Femininities and Masculinities in Action

The chapters in this interdisciplinary anthology study the construction of gender in different historical, textual, economic and political contexts. This wide ranging body of scholarly work thereby contributes to the study of the considerable variations in the way in which gender constructions are and have been perceived, portrayed, internalised, subverted and transformed in widely different historical, political, cultural and geographical situations. While examining the particular characteristics of the contexts that are studied, the contributors establish connections to other chapters in the volume in order to make explicit the differences and similarities between different discourses. This dialogical approach serves to foreground both the structural nature of gender relations and the fact that femininities and masculinities are constructed and therefore take different forms in different historical periods and geographical locations.