Joyful Expressions of Gender: The Moustachioed Woman

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract

Whilst researching cross-dressing women in fin-de-siècle literature for my undergraduate dissertation, I came across this description in Victoria Cross’ Six Chapters of a Man’s Life (1903), “She’s so queer. I want you to see her, she’s got a moustache.” This prompted a fascination with how women’s facial hair is represented, both historically and today. Unsurprisingly, my research on nineteenth-century literary representations of hirsute women has found that women’s facial hair was considered ‘ugly’ and used as a pejorative description. But the moustache is also a symbol of empowerment and writers like Wilkie Collins and Eliza Linton use facial hair to subvert gendered norms and challenge binary thinking. What is surprising are the instances when facial hair is depicted as beautiful, natural and ‘womanly,’ and my paper will examine these unexpected representations to celebrate the joy found in not removing hair from women’s upper lips.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 27 Sept 2023
EventLilith Symposium: Gender and Joy in History - ACU Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Duration: 27 Sept 202328 Sept 2023
https://www.auswhn.com.au/lilith/lilith-conference/

Conference

ConferenceLilith Symposium
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityMelbourne
Period27/09/2328/09/23
Internet address

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Joyful Expressions of Gender: The Moustachioed Woman'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this