title: The Gender of "Energy": Language, Social Theory, and Cultural Change in Women's Lands in the United States.
abstract: Within women's intentional communities, women use the phrase women's energy to describe certain social interactions, a sense of community, and ideas about how gender is done or performed. For example, energy can express both difference in communication style between men and women and male dominance in social situations. During my fieldwork in these communities, I explored how this phrase suggests a reference to a precultural female body, but it is also sometimes used to explicitly reject biological reasons for gender difference. The term is easily understandable to a wide range of women from varying class backgrounds and encompasses both the unconscious side of social interactions and a possibility for future change.
authors.affiliation: a Anthropology Department , Brandeis University , Waltham , Massachusetts , USA.
authors.forename: Keridwen N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Luis
mesh_terms: D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D019513:Feminism; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012922:Social Change; D014481:United States
keywords: culture studies; gender and community; intentional communities; language and gender; lesbian lands; lesbian studies; women’s community