Masochism, Empathy, and Genderqueer Masculinity in Sherwood Anderson's "The Man Who Became a Woman".

This article analyzes Sherwood Anderson's 1923 short story "The Man Who Became a Woman" through the lens of queer psychoanalysis and Carol J. Clover’s concept of male masochism, exploring how the male protagonist Herman Dudley’s profound identification with women’s pain produces a form of genderqueer masculinity under patriarchal manhood. Herman’s transformation into a woman symbolizes his empathy with female loneliness and vulnerability to male violence, exposing the ambivalence and unsustainability of such fluid masculinity in a heteronormative society. The article situates Anderson’s narrative alongside slash fiction and hurt-comfort fan fiction, highlighting shared themes of male same-sex affection, masochism, and the reconfiguration of masculinity through empathetic identification with women’s suffering. Ultimately, it argues that while Anderson’s story reflects anxieties about homoerotic desire and male vulnerability, it also gestures toward the persistence of gender and sexual fluidity despite societal pressures to conform to normative masculinity.