Masculinities in Drag offers a largely speculative but theoretically engaged analysis of female masculinity as it is enacted through the forum of drag kinging. Drag kinging is the predominantly lesbian and queer female sub-cultural practice of female-to-male cross dressing, with most drag king performances promoting ‘the woman behind the man’. This emphasis on ‘femaleness’, even as it is ostensibly disguised in male drag, remains crucial to the many dynamics that arise through performing as a drag king and within drag king culture. This thesis promotes that emphasis by exploring and arguing for drag kinging as a performance of female identifications, erotic or otherwise, with masculinity within an exclusively queer female economy of desire. I employ various and varying theories on subjectivity, gender, desire, and fantasy to explore this, and further expand my analysis of female masculinity by focusing on the embodied and corporeal effects of performing as a drag king. This investigation reveals the refusal of drag kings to differentiate between traditional notions of mind/body, material/immaterial, and other adversarial boundaries in order to revel in new-found and provocative forms of embodiment and corporeality. Further, I develop the term ‘drag king embodiment’ to explain and expand on this, and to promote drag king embodiment as the corporeal ‘outcome’ of embodying desires for and fantasies of masculinity. This analysis extends to theoretically challenging accepted heteronormative models of gender, female desire, sexuality and subjectivity. However, such challenges reveal their dependency on these models, in so far as any perversion or subversion of them relies on acknowledging them as constraints – literally and figuratively. The ‘struggle’ against such models is not theorised as an inherently futile affair, but rather is viewed as a defining narrative that informs much of the erotic, sexual, and other dynamics of drag kinging and drag king culture. Exploration and analysis of female masculinity, in all its guises, calls into question the ‘natural’ socio-cultural position of women and their desires. By producing certain configurations of female identity, subjectivity, gender, sexuality and desire outside notions of ‘proper’ feminine identifications is to produce those identities fully inside. Effectively, drag king performances work this ‘weakness’ in the laws that govern ‘femaleness’ in order to promote, eroticise, and celebrate female masculinity. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1331403 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2008

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

In Canada, prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among men. The incidence continues to rise. Although there is a growing empirical literature on the prostate cancer experience of men who live and work in urban areas, little is known about the experience of men who live and work in rural settings where access to treatment and support may present unique challenges. The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore the experiences of men diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer who live and work (farm) in rural Saskatchewan. Using a Naturalistic Inquiry approach and methods of Grounded Theory Analysis, six participants were recruited through a physicians office, advertisements, and cancer support groups, and interviewed. The interview data were audio-taped, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed. Data analysis revealed five common themes: farming and rural life, physical and emotional concerns, sexuality, masculinity, thoughtfulness and reflection, helping others and being helped. There was no evidence of rural isolation or concern with travelling to the cities for treatment. Depression and anxiety were not reported as major concerns. Participants explained that while continuing to farm helped them cope, fatigue reduced their ability to farm and increasingly they relied on help from family and neighbours. Participants experienced a sense of urinary urgency and/or incontinence following treatment and managed their daily activities to lesson the impact. All were impotent following treatment. They coped with loss of sexual function through a renewed life perspective or use of medication to restore sexual function. Traditional masculine behaviours can be a barrier to health screening for men with prostate cancer. Participants used their prostate cancer experience to engage in activities of new learning, new meaning, and new perspectives and to educate and support other men with prostate cancer. This study highlights the need for further research on the health experiences of farmers and other rural men, and to uncover the variety of masculine and behavioural responses with respect to mens health issues. Although the range of health issues may be similar from one man to another, it is important for health care providers to understand individual differences.

Males were given false feedback that they scored low, high, or no feedback (control group) on masculinity and given a “masculine” food (meat pizza), a “feminine” food (vegetarian pizza), or the choice between the two to eat. An interaction between masculinity condition and food condition was found when the “feminine” food condition and the Control group were removed, such that low-masculine participants given meat pizza ate a small amount, as did high-masculine participants given a choice. High-masculine participants given meat pizza ate a large amount of food as did low-masculine participants given a choice. In certain situations males want to appear masculine and therefore eat a larger amount of food, or want to appear attractive on other dimensions and therefore eat a smaller amount of food.

Males were given false feedback that they scored low, high, or no feedback (control group) on masculinity and given a “masculine” food (meat pizza), a “feminine” food (vegetarian pizza), or the choice between the two to eat. An interaction between masculinity condition and food condition was found when the “feminine” food condition and the Control group were removed, such that low-masculine participants given meat pizza ate a small amount, as did high-masculine participants given a choice. High-masculine participants given meat pizza ate a large amount of food as did low-masculine participants given a choice. In certain situations males want to appear masculine and therefore eat a larger amount of food, or want to appear attractive on other dimensions and therefore eat a smaller amount of food.

In Canada, prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among men. The incidence continues to rise. Although there is a growing empirical literature on the prostate cancer experience of men who live and work in urban areas, little is known about the experience of men who live and work in rural settings where access to treatment and support may present unique challenges. The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore the experiences of men diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer who live and work (farm) in rural Saskatchewan. Using a Naturalistic Inquiry approach and methods of Grounded Theory Analysis, six participants were recruited through a physicians office, advertisements, and cancer support groups, and interviewed. The interview data were audio-taped, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed. Data analysis revealed five common themes: farming and rural life, physical and emotional concerns, sexuality, masculinity, thoughtfulness and reflection, helping others and being helped. There was no evidence of rural isolation or concern with travelling to the cities for treatment. Depression and anxiety were not reported as major concerns. Participants explained that while continuing to farm helped them cope, fatigue reduced their ability to farm and increasingly they relied on help from family and neighbours. Participants experienced a sense of urinary urgency and/or incontinence following treatment and managed their daily activities to lesson the impact. All were impotent following treatment. They coped with loss of sexual function through a renewed life perspective or use of medication to restore sexual function. Traditional masculine behaviours can be a barrier to health screening for men with prostate cancer. Participants used their prostate cancer experience to engage in activities of new learning, new meaning, and new perspectives and to educate and support other men with prostate cancer. This study highlights the need for further research on the health experiences of farmers and other rural men, and to uncover the variety of masculine and behavioural responses with respect to mens health issues. Although the range of health issues may be similar from one man to another, it is important for health care providers to understand individual differences.

This dissertation explores the ideological functions of the National Family Allegory in post-Independence novels and film created by male authors and film directors. Ideology functions as a lingering force in service of the status quo, the current power structure, and these works recreate the same family structures as those established during colonization and through national myth. The roles of Mother Ireland, savior sons, and failing fathers repeat, sometimes through creative means. Although the texts attempt to subvert the allegory, many post-Independence works eventually show the traditional and conservative family structure of the National Family Allegory. The first chapter, “Importantly Motherless: Spontaneous Child Creation and Male Maternity,” analyzes the connection between the missing Mother figure and male fantasies of pregnancy and child creation. Because of the lack of stable family structure, usually connected to early childhood abandonment or mistreatment, the novels discussed in this chapter show the absolute necessity of family in creating a personal and national identity. In the second chapter, “’You Can’t Protect Your Women’”: Male Irish Terrorists as Protector in Popular American and Irish Films, 1984-1998,” the young man/son protagonist in his role as protector of the woman/Mother figure is analyzed in six different films. In the third chapter, “Articulation and Stasis: The Son as Haunted Echo of the Father in McCann’s Songdogs,” discusses the father and son dynamic in relation to the missing mother in this diasporic novel to indicate that the Irish National Family Allegory holds true even during the dispersion of post-Famine Irish identity. The last chapter, “Failing Fathers,” examines the father figure in Roddy Doyle’s A Star Called Henry, Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy, and John McGahern’s Amongst Women. A father’s traditional role is to function in the public sphere and also to control the family, yet each of these father’s fail in their roles, which is typical of the National Family Allegory role established within the literature.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DXN070116.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 242-263). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2009. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Dec. 18, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center and also available in print.