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A review by dashadashahi
Female Husbands by Jen Manion
4.0
Manion’s Female Husbands: A Trans History (2020) investigates the phenomena of “female husbands” from the eighteenth century into the late nineteenth century in the United Kingdom and the United States. Through this analysis Manion explores the relationship between gender and sex. Manion demonstrates that gender was a malleable concept in which female husbands secured their status male status through clothing, behaviour, and traditionally male jobs. As such, female husbands constructed their identity in relation to their social context and reaffirmed their masculinity through marriage. When and if female husbands were outed they often lost their gender stability, for example, courts forced female husbands to wear dresses or female attire to court. As such, Manion emphasizes that gender is externally defined by a myriad of conditions and relationships rather than biologically defined. Manion also pays attention to accounts of the female wives who threatened to upset the gender order because of their seeming propensity to act as an example to other women and encourage them to take female husbands. Indeed, early newspapers focused on the role of gender whereas later newspapers focused on the sexuality of individuals rather than the controversy of their gender presentation. Finally, Manion does not label female husbands or their female wives’ sexuality, instead, the focus is placed on gender and gender construction. This represents a shift from other works that may label women taking on masculine roles as lesbians therefore privileging their assumed sexuality over understanding how they constructed their gender.
I personally enjoyed the analysis and comparison of women’s rights movements in the United Kingdom and America and how they understood and responded to female husbands. It is not shocking to see that many women in Britain felt that embracing a male role was antithetical to their goal when many of their arguments relied on embracing feminine traits and feminine morality to better society through, for example, political involvement. Although feminist movements in the United states did not embrace female husbands either, critics of both feminists and female husbands argued that the former failed as women and the latter failed as males (p. 166). I also felt Manion brings important attention to the separation, or lack thereof, between the private and public sphere and how gender and sex exists within those spheres. For example, she speculates that John Howe and their wife never hired help because the roles taken at home may have not conformed to their perceived genders. In the case of Frank Dubois, Manion quotes them as explaining to an inquirer that if their wife is happy it is no one’s business whether they are a man or not (p. 232).
I personally enjoyed the analysis and comparison of women’s rights movements in the United Kingdom and America and how they understood and responded to female husbands. It is not shocking to see that many women in Britain felt that embracing a male role was antithetical to their goal when many of their arguments relied on embracing feminine traits and feminine morality to better society through, for example, political involvement. Although feminist movements in the United states did not embrace female husbands either, critics of both feminists and female husbands argued that the former failed as women and the latter failed as males (p. 166). I also felt Manion brings important attention to the separation, or lack thereof, between the private and public sphere and how gender and sex exists within those spheres. For example, she speculates that John Howe and their wife never hired help because the roles taken at home may have not conformed to their perceived genders. In the case of Frank Dubois, Manion quotes them as explaining to an inquirer that if their wife is happy it is no one’s business whether they are a man or not (p. 232).