The Masculinity / Feminity Issue

Volume 10 Issue 6, February 2011

Though gender should not be be conceptualized as such, the Blueprint you hold in your hands has been organized into two distinct silos. Rather than boil the loaded topic of “gender” down to a singularity, we have divided our issue into two – an issue on the theme of masculinity, and an issue on the theme of femininity.

When I both observed Blueprint as a reader and now help produce it as its editor, issues on themes of identity have always been the most interesting to me. Writers and artists seem to be most passionate when they discuss their own experiences in the context of greater political and social issues; the personal is indeed political. As a context that defines an individual from birth, gender’s role in shaping identity becomes self-evident.

As was the case with Blueprint’s last issue on the theme of “Fetish,” the gendered division of submissions is once again unequal. The prevalence of ‘femininity’ submissions in this issue provides a fascinating cultural disconnect; though female voices are traditionally silenced in public spheres, in Blueprint, they have come to dominate.

Whether gender is a personal cause for celebration or a binary to be overcome, it is a concept to be critically deconstructed.

- Morgan Alan, Editor-in-Chief