Playing with Gender: Cross-dressing and the Womanless Wedding

State's Mates' Womanless Wedding was featured in The Raleigh Times.

Womanless Weddings were not limited to the bride alone.  The entire female cast of the wedding party was expected to be played by men.  Here, the "Mother of the Bride" is shown seated.

The wedding party at the Womanless Wedding is here seen processing in.

Here, the assembled cast of the Womanless Wedding poses for a picture.

The wedding party jokes after the wedding itself is complete.

This picture at the altar demonstrates that State's Mates were not able to (or did not wish to) secure a large bride and small groom for their Womanless Wedding.

Gender play was not limited to the Womanless Wedding of 1960.  Here State's Mates are seen dressed as men for a talent in one of their Variety Shows.

This letter shows a different way that State's Mates played with masculinity.  The winner of the prize donated to Ambassador Theatre had to drink a cup of milk from a baby bottle.

State’s Mates did not invert racial stereotypes alone.  As an organization defined around wifehood, they also played with representations of gender.  This can be seen in subtle ways, as in one party where husbands engaged in a contest to drink milk from a baby bottle.  State’s Mates also took the opportunity to invert gender roles by cross-dressing for acts in their talent shows, and by holding a Sadie Hawkins Dance.  The most pointed example of gender play in the history of State’s Mates, however, was the performance of a Womanless Wedding in 1960.

Womanless Weddings were a common way to invert gender in the twentieth century.  Especially in the early part of the century, before the rise of feminism and homosexual activism began to challenge them, Womanless Weddings were a way for leading male figures to parody women and heterosexual norms.  Part of why this was possible was because of the cultural hegemony white men held in the early South: since they set the rules, there was no harm in their playing with them.  Womanless Weddings were essentially seen as heteronormative, and scripts encouraged casting the most masculine men in the community in female roles to heighten this.

The Womanless Wedding that State’s Mates held is not entirely characteristic of the typical Womanless Wedding at the time.  There was no fundraising cause attached to the event (as was often the case), and because all of the performers were students, they were hardly the community leaders that most Womanless Weddings featured.  Moreover, since the wedding was run by State’s Mates, it was essentially a male performance put on at the behest of women, for women’s entertainment.  Through organizing the event, State’s Mates were able (to an extent) to take control of a male-dominated social event.  At the same time, because so many of State’s Mates’ other activities upheld traditional gender mores, it is difficult to say how much they perceived this as an exercise of power.

If State’s Mates used a script in their Womanless Wedding, it has not survived.  It is impossible to tell, then, to what extent they followed the narratives laid out in other Womanless Weddings.  The pictures that do survive indicate, however, that State’s Mates was not able to secure the “burly” bride that almost all scripts called for.  State’s Mates were able to use their organization to invert gender forms with their husbands.

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