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Diala Bazzi
Professor Abigail Heiniger
GSW 2500 001
25 November 2013
Androgyny: Good or Bad?
Androgyny is defined as when a person acquires both masculine and feminine traits
regardless of their sex. During the 1920s, it was popular to emphasize this concept, especially
through clothing and attractions. Women became “wild” and rebellious; they chopped off their
long hair and most surprisingly, shorten and slim down their dresses. They eventually began
wearing clothes pertaining to both sexes. These women were known as “flappers” who casually
had sex, drank, went to parties, and drove – activities that had previously been characterized as
masculine. This era changed lifestyle and culture for women forever. This period was
consequently called The Roaring Twenties. During this time, author Virginia Woolf writes a
novel called Orlando which is about a man, named Orlando, who superficially changes into a
woman. Orlando changes physically, but always remains the same internally and lives a happy
life. Modernism in Orlando goes against the ideology of realism for the purpose of the message
that Woolf may be trying to portray. Woolf tries to construct modernism through gender
ambiguity and explain the positive effects of androgyny. Through Orlando’s clothing and
attractions, Woolf uses Modernism to generate androgynous aesthetics and endorses androgyny
for both the individual and society. In Orlando, Virginia Woolf celebrates fluid gender roles,
which reflects Modernist aesthetics embodied in the flappers image from the 1920s. However, I
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am analyzing the unintentional critique androgyny incorporated in Orlando’s celebration of
androgyny.
Throughout Orlando, Woolf makes many clear points indicating her drive to promote and
make androgyny as an ideal. She indirectly states the importance of androgyny and how it could
benefit society as a lifestyle through Orlando’s clothing and relationships. Before and after
Orlando’s gender change, he/she ambiguously interchanges male and female clothing. Woolf
writes, “Had both [men and women] worn the same clothes, it is possible their outlook may have
been the same too” (Woolf 188). Woolf may be trying to imply here that both Orlando as a man
and Orlando as a woman unify and have the same perspective because of her/his choice of
interchanging wardrobe. Woolf writes about the clothing worn by Orlando to emphasize
androgyny, specifically the modernist clothing worn during the Roaring Twenties by women. For
example, this concept of androgynous clothing in the 1920s can be seen in the image of flapper
girls (see figure 1). Before World War I, women wore floor length, weighty dresses, and long
hair, as women were expected to wear. In the image of the flapper girls during the 1920s, it is
clear these women are out having a great time. The phrase “loose clothing, loose women”
referred to the women who started to go out to parties exposing their arms and legs with short
loose dresses. Most women took advantage of this rebellious decade and began doing things by
women that were never done before. These women were labeled as the “New Women” “…with
bobbed hair and short skirts who drank, smoked and said what might be termed “unladylike”
things, in addition to being more sexually “free” than previous generations” (“The Roaring
Twenties” 1). This was seen as unacceptable behavior and did not historically endure, because
these activities were only done by men. Women began looking more like men due to their slim
clothing and short hair. This was a jaw dropping moment for men when they returned from war.
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It was an unusual sight for men to see women act and dress like this. This was the time when
men began questioning their own sexuality. Due to this dramatic change of gender roles,
androgyny slowly began becoming an ambiguous act for both men and women, which is clearly
shown and endorsed as a celebration through Woolf’s writing in Orlando. Although it is clear in
Orlando that Woolf firmly believes androgyny could make a positively influential effect on
society as a Modernist aesthetic, she may be emphasizing the unintentional the negative effects
of androgyny and what it has led to in society. In the 1920s, “the origins of flappers,
ideologically, were seen as being rooted in liberalism” (“Flappers and The Roaring Twenties” 1).
However, when the role of women changed during the roaring twenties, this is in fact when
chaos emerged. Women began to act and dress in an unrespectable way and unintentionally lead
to many problems. The way women dressed and their rise in sexual thought made them become
more appealing to men and sexually active, which as we know today has led to pregnancy at
young age, adultery, and has destroyed families. In Orlando, the problems androgyny leads to are
not as severe, but Woolf certainly overlooks the problems with the act she is endorsing.
After Orlando’s sex change, she switches her choice of clothing back and forth to her
own pleasure. Her ambiguous wardrobe is not labeled as men’s clothing or women’s clothing,
rather clothing to her own interest. The way she dressed was to express herself as person, not
specifically as a male or a female. To show this act is androgynous, Woolf write that before
Orlando goes out, she finds clothes that she had worn as a young man of fashion and casually
puts them on as a woman. Woolf writes, “…it fitted her to perfection and dressed in it she looked
the very figure of a noble Lord” (Woolf 215). Through androgynous clothing, Woolf makes it
seem as though a person remains the same regardless of clothing. It was important for Orlando
to interchange clothing of different sexes because it symbolizes that she remains the same person
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internally, which is part of Woolf’s Modernist message. However, Woolf’s celebration here in
androgynous clothing only goes so far. When Orlando becomes a woman, her position as a duke,
ambassador of the Turks, and owner of the finest houses are threatened to be taken away. Woolf
writes “The chief charges against here were (1) that she was dead, and therefore could not hold
any property whatsoever; (2) that she was a woman, which amounts to much the same thing”
(Woolf 168). Is being dead really the same as being a woman? Here, Woolf may be pointing out
the flaws of society and how woman are viewed as; and her point is that androgyny may fix these
flaws in society. However, it does not. It is not stated directly, but it is not until the time that she
wears male clothing as a woman, where she receives the privilege to claim these titles again. At
this point of the book, androgyny, on the contrary, goes against gender and equality. Therefore,
Orlando became obligated to interchange clothing pertaining to both sexes, in order to be in high
authority. Here, clothing does play a part in the type of person Orlando is. Woolf promotes
androgyny as gender and equality, yet here the man and woman are not equal when it comes to
high authority. The undeliberate message here is that a woman cannot hold these titles unless she
presents herself as a man.
As much as androgyny is celebrated, unfortunately it comes with just as much chaos as a
non-androgynous society. In Orlando, Woolf also endorses androgyny through Orlando’s
relationships and attractions. Woolf writes, “…such a revelation that a woman could be as
tolerant and free-spoken as a man, and a man as strange and subtle as a woman.” (Woolf 258).
Orlando’s romance demonstrates Modernist ambivalence towards same sex attraction. However,
Woolf overlooks the fact that if men and women acted the same, the undesirable traits of each
gender still come into play. In a book called “Sex Roles”, the authors write about “Positive and
Negative Androgyny”. The authors Brenda Woodhill and Chris Samuels write that the negative
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outcomes overweigh the positive outcomes of androgyny if they were to become a lifestyle.
Woodhill and Samuels write “A negatively androgynous person may, for example, react in an
undesirable feminine way in one situation (e.g. submissively) and in an undesirable masculine
way in another situation (e.g. aggressively)… they may demonstrate high levels of
submissiveness and selfishness, or be temperamental and aggressive”” (Woodhill & Samuels
556). After Orlando’s sex change, she realizes that “here it would seem from some ambiguity in
her terms that she was censuring both sexes equally, as if she belonged to neither; and indeed, for
some time being she seemed to vacillate; she was a man; she was a women; she knew the secrets,
shared the weaknesses of each” (Woolf 158). Here, Orlando is fully aware of herself that
although she becomes androgynous, she still acquires the weaknesses of both male and female
sexes. There are a few passages in chapter five where Orlando questions herself, becomes
gloomy, sad, conflicted and unloved. She eventually feels as though she is dying because she is a
woman and has not been truly loved by anyone yet. By writing this, Woolf unintentionally
overlooks that the weaknesses of a sex can turn into chaos and, in fact, should not be celebrated.
Woolf emphasizes the fact that androgyny through modernist aesthetic will only change a person
physically not internally. However, she unknowingly leaves the fact that a person may remain a
bad person internally as well. Androgyny is not an ideal that should be celebrated because it
promotes gender and equality and wellness, rather it is a concept that brings disadvantages as
well as advantages, which Woolf herself unintentionally overlooks. Weaknesses become a big
part of a person and those weaknesses can overpower themselves. Whether it be an androgynous
person or not, both will hold the disadvantages that come with androgyny; and those
disadvantages outbalance the advantages that come with this modernist idea that Woolf
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celebrates. A person can be androgynous, yet still acquire the negative traits of a heterosexual
male or female.
In Orlando, Woolf also promotes androgyny mainly because it accentuates gender and
equality. A person holding both masculine and feminine traits would be viewed the same as
another who does the same. However, if a female were to acquire a masculine trait, that female
would most likely require dominance, which goes against the ideology of androgyny. Dominance
can be a undesirable trait in a man, and the same applies for a woman. In an article entitled “Reevaluating Woolf’s Androgynous Mind”, Elizabeth Wright claims, “The power of patriarchy is
such that even in androgyny, its force, these critics suggest, would cause the woman to either
sacrifice her personality or remain as a negative “other” existing within the male. Androgyny can
therefore be read as a patriarchal construct which has earned the title of “sexist myth in disguise”
(Wright 1). Therefore, androgyny in Orlando unintentionally supports gender and inequality in
this way. So although Woolf endorses interchanging gender roles to create androgyny as a
Modern aesthetic, there are still the negative effects that come into play. There would be no
improvement if androgyny was a way of life for everyone because each gender acquires the
undesirable traits, not just the virtuous ones.
In Orlando, Woolf writes about Orlando’s attractions and relationships with both men
and women. Before and after Orlando’s gender transformation, he/she seemed to be attracted to
both female and male regardless. Woolf uses androgyny in this area to imply that gender is
meaningless through the relationships or “lovers” of Orlando. Orlando’s equally androgynous
lover, Shelmerdine, whom she instantly marries, knows that Orlando was once a man. Also,
Orlando finds out that Shel was once a woman before. Woolf’s idea of true love was, a love
without labels or gender; just a strong love between two human beings. Woolf writes about
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Orlando, and his lover Shel, the following statement, “… everything of any importance about
each other in two seconds at the utmost, and it now remained only to fill in such unimportant
details as what they were called...” (Woolf 251). No matter what they said that they liked or what
they did not like, they found “…positively of amazing beauty within it.” (Woolf 253). Woolf
made it clear that Orlando and Shel’s relationship symbolized true love through androgyny. In
most of Orlando’s relationships, Woolf emphasizes their sexual desires several times, it seems to
be all Orlando ever thinks about. This can potentially mean that Woolf favors sexual desires
within an androgynous relationship over creating a family. However, their definition of
androgynous love can only be celebrated to a certain extent for a singular figure. Here, Orlando’s
romantic relationships also generate Modernist ambivalence towards same sex attraction. The
fact that Woolf does not write that Orlando and Shel ever have children, may be implying that
this type of relationship is careless of future generations. Indeed, gender roles include raising a
family because it is reasonable for a married couple to reproduce and help society grow.
Although they are “in love”, and androgyny is part of this love, it is not quite love if they are
spending their life irrationally and carelessly. Because of this, their relationship, in fact,
diminishes the meaning of family and true love. Woolf’s representation of androgyny through
Orlando and Shel’s relationship may be fit for a singular figure, but not for society as a whole. If
Woolf’s celebration of androgyny excludes having children, then the modern aesthetics of
androgyny cannot be perpetuated.
During the 1920s, women broke gender roles, which consequently lead to the
development of Modernist ideal of androgyny. This decade was famously called the Roaring
Twenties. Women, or “flappers”, at this time began wildly and rebelliously participating in
activities, such as slimming down their dresses, cutting their hair, partying, and smoking. These
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activities were once before considered masculine. During this same time, author Virginia Woolf
takes advantage of this period and writes a novel about a man who transform into a woman. The
message behind this book is that a person can acquire both male and female traits, and remain the
same internally. While celebrating and endorsing androgyny, Woolf also generates Modernist
aesthetic to hopefully one day be incorporated in society. However, in Orlando Woolf overlooks
that androgyny may only pertain to a singular figure, rather than a general one. In Orlando,
Woolf uses clothing and attractions of Orlando to endorse ambiguous gender roles, which
reflects the Modernist aesthetics embodied in the image of flapper girls from the 1920s. It can be
evaluated that Woolf’s celebration of androgyny is unintentionally criticized in her own writing
and society.
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Works Cited Page
"The Roaring Twenties." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.
<http://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties>.
"Costume History: Flappers and the Roaring Twenties." Flappers and the Roaring 20's. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013. <http://www.thedandy.org/home/flappers-and-the-roaring-20s>.
Woodhill, Brenda M., and Curtis A. Samuels. "Positive and Negative Androgyny and Their
Relationship with Psychological Health and Well-Being." Vol. 48 Springer Link. N.p., 01
June 2003. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.
Wright, Elizabeth. "Re-evaluating Woolf’s Androgynous Mind." Durham University. University
of St. Andrews, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english/ElizabethWrightArticleIssue14.htm>.
Woolf, Virginia. Orlando; a Biography. N.p.: Harcourt Brace &, 1956. Print.
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Figure 1
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/ZBENuB6jzcs/UN4PbpTq5wI/AAAAAAAAKv8/yLAJEJoJ1ck/s1600/10FlapperShoes.png