Bringing Gender Relations Back In: A Practice-Based Approach to Theorizing Femininities and Gender Hegemony

• In Event: 30611 - Regular Session on Gender: Femininities and Masculinities

Abstract

This paper responds to recent calls for further research on femininities, addressing the conceptual fragmentation that increasingly characterizes scholarship in this subfield. While the growing sociology of femininities is now populated with rich conceptualizations of multiple femininities—including “alternative,” “pariah,” and “hybrid” femininities—many such conceptualizations foreground gender variations within local contexts. Building on Connell’s (1987) foundational work on masculinities, I argue for a more systematic approach to theorizing femininities, one that prioritizes gender relations over trait-based classifications and localized patterns of gender variation. Drawing on Bourdieusian field theory and practice theory, I conceptualize femininities as relational and contingent, shaped by access to economic, social, and cultural capital across distinct social fields. This approach links structure and interaction, foregrounding the ways gendered practices can both legitimize and challenge male dominance. To illustrate the utility of this approach, I draw on in-depth interviews with women residing in the United States and Canada, showing how women navigate the gender regime of the street in ways that both unsettle, and shore up, male dominance. This paper illustrates how a practice-based approach to femininities can restore a focus on power, inequality, and social change within the new sociology of femininities.

Author

• Rebecca Lennox, University of Missouri-St Louis