Women Identity Construction in Punk Subculture in I Wanna be Your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert

Abstract

Patriarchal culture creates inequality in gender roles, women is positioned as men's subordinate who must submissive to their dominant. Various stereotypes and stigmas are attached to women as persons who are weak, passive, dependence on men, and helpless. Patriarchal culture has rigid rules framework and values, and women who violate those rules and values would get social sanctions, such as mockery, harassment and marginalization. Punk culture as subculture, which challenges all the rules and values of patriarchal culture as the mainstream culture is also not detached from gender inequality which is built from those stereotypes and stigmas. This study aims to reveals how women in punk community construct their identities and empower themselves through punk rock music which is dominated by males. This study is descriptive analytical study, which applies the concepts of Performativity by Judith Butler and Female Masculinity by Judith Halberstam to see how women identities are constructed through the main character, Emily, a tomboy girl in searching and negotiating her identity as female punk rock vocalist to reach her dream as the first female Rock God. The tomboy main character utilizes her female masculinity in order to be recognized and accepted in punk rock band community. The female masculinity indicates that gender roles are social construction, which is shaped through performativity. The concept of female masculinity, which is offered by this novel, is one of the strategies to construct women identities and an alternative for women to empower themselves in males dominated community and also to deconstruct gender roles, which is considered fixed and stable.