“Female masculinity” is such an oxymoronic term, that one needs to break it down and analyze its parts before understanding the whole. Beyond the biological connotation, “Female” indicates femininity, which on a social and cultural level typically associates with submission and passivity. By contrast, “masculinity” culturally connotes dominance and aggression. The combining of such opposites into one term is quite bold and subversive. Judith Halberstam coins this term in her essay, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Men, Women, and Masculinity.” Halberstam states how female masculinity, “disrupts contemporary cultural studies accounts of masculinity within which masculinity always boils down to the social, cultural and political effects of male embodiment and male privilege,” (2639). Halberstam is arguing here how masculinity itself should not be confined strictly to the male sex, with the exclusion of women from masculinity implicitly promoting misogyny. Female masculinity has failed to see the light of day and be celebrated in mainstream culture due to both the championing of the male heterosexual narrative and the stigma associated with women assuming masculine attributes.

In mainstream films that Halberstam defines as “heterosexual conversion fantasies”, the male protagonist is a heterosexual who pursues the love of a woman. The heterosexual’s obstacle towards obtaining his love interest in this narrative is either a lesbian or a gay man that serves as, “an ideal mate for the heterosexual woman in every aspect except sexual compatibility, and this is represented as a nonissue by casting women as domestic and asexual,” (Halberstam 264). The gay man is domesticated, polite, into shopping — everything that the heterosexual protagonist isn’t. Unlike the gay man, the heterosexual only loves the woman, and despises, “everything that goes with being a woman” (Halberstam 2640-1). When the gay man challenges the heterosexual protagonist for the affections of his love interest, he, “feels justified in articulating his rage in protracted bouts of loud homophobic reaction followed by loud sexist outbursts,” (Halberstam 2641). The heterosexual male is never condemned for such blatant homophobia and indecency, facing no sort of repercussions. The film As Good As It Gets (1997)  follows this structure, where Jack Nicholson, despite his homophobic and racist antics, manages to get his love interest (Helen Hunt) in the end over his gay “obstacle” (Greg Kinnear). Just to understand the level of asinine that Nicholson reaches in the film, here’s just one scene as example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jly4dXapR9c    Here, Kinnear’s character is speaking about his father’s refusal to accept him as a gay man, with Helen Hunt affectionately listening in the front seat next to him. At the same time, Nicholson dismisses this, claiming that only the happy stories have value, and that Kinnear, “didn’t have it bad, that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good.” Not only does Nicholson’s character have a happy ending in the film, but the film itself was celebrated by mass audiences, even receiving Oscar nominations.

While homophobic heterosexual masculinity is popular, any sort of female masculinity that permeates into mainstream culture is denounced. One notable example of this is lesbianism, which has been, “figured as undesirable by linking it in essential and unquestionable ways to female ugliness,” (Halberstam 2650). Lesbianism is linked to female masculinity because both lesbians and heterosexual men possess (somewhat) the same object of desire: the woman. Lesbians (especially those with more obvious traits of masculinity) challenge male heterosexuality in a) providing an obstacle towards obtaining women and b) placing masculinity (including its typical attributes of dominance and aggression) to a sex that is culturally relegated to submission, passivity, and domesticity. Such a juxtaposition is seen as “ugly” or “unnatural”, and thus does not see the same popularity as the heterosexual male bigot. This stigma also includes women with physical attributes that are masculine, such as hirsute females, who are slandered as “witch” or “freak” (Halberstam 2650). Thus, female masculinity is unnatural.

Halberstam has written an amazing piece of literature which has been insightful to say the least. First and foremost, she explains her primary aim of the essay which involves addressing and conveying the relationships of men, women and what she calls and to me should be a factual term “female masculinity”. This term is the essence of her written masterpiece. She says people see female masculinity in a social and political form as ugly. This makes sense because as she brought up social and political power she addressed white male heterosexuality. I myself agree with all of her points that she laid out before me. In addition, women and female masculinity were criticized and even discriminated women who acted more masculine. This is the false masculinity as oppose to male masculinity which is called authentic or real masculinity. So when she brings up the good the bad and the ugly there are meanings for all three categories which she dives into. The good represents what white male heterosexual constructed social and political power is and that only white male masculinity is good. The bad is the false masculinity as called female masculinity. What society did not recognize or bother to accept is that there are men who are feminine even if they are heterosexual and there are females that act masculine even if they are heterosexual. In other words there is no real category to place each sex as to erotic excitement or masculinity and femininity. Also all masculinity is masculinity. Men or women. And vice versa. She started giving vivid examples through different movies. What her argument is that in every triangle of two men and a women in the movies they always have the man wining the woman with the heterosexual fantasy. What she does with the triangle is interesting. She says if men can act more feminine and masculine then the lesbian woman will be attracted to them or have a chance at them being attracted to the male. This raised some eyebrows and gave me a better grasp at the reading material. Now the ugly side represents how men viewed female masculinity. They showed examples of men showing there disgust for the female because she had a mustache. There are women who have hair on their bodies, but society looks at that as disgusting. Then she asks a very important question. Men’s body represent good health and beauty while women’s represent ugliness. So this was a way of putting down females and show the narcissist mind of the male. Interesting information. Thank you for the reading professor.