Clothes make the wo/man: Cross-dressing and gender on the English Renaissance stage and in the late imperial Chinese theatre

Traditional Western and Chinese societies, though pursuing a dichotomy of the sexes, were not unacquainted with the fluidity of gender and the androgynous potential of human beings. Cross-dressing in both Western and Chinese cultures, as it tries to transgress gender boundaries and reverse the established gender roles, can be seen as subversive dissonance within a hierarchical binary gender system. Significantly, female transvestism and male transvestism were construed and received quite differently. Female-to-male impersonation was understood as being motivated by a desire for experiment with the superior sex, and therefore could be tolerated because as such it was actually non-threatening. Male-to-female impersonation, by contrast, was usually despised as perversity and disgrace since it confronted the male-dominated gender norm with a hermeneutic difficulty.; In line with the dominant discourse about gender, the English Renaissance stage and the late imperial Chinese theatre attempt to nullify the disruptive forces of cross-dressing. On the stage, female cross-dressing is invariably concerned with male characters and ultimately contributes to male interests. The omnipresence of a male mentor or protector throughout the process of male disguise ensures that the female transgressors remain within men's reach and under men's management. Moreover, the transvestite female characters only enjoy a temporary release from the established gender order. The comedies featuring this theme generally close with the transvestite heroines' contented resumption of the submissive role. By contrast, male transvestism is either shown as a farce or as an erotic adventure. While under the pressure of the social sensitivity to sodomy, the English Renaissance theatre finds a way to release male homoerotic innuendoes by highlighting the body of boy actors beneath the feminine costume, the late imperial Chinese theatre produces a play taking male homosexuality as its primary theme within a context of traditional tolerance toward male homoeroticism.; Although the two theatres form a mainstream pattern to "normalize" cross-dressing, there appear a few deviant plays in both theatres which highlight the subversive potential of cross-dressing. In their unconventional depictions of trans gender attiring, these plays on the one hand best exemplify new recognitions of gender role and gender relationship emerging during English Renaissance and the Ming-Qing period; on the other hand, they also demonstrate how hegemonic and unyielding the stereotypes of gender and sexuality remain.; While various strategies are taken in the theatres to contain transgressive cross-dressing and maneuver it to serve the interests of the established gender system, they also register an anxiety concerning the naturalized binary categorization of the sexes and ontological male superiority. By comprehending the similarities and the differences manifest in the theatrical configurations of transvestism, we cannot only discern the analogous interaction and tension between the gender norm and cross-dressing in both Renaissance England and late imperial China, but also may obtain a more realistic knowledge of the different values of Western and Chinese culture which contribute to the divergences in the gender issues seen from the perspective of cross-dressing.