Summary

An Introduction to Female Masculinity: Masculinity without Men begins with a section titled “The Real Thing.” In this section, Halberstam deconstructs the formulation of white, cis-gendered male masculinity as the dominant and natural exemplar of masculinity. He argues that, while masculinity has been depicted as the natural manifestation of white maleness, masculinity actually only becomes definable as a trait when manifested by non-white and non-male people.

The next section is titled “Tomboys,” which focuses on the socially accepted masculinity in pre-pubescent tomboys that quickly becomes societally intolerable and incomprehensible when puberty occurs. Halberstam quotes a description of Frankie Addams in the novel and movie “The Member of the Wedding” to convey the incoherency of female masculinity in modern society: “She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world. Frankie was an unjoined...