Femininity: A Literature Review

Femininity is formed through patriarchal ideas. This means that femininity is always set up as inferior to men. As a result, women as a group lack the same level of cultural power as men. Women do have agency to resist these ideals. Women can actively challenge gender norms by refusing to let patriarchy define how they portray and reconstruct their femininity. This can be done by rejecting cultural scripts. For example, entering male-dominated fields, such as body-building or Science and Technology (Dr Leullos,2014).

According to Bladwin and McCracken (2008) Feminism explains both the broad movement that has fought against the political and social differences between men and women as well as the school of academic criticism that takes gender

Men and Masculinity

Gender role is generally defined as a set of attitudes, behaviours, and self-presentation methods ascribed to member of certain biological sex. It includes norms for behaviour, which some researchers have stated to call it “the rules of masculinity” or “masculine and ideology.” this includes the gender roles such as strength which refers to emotional toughness, courage, self-reliance and nationality. Honour refers to duty, loyalty, responsibility, integrity, selflessness and compassion. Lastly action which refers to competitiveness, ambition, risk-taking and agency (Barker, 2012).

Dr Leullos (2014). Defines masculinity as a widely set of procedures which include gender relations gender practices between men and women and the belongings of these practices confidently experiences, personality and culture. He argues that it dictates ways of being masculine and “unmasculine.” He argues that there a several masculinities functioning within anyone cultural context, and some of these masculinities are hegemonic, subordinate, compliant and

Race and Ethnicity

Race and ethnicity have been and still is at the heart of South African history, politics, society and economy since the European colonisation. South Africa stays a complex mix of different cultural identities, races, language and ethnic bonds. The concept of race became popular during the period time of the colonization, as well as during the Apartheid period which started in 1948. Race is defined as a social concept referring to a group of people who share different and similar psychological characteristics (The South African History, 2015).

The ‘term ‘race’ is often placed in invented commas in cultural studies to indicate its historical uncertainty and its status as an analytic concept. Going back to the nineteenth century there were many aims by European investigators to group people based on their racial groups (white, yellow, black) and attribute unchanging feature to them. However these challenge to legitimate sets of stable racial differences. Race is an everyday term that people use to categorise themselves and identifying the differences between other groups that are not familiar to them. This term is broadly believed as potent markers of cultural differences Bladwin and McCracken