Zefyr's review of Gender Outlaw (original) (raw)

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Zefyr's Reviews > Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us

Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
by

4734964

There's a lot of problems with the book (see the appropriation of the term "shaman" in a quote below, although this edition includes some commentary about the politics around that) but the good stuff is so so good.

There's a strength in knowing we have our own comics, our own jokers. But here it gets tricky. The pressure and temptation is to create art or politics for a particular group, which is in turn based on some inflexible identity: special interest groups, identity politics, whatever you want to call it. The group becomes loyal audience, supporters, and followers, if for no other reason than the fool is speaking their language, performing their lives.

But this is so important: the fool becomes a fool by flexing the rules, the boundaries of the group, and this is antithetical to the survival dynamic of most groups. A group remains a group by being inflexible: once it stretches its borders, it's no longer the same group. A fool, in order to survive, must not identify long with any rigidly-structured group. When more and more of the fool's work is done for a particular identity-based group, then the fool becomes identified with the group. The fool is indeed foolish who serves a special interest, and will quickly cease being a fool...

Like the fool, the shaman can't take sides or be part of any identity politics. The shaman needs to seek broader and broader groups of people to serve—by staying in a fixed time and place, the shaman's message will only be repeated over and over to those who've already heard it, and then the madness sets in.

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Most of us assume that there is gender; that there are only two categories of gender; and that we are (have the identity of) one or the other. We have a lot invested in this belief—it's very difficult to imagine ourselves genderless. It's difficult to the degree that our identities are wrapped up in our gender assignments. We need to differentiate between having an identity and being an identity.

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I write when nothing else will bring me peace, when I burn, when I find myself asking and answering the same questions over and over. I write when I've begun to lose my sense of humor and it becomes a matter of my life and my death to get that sense of humor back and watch you laugh. I write in bottom space. I open up to you, I cut myself, I show you my fantasies, I get a kick out of that—oh, yeah. I perform in top space. I cover myself with my character and take you where you never dreamed you could go...my instrument is my audience and oh how I love to play you.

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Reading Progress

January 1, 2008 –Finished Reading

December 2, 2012 – Shelved

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