137. My Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein

(Image Source)

Bornstein, Kate. My Gender Workbook. New York, NY: Routledge, 1998. Print.

292 pages

Reviewed by Jess d'Artagnan Love

In Kate Bornstein’s My Gender Workbook, the author’s goal is to help readers discover their own gender identity. The book includes journal prompts along with an in-depth discussion of what gender is, and what it means in a larger societal context. Bornstein provides several different models of gender that address the intersecting concepts of gender, power, and sexuality.

I thought the more academic part of the workbook was well done. It was thorough, thoughtful, and based on sound academic research on gender and what it means to have a gender identity.

The workbook part of the book was clearly biased toward readers choosing to not identify as any gender at all. The journal prompts and questions in the quizzes were leading and lead readers toward agender or non-binary identity. They almost make someone feel guilty for choosing a more stereotypical gender identity and make the claim that those who want to maintain a more common cultural construct of gender is misinformed and naive about gender. I don’t agree with that position. I hold the position that all gender identities are good identities whether they are non-traditional or not.

Aside from the obvious bias toward agender/nonbinary identity, the book was an interesting and though-provoking read and I enjoyed it.

Would I read it again? 

Yes, I think this is a book that I will continue to learn and be inspired from the more I read it.

Recommended for

Those interested in gender identity politics and gender studies.

Not Recommended for

Readers under the age of 15, mostly because some of the content may be hard for them to comprehend.

Word Bank

·         None

3 stars out of 5

Kate Bronstein’s Website: http://katebornstein.com/

Kate Bornstein on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5854.Kate_Bornstein

Connect with me!

Instagram

Twitter

Facebook

Youtube

Goodreads

8. "Queer Theory and Social Change" by Max H. Kirsch

Kirsch, Max H. Queer Theory and Social Change. London: Routledge, 2000.
Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

Queer Theory and Social Change was one of those life-changing books for me. I tend to be a pragmatic and practical person. I get more satisfaction from actively doing things and I enjoy being productive. This book gave me a new outlet for my work—a way to both think and do.

Kirsch is highly critical of queer theory but makes a clear distinction between queer theory and queer politics. He defines queer politics as a positive social movement. Queer politics allows for recognition of queer identity and the use of queer as a sort of umbrella under which LGBTI individuals can unite and form solidarity. Queer politics are active and productive. Kirsch defines queer theory as a theory of non-identity. He makes a parallel between queer theory and capitalism because of queer theory’s individualistic and apathetic nature. He claims that queer theory only reaffirms capitalist goals rather than dismantling capitalism like it claims to. Capitalism is reaffirmed because of the way queer theory doesn’t allow for community.

Kirsch is highly critical of Judith Butler and I must say he makes a few excellent points. He breaks down her work even to the particulars of her writing style. He argues that queer theory, Butler’s work in particular, needs to find a way to reconcile the individual vs. the community otherwise it is doing more damage to the queer movement than good. He writes about queer theory being the new “novelty” in academia when really, capitalism has already told the same stories.

This book is written in an easy-to-read prose. He uses solid evidence and whenever he presents a dense quote, he unpacks it so that readers are sure to understand. This is part of why I love this book. Hopefully, when I further my career in academia and am writing about densely theoretical work, I can do as a good a job as Kirsch does in making my work clear and easily understood. His logic is sound and he not only picks apart some of the problems of queer theory but offers some solutions as well. This book is certainly worth the read for anyone frustrated with queer theory but still wishing to embrace queer politics.

5 darts out of 5

5. "Epistemology of the Closet" by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet. 1990. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.

Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is one of the most notable writers in her field. In my first try at reviewing a piece of literary criticism I’ve found myself staring at a blank computer screen for a long while now. Sedgwick’s writing is a dizzying maze of nominalizations. It took me several tries to unpack this sentence: “Instead, I am trying to make the strongest possible introductory case for a hypothesis about the centrality of this nominally marginal, conceptually intractable set of definitional issues to the important knowledges and understandings of twentieth-century Western culture as a whole” (Sedgwick 2). Eventually, I became accustomed to her prose and, with a decently thick dictionary by my side, I was able to enter Epistemology of the Closet and come out alive.

Sedgwick focuses on the idea of the “closet” and the function that the “closet” performs in literature. The “closet,” if I have translated Sedgwick’s work accurately, is a sort of axis of power in homosexual identification and rhetoric. You can be “in the closet;” what Sedgwick describes as “the viewpoint of the closet,” or you can be aware of someone who is “closeted;” the “spectacle of the closet”. The “closet” functions as an open-secret of sorts.

The primary texts that Sedgwick works to explicate are themselves, dense and theory-heavy. She covers writers such as Oscar Wilde, Proust, Nietzsche and Melville. Her analysis of each text is interesting and thought-provoking, although, at points, overwhelming. This work would be much better appreciated if one has already read work by Wilde, Proust, Nietzsche and Melville. I’ve got three of the four writers under my belt and found that fourth section more challenging than the rest simply due to my own lack of knowledge of that specific writer. Sedgwick has assumed that her audience is already familiar with these writers so if you plan on digging into this text, come to the table prepared.

Epistemology of the Closet is a very challenging read and it is one of those texts that, no matter how many times one reads it, one can pull out something new from it or understand a part more clearly. That is part of the beauty of this book. It gets better each time you read it. (Trust me, I’ve had to read it on more than one occasion). Her work, I must admit, is daunting and not exactly the most accessible piece of writing I’ve come across. She writes in an obviously academic style which isn’t inherently a bad thing but could certainly be discouraging (and annoying) for those looking for a quick read.

3 darts out of 5.