FEMALE MASCULINITY © 1998 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper oo Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Frontispiece: Sadie Lee, Raging Bull (1994) Typeset in Scala by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. FOR GAYAT RI CONTENTS Illustrations ix Preface xi 1 An Introduction to Female Masculinity: Masculinity without Men r 2 Perverse Presentism: The Androgyne, the Tribade, the Female Husband, and Other Pre-Twentieth-Century Genders 45 3 "A Writer of Misfits": John Radclyffe Hall and the Discourse of Inversion 7 5 4 Lesbian Masculinity: Even Stone Butches Get the Blues nr 5 Transgender Butch: Butch/FTM Border Wars and the Masculine Continuum 141 6 Looking Butch: A Rough Guide to Butches on Film 175 7 Drag Kings: Masculinity and Performance 231 viii · Contents 8 Raging Bull (Dyke): New Masculinities 267 Notes 279 Bibliography 307 Filmography 319 Index 323 IL LUSTRATIONS 1 Julie Harris as Frankie Addams and Ethel Waters as Bernice in The Member of the Wedding (1953) 7 2 Queen Latifahas Cleo in Set It Off(19 97) 30 3 Drag king Mo B. Dick 31 4 Peggy Shaw's publicity poster (1995) 31 5 "Ingin," fromthe series "Being and Having," by Catherine Opie (1991) 32 6 "Whitey," fromthe series "Being and Having," by Catherine Opie (1991) 33 7 "Mike and Sky," by Catherine Opie (1993) 34 8 "Jack's Back II," by Del Grace (1994) 36 9 "Jackie II," by Del Grace (1994) 37 10 "Dyke," by Catherine Opie (1992) 39 11 "Self- Portrait," by Catherine Opie (1993) 39 12 Jeanette Goldstein as Vasquez in Aliens (1986) 182 13 Beryl Reid as George in TheKilling of Sister George (1968) 184 14 Robin Johnson as Nicky in Times Square (1980) 189 x • List of Illustrations 15 Julie Harris as Frankie Addams in TheMember of the Wedding (1953) 191 16 Mercedes Mccambridge as Emma in johnny Guitar (1954) 194 17 Mercedes McCambridge as a street butch in A Touch of Evil (1958) 196 18 Beryl Reid as George in TheKilling of Sister George (1968) 198 19 Beryl Reid as George in drag in TheKilling of Sister George (1968) 198 20 Movie poster forCaged (1950) 200 21 Hope Emerson in Caged (1950) 202 22 Doris Day in Calamity Jane (1953) 210 23 Greta Garbo in Queen Christina (1933) 211 24 Tilda Swinton in Orlando (1993) 214 25 Ana Beatrice Nogueria as Bauer in Vera (1987) 216 26 Mary Stuart Masterson in Fried Green Tomatoes (1992) 221 27 k. d. lang in Salmonberries (1992) 223 28 Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon in Bound (1996) 228 29 Queen Latifah in Set It Off (1996) 229 30 "Judith "Jack" Halberstam," by Del Grace (1997) 243 31 "Sean," by Betsey Gallagher (1995) 247 32 "Chico Soda," by Betsey Gallagher (1996) 249 33 "Diane Torr," by Betsey Gallagher (1996) 251 34 "Dred," by Betsey Gallagher (1996) 254 35 "Who Loves You Baby? Murray Hill as the Puffy Elvis," by Matthew Sandager (1997) 258 36 "Murray Hill as Bela Karolyi and Penny Tuesdae as Kerri Strug," by Tanya Braganti (1997) 260 37 "Murray Hill for Mayor-The God Bless America Show at Club Casanova," by Vivian Babuts (1997) 265 38 Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta in Raging Bull (1980) 274 PREFACE There is something all too obvious about the concept "female masculinity." When people have asked me over the last few years what I am working on, I have explained quickly to them the concept of this book. Usually I can do it in one or two sentences. I will say, perhaps, "I am writing about women who fe el themselves to be more masculine than fe minine, and I am trying to explain why, as a culture, we seem to take so little interest in female masculinity and yet pay a considerable amount of attention to male femi­ ninity." People tend to nod and say, "Yes, of course, female masculinity," as if this is a concept they have grown up with and use every day. In actual fact, there is remarkably little written about masculinity in women, and this culture generally evinces considerable anxiety about even the prospect ofmanly women. I hope that this book opens discussion on masculinity for women in such a way that masculine girls and women do not have to wear their masculinity as a stigma but can infuse it with a sense of pride and indeed power. Already, lesbian counterproductions of female masculinity, fromthe spectacle of dykes on bikes to the outrageous performances of the drag king, are certainly taking aim at the cultural mandates against mas- xii · Preface culinity in women. This book, I hope, will eventually form just one part of a cultural onslaught on the privileged reservation of masculinity formen. I was a masculine girl, and I am a masculine woman. For much of my life, my masculinity has been rendered shameful by public responses to my gender ambiguity. However, in the last ten years, I have been able to turn stigma into strength. This book is a result of a lengthy process of both self-examination and discussion with others. Many people have con­ tributed both emotionally and intellectually to this book. My colleagues at UC San Diego have been supportive and encouraging of this project, and because the Literature Department at ucsn, unlike so many traditional English programs, has a serious commitment to cultural studies and inter­ disciplinary work, I have fe lt encouraged to take this project in the many nonliterary directions that it has needed to go. I have been influenced and enriched by reading the work of my u cs D colleagues Rosemary Marangoly George, Page Dubois, Michael Davidson, Shelley Streeby, Mike Mura­ shige, Rosaura Sanchez, Ann DuCille, George Lipsitz, Steven Epstein, and Ramon Gutierrez, and especially Lisa Lowe. I benefited during the writing of this book from several UC Senate travel and research grants. I also held a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU while finishing research for Female Mas­ culinity. The primary benefit of this postdoc was that it put me in conversa­ tion with the amazing group of New York-based queer scholars, including Jose Mu:fioz, Philip Brian Harper, Chris Straayer, Jill Dolan, Peggy Phelan, and others. I fe el my work has really improved as a result of such close con­ tact with other queer academics. Meeting and working with Lisa Duggan at NYU was an important influence on the course of this book. Her work on fe mme subjectivities and her historical research on turn-of-the-century lesbian subjectivities has greatly affected my thinking on lesbian genders. I met another person while in New York who has become indispens­ able to this project and my own intellectual development: Esther Newton. In many ways, Esther Newton is my scholarly role model; she has been a mentor and a friend, and she has helped to shape this book with her many insightful and tough readings of it. I could not have foreseen the impor­ tance of a dialogue with a butch scholar from a different generation, and I have realized while writing this book that my work has been influenced by her thinking and her formulations throughout. I have also been able to learn other less tangible things from Esther about how to be in the world, about inhabiting fe male masculinity and about shaping an intellectual project around issues of great personal importance. I believe Esther's work Preface • xiii provides an exemplary model of how to create subtle interactions between the personal and the theoretical; indeed, her work skillfully prevents the weight of the personal from crashing through finely meshed theoretical webs but also prevents theoretical abstractions from obscuring completely the coarse lines of personal experience. My debt to Esther, fittingly,is both personal and theoretical. I also benefited from an extremely insightful reading of the book by Valerie Traub, whose own work is a model of historically based, careful, and rigorous scholarship. Laura Doan's research in progress on British lesbian culture in the 1920s has been extremely provocative for my work on Radclyffe Hall, and I eagerly await Doan's book. Others who have left their stamp on my thinking include transgender theorists Jacob Hale, Jay Prosser, Del Grace, and Jordy Jones. Jacob has been a demanding interlocu­ ter, and I have learnedmuch fromour various collaborations; although Jay and I disagree over many issues within what can now be called transgender politics, I fe el the greatest admiration for his work and fe el fortunate to be in dialogue with him. Jordy has inspired me with his strange and won­ derful artwork, and Del has proven to be a steadfast friend and continues to amaze me with his breathtaking portraits of queer lives and bodies. I have been helped and supported by the work and advice of many friends and colleagues: Henry Abelove, Juanita Diaz, Deb Amory, Ed Cohen, Barbara Cruikshank, Ann Cvetkovich, Stacey Foiles, Heather Findlay, Beth Freeman, Jane Gallop, Laura Green, Ira Livingston, David Lloyd, Martin Manalansan, Sally Munt, Geeta Patel, Saeed Rahman, Chandan Reddy, Javid Sayed, Nayan Shah, Cherry Smyth, Patti White, Kath Weston. I owe much gratitude to the drag kings in New York, who are an inspiration to me, not to mention a source of many evenings of entertainment: Mo B. Dick (Maureen Fisher), Dred (Mildred Gerestant), Shon (Shavell Lashon Sherman), Lizerace (Liz Carthaus), and especially Murray Hill (Betsey Gal­ lagher). I would like to thank Ken Wissoker at Duke University Press for his generosity and his belief in this project and Richard Morrison for en­ couraging me at all the right moments and forcarefully guidingthe book into print.