1) Orlando explores themes of gender and gender dysphoria through the story of its protagonist Orlando, who wakes up after seven days as a woman after having lived life as a man. 2) Woolf uses Orlando to represent the fluidity of gender and criticize the idea that gender is strictly binary. Through Orlando's experiences, Woolf shows how gender is socially constructed based on factors like clothing. 3) Orlando's changing gender causes psychological distress known as gender dysphoria. Woolf wrote Orlando to have fun experimenting with gender ideas and stories that were on her mind.

1. GENDER AND
SOCIETY, GENDER
DYSPHORIA IN
ORLANDO
Presented by : Emisha Ravani

2. Sem 2 (M.A.)
Roll no. 07
Enrollment no.: 4069206420210031
Paper code : 22399
Paper no. & paper name : Paper 106, The Twentieth
Century Literature : 1900 to World war 2
Submitted to : Smt S.B. Gardi, Department of English,
MKBU
emisharavani3459@gmail.com

3. Points to ponder
Gender and Society
Gender dysphoria
Womanhood
Clothing
Various incidences of Orlando

4. The Important Turn of The Novel
Orlando wakes up after seven day’s long sleep – Orlando
convert into female
Fictional representation of Woolf’s own friend and lover,
Vita Sackville-West - fluid depiction of gender in Orlando
Woolf implies : dichotomous male vs female
understanding of gender is merely a social construction,
no person is of specific gender.

5. Gender dysphoria
Psychological approach : Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person
experiences discomfort or distress because there's a mismatch between their
biological sex and gender identity. It's sometimes known
as gender incongruence. Biological sex is assigned at birth, depending on the
appearance of the genitals.
“The condition of feeling one’s emotional and psychological identity to be at
variance with one’s birth sex.”
“A condition in which someone feels that they were born with the wrong sex.”
.
click here to get much understanding of Gender dysphoria

6. The causes of gender dysphoria
Genetics
Hormonal during
prenatal
development
Environmental
factors

7. Clothing
One of the ways in which gender is constructed in Orlando is through clothing.
Clothes “change our view of the world and the world’s view of us,” declares the
fictional biographer who narrates the book, and that is certainly the case for
Orlando.
Clothing by social norms and practices
“Whether, then, Orlando was most man or
woman, the narrator writes “It is difficult to
say and cannot now be decided”.

8. Orlando’s clothes - not specifically her body, reflects her gender,
Her clothes that make her attractive to the opposite sex
As a woman, Orlando dresses up as a man and visits a prostitute
named Nell. Nell assumes that Orlando is a man because of the way she
dresses, and it is not until Orlando reveals herself as a woman that Nell
begins to relax
“I’m by no means sorry to hear it,” Nell says of Orlando’s revelation, “I’m
not in the mood for the society of the other sex to-night. Indeed, I’m in the
devil of a fix.”
Nell accepts Orlando and acts differently based on what gender she
believes Orlando to be based on her clothing, which again implies that
one’s understanding of gender is highly dependent upon social norms.

9. When Orlando first sees Sasha - the Great Frost, her “Russian
fashion serve to disguise the sex,” - Orlando is convinced that
Sasha is a man. But as Sasha skates closer and Orlando can make
out the shape of her breasts under her masculine tunic, he knows
she is a woman.
Orlando is only “curious” about Sasha when he thinks she’s a man,
but when he finds out she’s a woman, he falls madly in love with
her. This suggests that people’s view of others, particularly on a
romantic or sexual level, are deeply influenced by the social norms
of how men and women are expected to present themselves.

10. “For the truth is I feel the need of an escapade after these
serious poetic experimental books…I want to kick up my
heels and be off. I want to embody all those innumerable
little ideas and tiny stories which flash into my mind at all
seasons” (Woolf Diary 104)
“a biography beginning in the year 1500 and continuing to
the present day, called Orlando: Vita; only with a change
about from one sex to another” (Woolf Diary 114)

11. Conclusion
Womanhood
Gender crisis
Psychological diagnostics
Woolf’s mental kind of reflections
Self crisis

12. Work cited :
◦ “Gender Dysphoria.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers,
www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/gender-
dysphoria#:~:text=Gender%20dysphoria%28formerly%20known%
20as%20genderidentitydisorder%20in%20the%20fourth,these%20f
eelings%20must%20cause%20significant%20distress%20or%20im
pairment.
◦ Reading and Reassessing the Construction ... - Vassar College.
digitalwindow.vassar.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1576&conte
xt=senior_capstone.

13. THANK YOU