Male Femaling
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Review
..."among the best in recent literature....highly informative....Elkins offers a major new theoretical approach."
-"Transformation
..."the book is worth reading. Ekins has selected vivid cases of gender arrangements and encourages readers to think about them in the broadest possible way."
-"American Journal of Sociology
"The author's theory of "male femaling" is surely quite original and challenges simplistic or one-dimensional views of the formation of gender identity."
-"Choice
..."Etkins offers a conceptually rich description of a wide variety of behaviors. Etkins makes a valuable contribution to understanding gender as performance...."
-Richard Tewksbury, University of Louisville "Contemporary Sociology
-"Transformation
..."the book is worth reading. Ekins has selected vivid cases of gender arrangements and encourages readers to think about them in the broadest possible way."
-"American Journal of Sociology
"The author's theory of "male femaling" is surely quite original and challenges simplistic or one-dimensional views of the formation of gender identity."
-"Choice
..."Etkins offers a conceptually rich description of a wide variety of behaviors. Etkins makes a valuable contribution to understanding gender as performance...."
-Richard Tewksbury, University of Louisville "Contemporary Sociology
Product Description
The glamour of transvestite fashion is the epitome of 90s style, but the significance of cross-dressing and sex-changing goes much deeper than the annals of fashion. Ekins vividly details the innermost desires and the varied practices of males who wear the clothes of women for the pleasure it gives them (cross-dressers), or who wish to change sex and are actively going about it (sex-changers). This unique and fascinating book transforms an area of study previously dominated by clinical models to look instead at cross-dressing and sex-changing as a highly variable social process. Giving precedence to the processual and ermergent nature of much cross-dressing and sex-changing phenomena, the book traces the phased femaling career path of the 'male femaler' from 'beginning femaling' through to 'consolidating femaling'. Based upon seventeen years of fieldwork, life history work, qualitative analysis, archival work and contact with several thousand cross-dressers and sex-changers, the book meticulously and systematically develops a theory of 'male femaling' which has major ramifications for both the field of 'transvestism' and 'transsexualism', and for the analysis of sex and gender more generally. Male-Femaling provides social and cultural theorists with a lively case study for the generation of new theory. Social psychologists and sociologists interested in seeing grounded theory applied to a particular case study will be well rewarded. It will be essential reading for students of gender studies who seek to explore the interrelations between sex, sexuality and gender from the informants' point of view.
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First Sentence
As I sit on the Belfast-London shuttle, shortly after signing the contract to write this book, cross-dressing and sex-changing seem far removed. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
As I sit on the Belfast-London shuttle, shortly after signing the contract to write this book, cross-dressing and sex-changing seem far removed. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A social scientist's view of those males who transcend, cross or simply experiment with the gender barriers. Sounds daunting, but the book is well and entertainly written for the lay reader, yet is essential for the serious researcher of gender roles.
The first part explores the themes of sex, sexuality and gender crossing, from the public view, portrayed by the media, to the private experience of the gender changer.
The study proper begins with the second section, 'Mainly Theory', where the author compares the grounded theory approach with other conceptual models. In particular, he highlights the way they impose assumptions about the essential 'rightness' of existing gender organisation, with transgression seen as a pathology or 'deviance'. The author goes on to explore his subject from the Social World viewpoint, before concentrating on the methodology which grounded theory brings to the subject. In this it is clear that this is one of the few books that don't have an overt or covert political agenda.
The final part traces the progress of many gender people, from a person's beginning of male-femaling, through fantasy, to doing male-femaling. The wealth of intimate detail across a wide range of 'male femaling' makes for interesting but extremely informative reading. In particular, "Constituting" male-femaling describes a process that so many helplines are familiar with - the search for a final identity - a 'label that fits.' For this the author draws on the personal correspondence which has been donated to the Transgender Archive. The final chapter is consolidation, both of the book and of the personal journeys of its subjects.
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2 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Gendering as a Social Process
15 Mar 2002
Format:Paperback
The term "male femaling" refers to one variant of "transgendering," wherein people adopt aspects of roles (as in appearances, interests, dispositions, and life-styles) associated with people of another gender. Although the topic of males endeavoring to "be female" in one or other respects is one that some people are apt to find disconcerting, this is a unique and valuable study of people's experiences in "gendering" or assuming roles as males and females.
Building on a set of contacts that extend over seventeen years, Richard Ekins has provided a very careful, thoughtful, and insightful account of people's involvements in cross-dressing and sex-changing activities. For people interested in the processes of socialization, identity, relationships, solitary and subcultural involvements, and the like, this is a very worthwhile study. Likewise, those interested in "gender theory" and "the body" as realms of sociological investigation could learn much from this inquiry.
In contrast, too, to those who might approach this subject matter in more prurient manners or with the objective of entertaining others, Ekins approaches this subject matter in academic terms. Thus, he neither promotes nor condemns people's gendering practices, but rather attempts to indicate in direct and open terms just how people actually experience and manage their identities and activities in the process of transgendering. Likewise, while sorting through a variety of medical and psychiatric definitions of transgendering activities, Ekins explicitly adopts a symbolic interactionist (Mead, Blumer) viewpoint. Thus, the emphasis is directly on examining the ways in which people engage particular situations, from their viewpoints. While focusing on those involved in an assortment of transgendering (male femaling) practices, the objective is to learn more about the ways in which human group life is accomplished more generally.
In addition to a careful accounting of people's careers of participation in male femaling activities more specifically, Ekins uses "grounded theory" wherein the emphasis is on comparative analysis (using a method of similarities and differences) to see to what extent and in what ways people's experiences in one setting compares with studies of similar processes (such as developing relationships, acquiring identity, and so forth) in other social arenas. The result is some very astute sociological analysis that addresses matters pertinent to the works of Mead, Blumer, Strauss, Goffman, Lemert, and others in the interactionist community.
This is a clear, very well written book, and an important contribution to the literature. It merits considerable attention on the part of social scientists and others interested in the human condition in all of its manifestations.
Building on a set of contacts that extend over seventeen years, Richard Ekins has provided a very careful, thoughtful, and insightful account of people's involvements in cross-dressing and sex-changing activities. For people interested in the processes of socialization, identity, relationships, solitary and subcultural involvements, and the like, this is a very worthwhile study. Likewise, those interested in "gender theory" and "the body" as realms of sociological investigation could learn much from this inquiry.
In contrast, too, to those who might approach this subject matter in more prurient manners or with the objective of entertaining others, Ekins approaches this subject matter in academic terms. Thus, he neither promotes nor condemns people's gendering practices, but rather attempts to indicate in direct and open terms just how people actually experience and manage their identities and activities in the process of transgendering. Likewise, while sorting through a variety of medical and psychiatric definitions of transgendering activities, Ekins explicitly adopts a symbolic interactionist (Mead, Blumer) viewpoint. Thus, the emphasis is directly on examining the ways in which people engage particular situations, from their viewpoints. While focusing on those involved in an assortment of transgendering (male femaling) practices, the objective is to learn more about the ways in which human group life is accomplished more generally.
In addition to a careful accounting of people's careers of participation in male femaling activities more specifically, Ekins uses "grounded theory" wherein the emphasis is on comparative analysis (using a method of similarities and differences) to see to what extent and in what ways people's experiences in one setting compares with studies of similar processes (such as developing relationships, acquiring identity, and so forth) in other social arenas. The result is some very astute sociological analysis that addresses matters pertinent to the works of Mead, Blumer, Strauss, Goffman, Lemert, and others in the interactionist community.
This is a clear, very well written book, and an important contribution to the literature. It merits considerable attention on the part of social scientists and others interested in the human condition in all of its manifestations.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
A long and difficult journey to finish...
6 May 1999
Format:Paperback
This book is hard-core psychoanalysis stuff. If you are not a therapist, or buying this book for one, you may want to steer clear! I read, identified with, and enjoyed 'True Selves', but I found very little in this book to be considered new information. Other than a course lesson in "grounded theory", which I had no intention of recieving, this book was a snore-fest. I give it a good rating for it's quality as a teaching text, but again, steer clear if you are not into psychoanalytic thoeries.
Kate
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