After Halberstam : subversion, female masculinity and the subject of heterosexuality

Deasey, S

Abstract

Because female masculinity seems to be at its most threatening when
coupled with lesbian desire, [...]! concentrate on queer female masculinity
almost to the exclusion of heterosexual female masculinity. I have no doubt
that heterosexual female masculinity menaces gender conformity in its own
way, but all too often it represents an acceptable degree of female
masculinity as compared to the excessive masculinity of the dyke.
Judith Halberstam: Female Masculinity.

Heterosexuality has been, and continues to be, a controversial subject in feminist
analyses surrounding discussions of penetrative sex, marriage, sexual violence, rape,
pornography, domestic labour and representation. Although the 1990s and 2000s have
witnessed the proliferation of debates and theorisations of heterosexuality in which it
is interrogated and dissected, it is no longer simply condemned and dismissed as it
was by early radical feminism. For early radical feminists, 'heterosexuality was the
enemy to be struggled against. Its destruction was a prerequisite for the feminist
revolution. Heterosexuality had to go. None of it was retrievable for feminist
purposes' (Thompson in Wilkinson & Kitzinger, 1993: 171). Nevertheless, there are
traces of such thought in current theorisations of gender and sexuality.
Heterosexuality has not fully shaken its legacy, and is rarely regarded as a source for
celebration and subversion, and/or as exemplary for feminist politics.
In this thesis, I look to the work of Lynne Segal, Stevi Jackson and Wendy
Hollway who have contested and problematised radical feminist theorisations of
heterosexuality. There is an emergent desire and call for more celebratory
theorisations of heterosexuality whilst simultaneously there is an ongoing theoretical
scepticism in the emergent queer literature. However, in the 1990s, queer theory
paradoxically began to engage with the subversive potentials of heterosexuality
precisely within the auspices of queer critique, which raised questions on established
models of radicalism. Just as Hollway, Segal and Jackson theorised a feminist
heterosexuality, ramifications were tangible in queer theory as Calvin Thomas and
Segal mobilised a body of work which attempted to theorise subversive
heterosexuality amidst the unproblematised celebration of non-heterosexualities. It is
my intent to conduct this thesis by tracing this simultaneous celebration of nonheterosexualities
and foreclosure of heterosexuality through the work of
contemporary queer theory, focussing on the work of Judith 'Jack' Halberstam, author
of the magnificent Female Masculinity (1998). The project intervenes in wider
debates and theoretical developments that seemingly hinder radical readings of
heterosexual identities, and addresses the theoretical discourses of transgression,
butchness, queerness and the phallic. Can these tropes be reworked so heterosexuality
can be reconfigured into a sexuality that is tolerated or even viewed as subversive by
theorists, or is heterosexuality doomed to be always theoretically derided?

Film: Calamity Jane (1953), Aliens (1986), Johnny Guitar( 1954) and Kill Bill Vol. I
& Vol. II (2003 & 2004)

Citation

Deasey, S. After Halberstam : subversion, female masculinity and the subject of heterosexuality. (Thesis). Salford : University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2012
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2010