The Man inside the Woman; The Woman inside the Man
I'm beginning to get ideas together for my senior thesis. I've decided it is going to be about androgeny, focusing in on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Gender and sexual politics have always fascinated me--especially in Renaissance England. I read some pamphlets last year that were distributed in England in the 17th cnetury basically saying that if women wore men's clothing (cross dressing was an issue during this time), they would turn into men-disregarding the biological differences between men and women. I looked at anatomy books from this time too-they basically thought that the male and female reporductive systems were the same, excepted women were "inverted" men. Queen Elizabeth (my namesake!) herself was an figure of androgeny-a woman in a man's position. Chinese philosphy and the yin-yang are examples of this.
Fasinating stuff, people. This is gonna be fun. Can anyone think of any modern day examples of androgeny??? I think maybe the fashion world is a good example. Let me know if there's anything you can think of that I can possibly research.
Fasinating stuff, people. This is gonna be fun. Can anyone think of any modern day examples of androgeny??? I think maybe the fashion world is a good example. Let me know if there's anything you can think of that I can possibly research.