Queering Femininity

Queering Femininity focuses on femininity as a style of gender presentation and asks how (and whether) it can be refigured as a creative and queer style of the body. She considers the dynamic aspects of feminine embodiment that cannot simply be understood in terms of gender normativity and negotiates a path between understanding both the attachments people hold to particular gender identities and styles, and recognising the punitive realities of dominant gender norms and expectations. Drawing on a range of feminist texts and interviews with self-identifying queer femmes from the LGBTQ community, Hannah McCann argues that the tendency to evaluate femininity as only either oppressive or empowering limits our understanding of its possibilities.

Topics covered range from second wave feminist critiques of beauty culture, to the importance of hair in queer femme presentation.