Effeminacy
Effeminacy is
femininity, unmanliness/womanliness, weakness, softness or a delicacy, which contradicts traditional male
gender roles.
Traditionally it is considered a
vice, indicative of other negative character traits and more recently often involving a negative insinuation of
homosexual tendencies.
The term is used to describe
feminine behaviour, demeanor, and appearance. These judgements largely involve
anti-gay stereotypes, and a
positive correlation presumed between effeminacy and gay men. It generally applied to men individually, but is sometimes used to describe entire societies. Further, individuals may call something (even an object) "
gay" to indicate that it is seen to be effeminate.
In contrast to this, effeminacy is often seen simply as one
characteristic or trait which may or may not be a part of a male gender role, and in this sense not considered a vice or indicative of any other characteristics.
In contrast there is no formal term for
masculinity in a woman, with the informal term being "
butch", which is associated with
lesbianism. "Butch" is also used within the lesbian community, often without a negative connotation, but sometimes with a more specific meaning (13).
History
Etymology
\nEffeminacy comes from the Latin, "ex" which is "out" and "femina" which means woman; it basically means for a man to be like a woman. The Latin term for the vice is "mollites".
The Greek word is "malakos" (or "soft"). "Malakoi" was a common Greek term meaning men who were effeminate; it is a term of shame, as words for effeminacy would be today.
Effeminacy was also known by the other Greek word androyinon (androgyny). It is made up of two Greek words; "Andre" meaning man and "Yinon" meaning woman. It literally means "manwoman".
A Greek word that approaches one modern meaning of effeminate is kinaidos (or cinaedus), a man "whose most salient feature was a supposedly "feminine" love of being sexually penetrated by other men." (14) However, "cinaedus is not actually anchored in that specific sexual practice....It refers instead to a man who has an identity as gender deviant." (15) Kinaidos is malakos, but malakos is more general effeminacy (16).
Other contemporary words for effeminacy include: "fruitcake" "poof" "wanker" "fag" "pansy", "nelly", "pussy", and "girl" (when applied to a boy or, especially, adult man). Contrastingly, a masculine girl would be called a "tomboy" or, less commonly, anti-gay slurs.
Ancient Greece
Aristotle labeled it as a vice. He said that "Cowardice is accompanied by softness (malakia), unmanliness, faint-heartedness."(1) It was also a concomitant of uncontrol: "The concomitants of uncontrol are softness (malakia) and negligence." (2)
It had educational implications (see Paideia). Pericles in his famous Funeral Oration said that the Athenians "cultivate...knowledge without effeminacy (aneu malakoi)". (3) This statement and idea of education without effeminacy was visible in the educational philosophies of Victorian England and 19th century America.
To the Greeks, men could either be made manly or effeminate. Socrates in The Republic observed that "too much music effeminizes the male." (4) Therefore, effeminacy in Ancient Greece had political implications as well. The presence or absence of this character in man and his society determined if his society was free or slavish. The Greeks applied this term to the Asiatics because they always lived under tyranny. (a) To them, their self-government was a product of their manliness. (see The Kyklos.)
Herodotus recounted an incident that happened in Asia Minor:
- "But let the Lydians be pardoned; and lay on them this command, that they may not revolt or be dangerous to you; then, I say, and forbid them to possess weapons of war, and command them to wear tunics under their cloaks and buskins on their feet, and to teach their sons lyre-playing and song and dance and huckstering (the word "retail" in one translation). Then, O King, you will soon see them turned to women instead of men; and thus you need not fear lest they revolt." (5)
This was an appeal from King Croesus, the king of the Lydians, a Greek city and people on the West coast of Turkey, to the Persian King. What the defeated king proposed was to inculturate softness in order to make the people docile and servile; effeminacy was the mark of a slave.
Uses of androyinon (androgyny):
- "Fear casts down the slothful; and the souls of the effeminate(androyinon) shall hunger." Septuagint, Prov 18.8
- "Cowardice possesses the effeminate (androyinon) man." Septuagint, Prov 19.15
The Greek idea of mechanical trades as incurring effeminacy of their laborers was spoken by Xenophon:
- "Men do indeed speak ill of those occupations which are called handicrafts, and they are rightly held of little repute in communities, because they weaken the bodies of those who make their living at them by compelling them to sit and pass their days indoors. Some indeed work all the time by a fire. But when the body becomes effeminate the mind too is debilitated. Besides, these mechanical occupations (vanavsos) leave a man no leisure to attend to his friends' interests, or the public interest. This class therefore cannot be of much use to his friends or defend his country. Indeed, some states, especially the most warlike, do not allow a citizen to engage in these handicraft occupations." (7)
The Greeks tended to see things in totality, as opposed to compartmentalizing their thought. If the body was weak and soft, as the sentiment went, the mind is weak and soft, thereby lending to a man who was effeminate. Everything: food, sleeping habits, clothing, labors, work, education, and music affected the
character of a man. The excess or definciency in any of these either made the man effeminate or manly. (see
Golden Mean).
Among Ancient Mediterranean masculinity was considered a difficult accomplishment, and thus kinaidos where those who gave up and succumbed to the temptation to pleasure, a feminine trait.
It was also considered effeminate for a man to be penetrated, especially by someone of a lower class. Taking an inappropriate sexual position in same-gender sex was considered effeminate unnatural in much the same way that taking any position in same-gender sex is disparaged today.
The Bible
The Cruden's Complete Concordance to the Bible of 1737 points to places in the Bible where "Weak and ineffectual men are sometimes spoken of as women": Masoretic text, Is 3.12; 19.16; and Septuagint, Is 19.16; Nah 3.13; Jer 28.30. (6)
Malakos is listed among other vices 1 Cor. 6:9.
United States
To strengthen the argument of the "mechanics", Thomas Jefferson said something similar to Xenophon (see above):
- "The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. I consider the class of artificers as the panderers of vice, and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned." (8)
\n
Other occurances of the word
\n* "The words of the cunning knaves are soft (malakoi)" Septuagint, Prov. 26.22.
- "Why then did you go out? To see a man clothed in soft (malakoi) rainment? Behold those who wear soft (malakoi) rainment are in king's houses." Matthew 11:8 and Luke 7:25.
- "Or do you not know that the unjust will not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate (malakoi), nor sodomites, will possess the kingdom of God." 1 Cor. 6.9 The New American Catholic Edition, l958
- "Kings were no longer chosen from the house of Codrus, because they were thought to be luxurious and to have become soft (malakous)." From the Athenian Constitution. (9)
- "some of the Kings proved cowardly (malakous) in warfare" (10)
- "A true man must have no mark of effeminacy visible on his face, or any other part of his body. Let no blot on his manliness, then, ever be found either in his movements or habits." St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 195, E), 2.289.
- "What is the purpose in the Law's prohibition against a man wearing woman's clothing? Is it not that the Law would have us to be masculine and not to be effeminate in either person or actions--or in thought and word? Rather, it would have the man who devotes himself to the truth to be masculine both in acts of endurance and patience--in life, conduct, word, and discipline." St. Clement of Alexandria (c. l95, E), 2.365.
- "Therefore, we also reckon that the woman should be continent and practiced in fighting against pleasures, too. Women are therefore to philosophize equally with men, though the males are preferable at everything, unless they have become effeminate. To the whole human race, then, discipline and virtue are a necessity, if they would pursue after happiness." St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 195, E), 2.419, 420 (11)
- "Rome was humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism." Gibbon Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776. I. 148.
- "In a slothfull peace both courages will effeminate, and manners corrupt." Bacon Greatness Kingd., Ess., 1612. 239. (12)
References
\n*(a) "...because the barbarians are more servile..." Politics, 1285a 20. \n*(1) On Virtues and Vices, Loeb, pg 497\n*(2) Ibid, pg 499\n*(3) The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides, trans. Crawley, The Modern Library, NY, l951. Book II, #40; pg 105.\n*(4) Republic, Plato, trans. B. Jowett, M.A., Vintage Books, pg 118\n*(5) Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield, Oxford University Press, NY, l998. Book I, 155-157; pg 69. \n*(6) Complete Concordance, Crudens, 1737. pg 755\n*(7) Xenophon, Econ. IV, 3 as quoted in The Greeks by Kitto \n*(8) quoted in Liberty or Equality, Erik von Kuenhelt-Leddhin, pg 6, reference from Works, ed, Washington [New York: Derby and Jackson, 1859], I, 403. \n*(9) The Athenian Constitution, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, Vol 285, Fr 7; pg 13.\n*(10) Ibid, III 2; pg 15.\n*(11) Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, David W. Bercot, Editor pg 445\n*(12) Oxford English Dictionary, 20 vol.\n*(13) "Oral History and the Study of Sexuality in the Lesbian Community"\n*(14) The Constraints of Desire by John Winkler\n*(15) Roman Homosexuality by Craig Williams\n*(16) "Arsenokoités and Malakos" by Dale Martin
Bibliography
\n*On Virtues and Vices, Aristotle, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, l992. Vol. #285\n*The Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library. Vol. #285\n*Oxford English Dictionary, 20 vol. It has 75 references in English literature of over 500 years of usage of the word 'effeminate'.\n*Davis, Madeline and Lapovsky Kennedy, Elizabeth (1989). "Oral History and the Study of Sexuality in the Lesbian Community",
Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past (1990), Duberman, etc, eds. New York: Meridian, New American Library, Penguin Books. ISBN 0452010675.\n*Winkler, John J. (1990).
The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece. New York: Routledge.\n*Williams, Craig A. (1999).
Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press.\n*Martin, Dale B. (1996). "Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences",
Biblical Ethics & Homosexuality: Listening to Scripture, Robert L. Brawley, ed. Westminster John Knox Press.
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\nCategory:ViceCategory:FeminismCategory:Gender
