Femininities

In Gender and the Construction of Hegemonic and Oppositional Femininities (2010) Justin Charlebois
discusses “the influential concepts of dominant, hegemonic, subordinate, and oppositional femininities”
(Charlebois 38). This theoretical framework assists in examining femininities in the romance novel
Eight Hundred Grapes (2015) written by Laura Dave. Experts of the European Institute for Gender
Equality defined femininities as a “different notions of what it means to be a woman, including patterns
of conduct linked to a women’s assumed place in a given set of gender roles and relations”. Generally,
“It involves questioning the values and norms that traditionally apply to women’s behaviour in a given
society” (EIGE). “The twenty-first century is supposedly a post-feminist age where gender equality is a
given and fundamental human right” (Charlebois 6), and Georgia Fords’ character confirms this idea.
She is a successful corporate lawyer, soon to get married to her dream husband, and despite downsides
of her life, Georgia does not abandon her ambitions. As Charlebois explains, “embodied social actions
associated with femininity include compliance, dependence on others—particularly men—cooperative
ability, passivity, and conservative sexuality” (22), “as social, situational, and historical variation exists,
the listed embodied social actions are neither exhaustive nor fixed” (22). In the novel Eight Hundred
Grapes (2015) the main character Georgia comes back to her homeland expecting to find comfort here,
but her family is dealing with their own problems. As Georgia encounters new friendships and
challenges, different aspects of femininities emerge. In this section, these aspects are presented using
different characters and scenes throughout the novel.

Dominant femininities refer to “the most powerful and/or the most widespread type in the
sense of being the most celebrated, common, or current form of femininity in a particular social
setting” (Messerschmidt forthcoming, 27). For this aspect, Michelle Carter, “the famous British actress.
On the cover of so many American magazines” (Dave 12), is the best example. She gets all attention and
she is the reason why Georgia ran away to Sebastopol. According to Charlebois, “thinness can be seen
as a defining element of contemporary dominant femininity” (36). When Michelle came to Sebastopol,
“she was gorgeous, and effortlessly stunning, wearing a long silk dress and cowboy boots, her hair
pulled up into a loose bun” (Dave 153). Encountering Michelle, a dominant feminine, can lead to
mistrust and doubts about your relationship and life, that confirms one of the characters, Lee: “It would
be hard for anyone if Michelle Carter was their husband’s ex” (Dave 217). “Dominant femininities must
be conceptualized in relation to emphasized, subordinate, and oppositional femininities because they
acquire meaning through relationships with other women” (Charlebois 27). Georgia’s attitude towards
Michelle was obvious, she “drilled her (Michelle) with a look, disliking her powder-soft voice, disliking
that she was trying to add levity to the awkwardness of that meeting on the street” (Dave 154).
Ester Palerm Mari, Frances Thomson-Salo.; Masculinity and Femininity Today

JACOB M. ASTON AND ESTELA VASQUEZ EDITORS. MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY

STEREOTYPES/MYTHS, PSYCHOLOGY AND ROLE OF CULTURE.

Wieland, Christina. The Undead Mother : Psychoanalytic Explorations of Masculinity, Femininity and
Matricide, Taylor & Francis Group, 2002.

Strinati, Dominic. An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, Taylor & Francis Group, 2004.

WENDY FAULKNER. GENDER (IN)AUTHENTICITY, BELONGING AND IDENTITY WORK IN

ENGINEERING

 Messerschmidt, James W. Nine Lives: Adolescent Masculinities, the Body, and Violence.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000.

Charlebois, Justin. Gender and the Construction of Hegemonic and Oppositional Femininities,

Lexington Books, 2010.

Schippers, Mimi. “Recovering the Feminine Other: Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender Hegemony.”
Theory and Society 36 (2007): 85– 102.