Performing Femininity Rewriting Gender Identity

Humorous yet touching, Performing Femininity challenges traditional and feminist perspectives on gender. As a woman whose brand of feminism is suspect, Lesa Lockford places herself in the most shameful, the most abject circumstances: an image obsessed weight-watcher, an exotic dancer, and a theatrical performer. By exposing herself to the abject, she reclaims her body's symbolic value from society. This experimental autoethnography provides a provocative model to the ethnographer and rewards the student of gender studies with a rare perspective.

Lesa Lockford teaches courses in theatre and performance studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.