Abstract
Even if feminism lost any dream of a singular unified feminine subject long ago, the question of femininity remains both at the core of and a sore point in feminist theory and activism.
Indeed, there is a tendency to primarily associate femininity with (heterosexual) womanhood and to consider it a problem that is not over. In the past decade, as feminist/gender/women’s studies have diversified, critical masculinity studies has increasingly become an integral part of the field – with its own theoretical canon, scholarly journals and regular conferences – but what has happened to femininity? Curiously, even if the question of femininity remains central to feminist politics and theory in a range of explicit and implicit ways, we have yet to see a robust knowledge formation called critical femininity studies. This special issue of European Journal of Women’s Studies aims to take stock of contemporary theorizing of femininity and to offer a contribution to the field of critical femininity studies. To that end we seek papers from a range of disciplines that centre on theoretical and methodological concerns related to the question of femininity. Aiming to critically challenge the tendency to conflate femininity with (heterosexual) womanhood, we especially welcome papers that theorize femininity from non-hegemonic or non-normative positions.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
Theorizing/conceptualizing femininity and criticality
Revisiting classic ideas such as immanence, mystique, écriture feminine, sex/gender system, respectability, objectification
Femininity as a problem for/in feminism
Interrogating hegemonic femininity
Relations between femininities
Anti-modernist, neoconservative femininities
Fascist and extreme right uses of femininity
The politics of femininity in feminist and other social movements, past and present
Rethinking feminizing categories and positions; the ‘effeminate’, the ‘sissy’ in gay male culture
Feminine embodiment, body modification and feminist materialism
The feminization of migration
Feminine labour and the labour of femininity
Femininity and neoliberalism
Femininity, media and technology
Femininity, whiteness, race
Trans femininities and misogyny
Queer femininities and femmes
Deadline for abstracts: 15 June 2016
All articles will be subject to the usual review process. Articles should be prepared according to the guidelines for submission on the inside back cover of the journal or at http://www2.lse.ac.uk/genderInstitute/journals/EJWS/Home.aspx.
Full articles should be submitted online to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ejw by 1 November 2016.
For further questions regarding this special issue, please email the guest editors: Ulrika Dahl [
Informal queries can also be addressed to Hazel Johnstone, managing editor of EJWS [Email: