuza celebrates 'Singularity'

The viewer is confronted with the two sides of femininity associated with these domestic objects, vulnerability and strength.

Domestic objects and the role of femininity go on show

Normative femininity is coming more and more to be centered on woman's body--not its duties and obligations or even its capacity to bear children, but its sexuality, more precisely, its presumed heterosexuality and its appearance.

Normative Femininity and Motherhood as Redemption: The Life Writing of Indonesian [ex] Nude Model Tiara Lestari

1.1 Brief history of masculinity and femininity measurement: Key concepts

TESTING FOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPANISH MEN AND WOMEN ON GENDER SELF-DEFINITION ASSESSMENT

But breast cancer, even when one has a good prognosis, always raises the possibility of mastectomy, a surgery that removes the patient's disease but is also said to disfigure her in a way that can compromise her femininity. The question that looms, reinforced by the ubiquitous pink, is whether a woman who has lost her breasts to mastectomy will still be a whole woman.

Breast Cancer Is Serious. Pink Is Not

To begin, I outline some key aspects of nineteenth-century discourse surrounding femininity, hunger and eating.

Reading (not-)eating in the works of Emily and Charlotte Bronte

The selfie elicited this response because Kardashian-West's image was an expression of her own bodily subjectivity, that challenged both the male gaze of the public because it was a selfie, and also contemporary notions of performative femininity. This challenge is indicative of a new genre, albeit a paradoxical one, of modern femininity.

Othered Body, Obscene Self(ie): A Sartrean Reading of Kim Kardashian-West

In psychology as well as in society at large, masculinity and femininity have long been conceptualized as bipolar ends of a single continuum; accordingly, a person has to be either masculine of feminine, but not both.

Development of a gender role inventory for Indian adolescents

Diana and Beyond examines the intersection of cultures of white femininity and discourses of nationhood in late twentieth and early twenty-first century media cultures, with a particular focus on Princess Diana as the cultural standard bearer for the values bound up within it.

Performing the national

Keywords: Chinese femininity, Chineseness, neoliberalism, women's magazines

"Power Femininity" and Popular Women's Magazines in China

Traditionally, public drinking has been a privilege reserved for men and appropriately situated within the masculinised space of the pub, and whilst men's alcohol consumption has long held positive associations with masculinity and toughness (Lyons and Willott, 2008), women's drinking--particularly in public--has historically been labelled a threat to health, respectability and femininity itself (Day, Gough and McFadden, 2004).

'What on earth is she drinking?' Doing femininity through drink choice on the girls' night out

Full browser ?

CITE

Site: Follow: Share:

Open / Close