Bodies and Clothing

In Mother Camp Newton discusses the paradox of the man in drag who overlays symbols of femininity upon a masculinity assumed to be essential while simultaneously signaling masculinity with his anatomical "outside," even as the practice of impersonation imputes a feminine orientation to his "inner" self.

Kath Weston (1993: 6)


          Bodies and clothing are perhaps the most powerful external signifiers of gender, as they are the most visible, and conform to Western understandings of how men and women should present themselves to the outside world.  As Weston suggests, clothing has the power to transgress gender norms, often in a post-modern performative process, which she sees as a means of projecting to the outside world an identity that the individual may relate to on a deeper level, within his or her "inner" self.  However, in cross-dressing, there is always the very "queer" result, contrasting a gendered physical appearance conveyed through bodily indicators (Adam's apple, angular jaw line, "delicate" hands, signs of breasts) with the "opposite" gendered clothing (eg. a suit in contrast to a dress).  What does it mean to use a body sexed one way to convey a gender of the other sex?  What are the discrepancies between the way men and women "do gender?"
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