Masquerading features reflections of women and refers to masquerade theory which is derived from Joan Riviere’s 1929 essay, ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’. In the essay Riviere argues that ‘women who wish for masculinity may put on a mask of femininity to avert anxiety and the retribution feared from men’ and concludes that ‘genuine womanliness and the “masquerade”… whether radical or superficial… are the same thing.’ John Berger in Ways of Seeing notes that a woman has to continually assess how she is seen (by looking in mirrors for example), as this is crucial to her success.

Michèle Montrelay concludes that masquerade is the way ‘a woman uses her own body to disguise herself’(1970: 93), it is about concealment and revelation, it encompasses the way women construct their look, how they see themselves and how they are seen and perceived.