ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the gender scripts and roles that are shaped by the structural violence of rape culture and the cultural violence of misogynistic patriarchy. The entitlement that rape culture inculcates in men is easily recognisable as a central element of what is popularly discussed as ‘toxic masculinity.’ I argue that this particular way of understanding and performing masculinity is characterised by entitlement to authority and sexual entitlement. What feminist theory often discusses, but does not explicitly label, is its female counterpart—what I am calling ‘complicit femininity.’ This takes many forms and needs to be understood in a nuanced way. There are women who decide to throw their lot in with the patriarchal structure of their societies in the belief that their performance of respectable womanhood will earn them privileges (complicity in the sense of culpability), but for many women who confront the suffocating little boxes of femininity expectations, complicity takes the form of conformity to the gender norms and scripts—as a way of surviving a system that will punish overt resistance. Drawing on queer feminism, I also develop some thoughts on social models of gender identity and performance that do not reinforce hierarchical or authoritarian social norms.
