This book takes a fresh approach to one of the most popular cultural symbols of modernity in the 1920s-the "masculine" modern woman. Uncovering discourses on female masculinity in interwar Sweden, a nation that struggled to become modern but not decadent, this study examines cultural representations and debates across several arenas including fashion, film, sports, automobility, medicine and literature. Drawing on rich empirical material, this book traces not only how the masculine modern woman reshaped the imaginary space of what women could be, do and desire, but also how this space was eventually shrunk in order to fit into an emerging vision of a family-oriented "people's home."
Author(s): Jenny Ingemarsdotter
Series: Routledge Research in Gender and History
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: viii+256
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I Telling Stories: Film, Fashion and “Funny Complications”
1 The M Word: Modern or Masculine?
2 “La Garçonne is Dead!—Long Live Femininity!”
Part II Changing Stories: Negotiating Masculinities in Sports and Automobility
3 “What We Have Learned from Our Sporting Ladies”: Making Sense of the Female Athlete
4 The Chauffeuse Who Wished for a Racecar: Stories of Masculinized Women Behind the Wheel
Part III Unfinished Stories: Queer Female Masculinities
5 In No Certain Terms: Female Masculinities and Queer Desires
6 The Desire to Desire: The Masculine Modern Woman in Fiction
Conclusion
Index
