In this essay, I make a queer feminist analysis of four novels written by the Swedish author Sigge Stark. The novels are: Uggleboet, Manhatareklubben, Cirkus Demonio och Baskerflickan. Using Judith Butler's theories I examine the relations between sex/gender and sexuality in the four books and show how the construction of gender is performed and the heterosexual normativity is jeopardized. I also examine whether, and if so how, Sigge Stark uses the romantic and the gothic genres to include transcending gender identities and sexualities in her work. The essay also includes a contextualisation of her prerequisities as an author and the necessity in performing a critical analysis of mass produced romantic literature.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the various definitional strategies involved in and underlying the use of the term ‘masculinity’ in social science literature, with a particular emphasis on psychodynamic literature, and to propose an additional approach (via the metaphor of the ‘lens’ (borrowed from Bem, 1993)) to understanding masculinity as ideology in Althusser’s (1971; 1984) sense of a discourse or narrative which establishes subjectivity and identity. It suggests that masculinity could be usefully viewed as a certain type of discourse which attempts to exercise a hegemony over a more variegated and nuanced personality for the purpose of the attachment of the individual (usually male) to larger social structures and relations, in this case, to the gendered social relations of patriarchy. The idea for the thesis arose out of the writer’s dissatisfaction with current definitional strategies of masculinity employed in social science research and his perceived need to provide a more complex definition of the term ‘masculinity’, which would highlight its meaning for individual men whilst simultaneously placing that meaning in the wider meaning-generating structures of Western culture. It also arose from a growing frustration with all sections of the so-called men’s movement’s attempts to delineate a type of ‘masculinity’ which is respectful of the rights and needs of women and children. Finally, it particularly arose out of the researcher’s own interest to explore the nature of identity narratives within contemporary Western culture. Chapter One explores these problems and provides key definitions of the important terms of the thesis, including the neological verb, ‘to hegemise,’ by which I refer to the process of attempting, but never entirely successfully, to establish hegemony. It also deals with other definitional questions such as the definition of patriarchy against the suggestion of the existence of multiple patriarchies (Petersen, 1998). The thesis is organised broadly into two sections. The first section, contained in Chapters One through Four, deals with what I have labelled (following suggestions by de Certeau, 1984) current “definitional strategies” employed in discussions of masculinity in the social sciences, with Chapters One and Two providing an overview of these strategies, whilst Chapters Three and Four take three of the six strategies identified and examines them in depth through their exemplary use in key literature from three psychodynamic schools of thought. These definitional strategies are, firstly, the three which are not explored in depth: 1) the simple reduction of masculinity to any male behaviour (which I believe is very rarely employed), 2) the argument from statistics (so that whatever men can be demonstrated to do, have, think, and so on, more often than women becomes an example of masculinity), and 3) the argument from key exemplars, (such as John Wayne), real or imaginary (again, such as John Wayne). Secondly, the three definitional strategies which are chosen for more extended treatment, 1) the strategy of definition by deferral to other, equally problematic terms (as in the works of Freud, discussed in Chapter Two), 2) the use of the process or results of presumed male child development (the views of the object relations psychodynamic theory as delineated by Nancy Chodorow, and to a lesser extent, Dorothy Dinnerstein, discussed in Chapter Three), and 3) reliance on common understandings (Jung, also discussed in Chapter Three). This last strategy is a kind of definition by default, in that the writer fails to provide a definition, assuming a common cultural background with the reader (and seems to be a very common strategy). It is my argument, reinforced by a detailed examination of certain key relevant texts, selected for both their influence and timeliness in the social sciences, that the use of any of these strategies inevitably involves the writer or researcher in contradiction and confusion. As this entire thesis is about the definitional strategies employed when using the term, ‘masculinity,’ no specific definition is provided of masculinity in the opening chapters of the thesis. However, due attention is paid in Chapter Two to Connell’s (1987; 1995) notion that there are actually ‘multiple masculinities,’ a definitional strategy, I argue, not without its own confusions. Within Connell’s understanding of masculinity, this thesis focuses only on notions of ‘hegemonic masculinity’. The final five chapters of the thesis sketch a further approach to masculinity on the basis of considering masculinity as a specific type of identity narrative. Chapters Five, Six and Seven provide the grounding for such a consideration through an examination of the nature of identity narratives generally, and Chapters Eight and Nine apply this grounding specifically to masculinity, and, in the case of Chapter Nine, to research about men. Chapter Five delineates the key term ‘identity’, and separates it from the concept of the ‘self’, a term with which it is often, but not always, conflated, whilst comparing both terms, ‘self’ and ‘identity’, on the one hand to the Foucauldian idea of subjectivity and on the other hand, to the Freudian and Lacanian notion of the ego. Chapter Five argues that identity can be meaningfully separated from the self by two markers, 1) its basically moral nature, which in turn 2) arises out of its association with social structures and social discourses. Although no argument is made either for a singular self or a “true” self, it is argued that the human experience of the self and the identity is that they are often in conflict, and the ‘self’ is often experienced as being an unsuccessful copy or diminished form of the identity (or identities). This experience signals what I have called ‘the Ambassadorial function’ of the identity; that is, its ability to represent and commend, as well as prescribe and command, cultural norms and expectations for an individual’s personality to the self. Chapter Five suggests that whilst the number of selves in a particular culture may be close to infinite (in that one body may contain many selves), the number of identities prescribed by a given culture which uses identity narratives may be multiple, but quite finite. Chapters Six and Seven explore the human attraction, at least in modernist Western cultures, to identity narratives, and suggests that their current cultural importance arises out of both personal need and social compulsion. In order to establish personal motivations for the adoption of the identity, Chapter Six takes a necessary detour through conceptions of agency as they appear in the work of Anthony Giddens (1979; 1984), Rom Harre and his associates (particularly in Harre’s discussion of ‘positioning theory’, Harre and van Langenhove, 1999a) and in the recent work of Judith Butler (1997). Each of these asserts the possibility of human agency against some post-modernist interpretations of Foucault, Althusser, and others which suggest agency is entirely an artefact of discourse (an interpretation denied by Foucault himself (Foucault, 1994/2000, p. 399)). Although I do not believe any of these accounts provide a particularly satisfying notion of agency, they do make it plausible to consider the possibility that identities take on their compelling nature because they provide an answer to individual concerns, as well as the role they play in the construction of human subjectivity, and of course, it can also be argued that some of these individual concerns are themselves created by social subjectivities. Chapter Seven examines this collusion of interest which occurs in modernist Western cultures which promote the adoption of identity narratives. Based on theoretical work by Otto Rank (1936a; 1936b), Ernst Becker (1962/1977), Theresa Brennan (1993; 2000), as well as on research by Theweleit (1977/1987; 1978/1989) and Foxhall (1994; 1995), it suggests that identities serve to protect a person from overwhelming fears of mortality, change and the flow of life (see also Goodchild, 1996). As a result of these fears, an individual is primed to adopt narratives which attach them to larger, less changeable social wholes, whether these narratives are of a collective religious nature, or whether, as in the case of modernist culture, they are identities. These fears can then be exploited to instil identities which serve wider, and not necessarily equitous, social purposes. Chapter Seven concludes, however, that such a project is always unsuccessful, for as Butler (1993, p. 2) states, ‘Bodies never quite comply with the norms by which their materialization is impelled.’ No strategy, however clever, can solidify the processes of flow. Chapter Eight presents the case for considering masculinity as a type of identity narrative, which, because of its relationship to biological sex and gender, reflects the social relationships between the genders in modernist cultures (the assumption that there are only two genders acknowledges a cultural belief, and not the writer’s own assumptions about gender). It suggests that it makes sense to think of masculinity as an identity discourse to which both men and women are initiated as they come to understand the specific speaking conditions under which this discourse must be appropriated (these occur more often for men than for women). It further proposes limiting the use of the term masculinity to those societies which have two necessary pre-conditions; 1) they rely on identity narratives generally, and 2) they are patriarchal. It argues that many societies which are/have been patriarchal do not/did not have a concept of masculinity, and men exercised their privilege over women and children through other forms, such as in the social roles they played. (For example, Connell, 1993, p. 604, cites classical China as having a patriarchal, yet non-identity based culture.) Chapter Eight argues that to refer to men’s conceptions of masculinity in these societies is to import an anachronistic term into discussions of those societies’ conceptions of manhood. Chapter Eight further suggests that the “speaking conditions” for the employment of masculinity must be learned by the members of a culture, and that men’s everyday behaviour is often non-masculine; in fact, I suggest it is usually non-masculine unless the male is made aware that the situation requires the production of the masculine identity narrative. Following suggestions from narrative therapy (for example, Jenkins, 1990; 1996; White, 1991; 1992; C. White and Denborough, 1998), I believe greater hope for promoting equity towards women and children and respect for diversity amongst men can be achieved by focusing on those occasions when a male is not “speaking” masculinity than for reform of masculinity, which in my view, remains locked into its relationship to patriarchal social relations. In this sense, I present further arguments which I believe buttress the case already made by MacInnes (1998) that the abolition of the masculine identity narrative totally (and perhaps gender narratives generally) is more desirable than the reform of masculinity. Chapter Nine briefly illustrates the application of this approach to researching masculinity through the understandings of the development of the masculine identity narrative generated by two male focus groups using the ‘memory work’ methodology pioneered by Frigga Haug (1987; 1992a) and extended by June Crawford and others (1992). In all, this thesis contributes to the current debate on the nature of masculinity by seriously considering the implications of the links masculinity provides to patriarchal social relationships as an identity narrative. The specificity of these links, as well as their deeper functioning within human life have, to date, been largely unexplored in the literature on men. The thesis explores these links through the use of some of the literature which first brought the problems identities seek to resolve to academic and therapeutic attention (such as the work of Rank and Becker). Further, in proposing an approach to masculinity limited by cultural constraints (that is, patriarchy and the general presence of identity narratives), the thesis facilitates a potential shift in the literature from approaching masculinity via one of the definitional strategies to a more focused definition, which allows one to delineate when a man is being masculine and when a man is not being masculine. As such, this allows for a re-emergence and perhaps a re-appreciation of the diversity and multiplicity that lies not only between individuals, but also within each individual’s life and experiences.

In this thesis I aim to examine the ways in which cultural beliefs and norms about gender and sexuality are shaped by discourses on animals and nature. I have done a participatory observation on two different guided tours of animals and analyze some information about the animals at a Swedish zoo. With a discourse analytical approach, I analyzed transcribed material from the guided tours of animals and information about animals from a gender and queer theoretical perspective, based on Judith Butler's understanding of the heterosexual matrix and her performativity theory. In my analysis, based on my chosen theoretical framework and with support of previous research, I have seen that the way people talk about animals is characterized by human notions of gender and sexuality. In addition to human notions of gender and sexuality, I have seen human notions of ethnocentrism and the division of labor between male and female. Furthermore, I have seen that some of these texts about animals challenge ideas about the division of labor in the home between male and female.

The aim of this thesis was to analyze how the discourse between the two main characters in Richard Yates’s novel Revolutionary Road implies complex power dynamics concerning identity formation. The analysis has been conducted by the use of positioning theory as well as the critical lens of the Heterosexual Matrix in order to discuss positioning findings in relation to gender formation. The results show that the positionings in discourse between Frank and April reveal great and detrimental power dynamics entrenched in social and cultural practices as well as predetermined ideas of gender identity. This thesis has also addressed how the knowledge of such complexity in discourse can be analyzed in the Swedish EFL classroom. This has been argued for by demonstrating the use of the discursive tool of positionings and the gender critical lens of the Heterosexual Matrix in the classroom to validate the use of Revolutionary Road as a source to raise awareness of gender consciousness and encourage students to become conscious gender actors in their social life.

This Master Thesis focuses on the theoretical reconstruction of a positive feminist conceptualization of vulnerability via the thorough systematization and critical comparison of Martha Fineman’s socio-legal philosophy and Judith Butler’s poststructuralist ethico-political theory. In the introductory remarks, the reader becomes familiar with the turbulent receptions and numerous interdisciplinary re-artications of the term vulnerability within the realms of contemporary feminist theory. The second chapter mainly illustrates the core thematic axes of Fineman’s vulnerability approach. More specifically, the second chapter explores Fineman’s vulnerability perspective both in terms of an alternative ontological paradigm revolving around the recognition of our fundamentally vulnerable, shared, fragile and dependent universal condition, as well as in relation to its juridico-political normative implications apropos of the legitimate political organization of democratic societies and the just function of their central institutions. Furthermore, the third chapter systematizes the dual texture of the Butlerian radicalization of vulnerability in terms of both an existential condition of irreducible relationality, as well as in terms of a socio-politically contextualized and differentially allocated distribution of violence, deprivation, insecurity, injury and trauma to certain -gendered, racialized, sexualized and nationalized- social categories. To that end, the third chapter further elucidates the nuanced differentiations between the Butlerian conceptions of vulnerability, precariousness, precarity and dispossession, while further investigating Butler’s revolutionary constellation of vulnerability and resistance. Conclusively, this Master Thesis critically designates the similarities and divergences between the two above analysed feminist frameworks and supports that the twofold texture of the Butlerian vulnerability theory invests Butler’s ethico-political theory with more nuanced theoretical conceptions and more empowering political devices in comparison to Fineman’s universalistic postidentitarian vulnerability approach. In order to further enhance this core argument, I develop my own critical assessment of Fineman theory’s epistemological, political and conceptual limitations in regard of its self-declared ‘post-identitarian’ structure.

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Can the need for inclusion result in certain social norms remain unchallenged, and over time become hard to identify? To “fit in” and be accepted in different social contexts we have to behave according to the dominating rules and conventions. We accept characteristics and make use of attributes specific for the group we want to be a part of. When we accept these attributes we contribute to keep the concept of them alive. Further on these attributes will be picked up by the next person who wants to become a part of that specific context. This means that in the same moment we are being created, we are also the creators. In the same way, we are the cause of, and a result of, the fact that certain concepts remain unchallenged. Individuals are raised within a fixed structure in society. That structure defines principles of heteronormativity, for example the concept of right or wrong, masculinity and femininity, and good or bad. The fact that we are born and raised within it leaves us with a very narrow space in which we can interpret alternative ways. This does not mean that these alternative interpretations do not exist. To question existing and accepted structures can be a first step away from the safe environment that we are a part of. Awareness of the risks of this could be an explanation of why people refrain from questioning it. In this paper we try to penetrate the problems through the glasses of Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler and Berger and Luckmann to mention a few. The reason why this paper focuses on society, and norms in specific, emanate in an interest for invisible and sometimes indistinct structures. By indistinct we mean structures that exist in an extent that makes it hard to identify. The aim of this thesis is divided in two parts. The first part is to critically examine the social construction of heteronormativity. The second part is to examine how plural sexual identities function in relation to the heterosexual norm that we assume exists in society. The distinction in an individual’s hetero- or homosexuality is made difficult because of the spectrum of sexual identities. The grayscale of alternatively interpreted sexual identities that fits between the two poles of sexuality (hetero and homosexuality) are easily forgotten and thus treated as deviant behaviors. The issue of sexual identities is a complex one. To speak of it in a natural way to express sexuality, and not of its moral right or wrong, requires the understanding and acceptance of an individual’s differences as well as similarities. It is through ten interviews, where individuals share their experiences of both heteronormativity and sexuality that we get to know how and in which ways they feel affected by these two.

Det övergripande syftet med föreliggande studie är tudelat. För det första syftar den till att på teoretisk väg etablera en dialog mellan queerteoretisk och socialpsykologisk teoribildning om aktörer och aktörsskap med utgångspunkt i en kritisk läsning av Judith Butler och George Herbert Mead. För det andra syftar den till att på empirisk väg utveckla och fördjupa denna dialog i syfte att demonstrera och resonera kring de möjligheter som uppstår i spänningen mellan dessa teoretiska perspektiv. På detta sätt är avsikten att föra ett bidrag till såväl den queer- och genusteoretiska debatten som dess socialpsykologiska motsvarighet. Ambitionen är att detta sammantaget kan utgöra ett ramverk i vilket möjligheterna med en queer socialpsykologi skisseras. I jämförelsen mellan dessa teoretiska perspektiv fokuseras på frågan om hur människor antas bli till som aktörer och under vilka villkor och genom vilka processer detta äger rum. I centrum för denna diskussion positioneras relationen mellan deras respektive antagande om struktur och aktör samt hur denna relaterar till och förutsätts vara uppburen genom något slags praktik. För det andra diskuteras individens möjlighet att omförhandla sitt förvärvade aktörsskap och genom vilka processer och praktiker detta eventuellt kan göras möjligt. Avhandlingen är uppdelad i fyra delar. Den inledande delen (del 1: Inledande ord) introducerar studiens övergripande bakgrund, teoretiska position, syfte, material och de metodologiska överväganden som har gjorts under forskningsresans gång. Den andra delen (del 2: Teoretiska interventioner) utvecklar i tre kapitel den diskussion om spänningen mellan queerteori och socialpsykologi som påbörjades i avhandlingens första och inledande kapitel. I ett första kapitel fokuseras på Judith Butler för att ringa in och granska några centrala argument och faktorer i hennes tänkande. I ett andra kapitel diskuteras George Herbert Mead för att, i likhet med föregående kapitel, presentera hans övergripande argument och huvudsakliga tankegångar. Avslutningsvis avrundas avhandlingens andra del med ett kapitel som syftar till att summera och utveckla den spänningsrelation som hittas mellan dessa två teoretiker samtidigt som en diskussion förs om de möjligheter en empirisk utveckling av den teoretiska problematiken skulle kunna bidra med. Den teoretiska spänning som lokaliseras mellan Mead och Butler kretsar i första hand kring deras förståelse av relationen mellan aktör och praktik och med utgångspunkt i denna formuleras arbetsbegreppen transaktör och transpraktik som genomgående används i presentationen av det empiriska materialet. Avhandlingens tredje del (del 3: Empiriska nedslag) är i första hand av empirisk karaktär och är uppdelad i två kapitel. I det första av dessa förs en diskussion om hur de självreflexiva genuslekarna inbegriper formulerandet av ett särskilt transgenus och på vad sätt det är möjligt att förstå iscensättandet av genus som en i första hand självkommunikativ praktik. Gradvis demonstreras hur det går att utläsa en önskan om att iscensätta genus tillsammans med andra människor och därför kretsar det följande kapitlet kring en diskussion om betydelsen av social interaktion för detta iscensättande. Med andra ord går det att utläsa en rörelse från självkommunikation till (önskad) social interaktion och detta är ett tema som tydligt ringar in en stor del av den teoretiska problematik som genomsyrar denna studie. I den fjärde och avslutande delen (del 4: Avslutande reflektioner) knyts i tre kapitel de resonemang som hittills har presenterats och diskuterats ihop. Det inledande kapitlet för en teoretiskt orienterad diskussion om den föregående genomgången av det empiriska materialet. I ett därpå följande kapitel fokuseras på olika aspekter av självreflexiva genuslekar i relation till den klädda kroppen för att visa hur den tidigare presenterade praktik- och aktörsproblematiken är avhängig den klädda kroppens genusprägling. I detta sammanhang visas hur det är möjligt att upprätta en relation mellan självets framväxt, subjektivitet och den klädda kroppen. Avslutningsvis förs ett kortfattat resonemang kring avhandlingens huvudsakliga argumentationslinjer och vilka möjligheter ett tänkande inspirerat av queer socialpsykologi för med sig. / <p>Med sammanfattning på engelska</p>

The purpose of this study is to locate spatial manifestations of power, and acts of agency, by conducting a subversive reading of the female immortal threats in Homer’s Odyssey. With an aim to question preconceived notions on sexuality, gender and power, I draw on the theoretical perspectives of gender theorists J. Butler and J. Halberstam in my reading of non-normative female displays of power. The material in question is the adventures in the Odyssey that present female immortals, functioning as antagonists in the epos’ narrative structure. Space and power make the foundation in the deconstruction of these adventures. I approach the subject using analytical tools from the spatial methodology of K. Knott. Starting with ‘location’ I apply analytical categories such as ‘physical space’, ‘social space’, ‘properties of space’ and ‘spatial aspects’ in order to critically analyze spatial manifestations of power in each adventure. By placing the female immortal in the subject position, this work shows how she utilizes her space in order to dominate the mortal man she encounters. This is conducted through non-normative acts such as isolation and restriction. The study highlights the problem of putting ‘sex’ as the only, or dominant, focus in the reading of these adventures. The female immortals that Odysseus encounters, can by spatial analysis be shown to act autonomously towards mortal intruders that enter their territory.  They present themselves as having the right to take a mortal man for a husband, as well as kill him or keep him as a prisoner. This suggests that their status as immortal exceeds Odysseus’ male gender, whilst still being restricted by the gender hierarchy of her immortal society. The spatial analysis show that the female immortal possesses the agency of the mortal female as well as of the mortal male within in their oikos. The female immortal displays power by sustaining her space, as well as by regulating the movements of the mortal man, in and out of, and sometimes beyond, her space.