Paper
Gender wears leather: productions of dissident masculinities
presenters
PAULA ESTEVES
Nationality: Brazil
Residence: Brazil
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
Presence:Online
For a long time, gender studies and academic production focusing on masculinities have thought of the construction of man from the perspective of an inequality characterized by the figure of the cis, straight, white, virile, provider man in opposition to the figure of a fragile, subordinate woman. However, this stereotype of a socially and culturally constructed hegemonic masculinity reinforces a gender construction that silences dissident bodies and that can no longer be accepted in a society that yearns for a break with bio-logic when dealing with issues of gender and sexuality. In this sense, more recent feminist studies are allies of these emerging subjectivities, since they advocate denaturalizing the binary gender model that assigns certain social practices to men and women (BARBIERI, 1992). Thus, my aim is to show other possible constructions of masculinity by observing and analyzing the Leather community in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. This configuration of dissident masculinity permeated by the fetish for leather props and crossed by the stigma and marginalization of their identity endorses the idea of thinking of gender as a performative construct (BUTLER, 1990), moving away from biological dualism.
Keywords:
Gender; Masculinity; Dissidence; Performativity; Leather