Judith Halberstam's Female Masculinity

While Newton’s study focuses on gay men performing gender through theatrical drag queen shows, Judith Halberstam’s Female Masculinity is a gender analysis that examines the ways in which women embody masculinity. According to Halberstam, most of the previous studies discussing masculinity strictly focus on middle class white men. Through an investigation of queer women, she rejects the notion that masculinity is not the social, cultural, and political expression of maleness. Her goal is to study masculinity without men. Halberstam opens the study with a discussion of an iconic character who epitomizes society’s embodiment of masculinity, James Bond. For Halberstam, Bond exudes “prosthetic masculinity” due to his “slick suit, half smile, [and]