Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Dismantling The Cult Of Manliness, Peter Capalbo

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Explores the argument that several of Virginia Woolf's male characters, including Septimus Smith, Mr. Ramsay, and Bernard (in The Waves), challenge traditional male gender expectations in Britain after World War I. Examines Woolf's use of the concept of manliness in structuring her novels and her presentation of a series of men who do not conform to the British ideal of masculinity and who, thereby, allow her to expose the multiple fallacies of that ideal and a culture supported by such a concept. Posits that Woolf's work suggests that a new, more inclusive, understanding of gender is an important first step …