In general, more power and status is attached to being male and performing masculinities than to being female and performing femininities. There are, of course, different ways of performing masculinity and different ways of performing femininity, and these too are status related. It is also important to note that gender is not the only factor with a bearing on status and power; social class, ethnicity, sexuality and other factors intersect with gender and are influential. So, relations of power are complex and dynamic. Nevertheless, current patterns of gendered power relations (the gender order) generally favour boys and men (Connell 2009).
Because performances of masculinities and femininities are socially constructed, they can be reconstructed: change can and does occur. However, because of long-held and deeply embedded ideas that gender differences are natural and normal, and because some groups have vested interests in maintaining these differences, transgressions of gender boundaries can be difficult and risky. These boundaries are ‘policed’.
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