Gender
is one of the most complex concepts in human development. The reason that it can be so convoluted is
that it is tied up in so many aspects of a person’s life. It affects their style, their relationships,
their orientation, their job, and the way that they live their life. A person’s identity is, for better or for
worse, inseparably linked to their gender identity. Now, because of these complexities, it can be
a divisive issue with a wide range of arguments that go along with it, running
the gamut from parenting to social constructionism to if pink and blue really
relate to girls and boys. I am not here
to argue any of these points. If you’ve
ever been to a bar with me, odds are you’ve heard my opinion on all of that
stuff (sorry). The reason that I am
writing this is because I know that my perception of gender used to be very
myopic. It wasn’t necessarily that I was
ultra-conservative and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that boys would be
boys and girls would be girls and that was that. It was more the fact that I hadn’t even
engaged the topic of gender enough to even formulate that opinion. I was, for all intensive purposes,
uneducated. I hadn’t taken the time to
think critically about a concept that directly affects me and everyone around
me day in and day out. Because of that,
I lived a blissfully ignorant life that marginalized people and myself without
me even knowing about it. The problem
with naivety is that it can be incredibly damaging and you wouldn’t even be aware
of it.
I
believe what started my interest in gender studies was actually my relationship
with my mom. For those who don’t know my
mom, she is a total badass. I was a
pastor’s kid growing up, with the notable difference that my mom, not my dad,
was the pastor, which I didn’t understand was non-traditional until much later
in life; I just accepted it as completely normal. Nowadays, she runs an international
faith-based women’s leadership organization called Lifesprings Ministries
(check them out, it’s amazing). Anyway,
I went to college at a private Christian university, which had some good and
some bad just like any collegiate experience.
While I was there I learned a lot more than just what I was
studying. Primarily, it wasn’t until
college that I realized that I was liberal.
It wasn’t that I was conservative and then changed my opinions. It was that I genuinely didn’t know that I
leaned left politically. The main
catalyst behind this revelation was the fact that I met a lot of Christians who
told me that my mom couldn’t have been a pastor because she was a woman. Upon meeting these people, confused is much
too weak of a word to describe my emotions.
Flabbergasted? Dumbfounded? Definitely.
But also unbelievably livid. What
do you mean my mom can’t be a pastor?
Like, seriously? People believe
this? It was at that time that I knew I
needed to deconstruct my concepts of gender and figure out how to prove to
everyone in the world that my mom is absolutely amazing and the fact that she
is a woman is nothing but more empowering for her profession and life. Naturally, I didn’t know what deconstruction
was at that point. And I thought that I
knew what gender was as well, but little did I know how wrong I was.
The
following five books are a select few that really helped me understand what
gender is and how it manifests itself in each individual person and in society
as a whole. These are genuinely some of
my favorite books in the world simply because they shifted my entire paradigm
of what I thought I knew. Whatever your
political persuasion, it is important to analyze concepts and constructs of
gender. Find what you agree with, what
you disagree with, but more than anything just be aware. Be aware that of the weight that gender can
hold, and the freedom that it can offer if we all just learn a little bit more.
1. The Purity Myth, by Jessica Valenti
In
The Purity Myth, Valenti breaks down
our culture’s obsession with purity, specifically as it applies to young
women. For those who lean right, a fair
word of caution, Valenti is very liberal and can be quite caustic (which is why
I like her), but aside from this, she makes some incredibly important points
about how we oftentimes teach girls to be obsessed with their purity as the end
all be all of if they are good people or not.
Valenti posits that this develops a strong rhetoric that tells young
girls that their only worth is in their sexuality and virginity. Which begs the question, if that is your
logic, once virginity is gone, what value do you have? Valenti tackles everything from purity rings,
to any analogy involving a lollipop or flower or tissue, to truly shocking
things such as fathers virtually “owning” their daughters’ virginity until the
day they pass it on to another man.
While Valenti is well known for being one of the most vocal feminists of
this age, she is, at the same time, very considerate in her arguments. She never says, “go be wild and who cares
what happens.” Instead, she redefines
purity as it should be, which is a mentality of education, awareness, and
putting value in women as people, not just objects of sexual desire. A must read for anyone who has ever felt
damaged by a hyper-sexualization of purity.
2. A Year of Biblical Womanhood, by Rachel Held Evans
First
off, I LOVE Rachel Held Evans and every word that she has ever written. I’d say that’s an unnecessary superlative if
it weren’t completely true. She has
written several books and maintains an incredible blog that tackles some of the
toughest issues in society today. This
is the book that she is most famous for.
In it, Held-Evans decided to live for an entire year exactly as the
Bible says that women should live, including everything from learning how to
cook to camping outside while she is on her period. Initially, this book is absolutely
hilarious. We as readers are welcomed on
this journey with Rachel as she narrates her experiences with her
characteristic whit and accessibility. I
laughed out loud in public places and people thought I was weird. Secondarily, and more importantly, Held-Evans
manages to put archaic biblical conceptions of womanhood in a modern
context. In this, she denotes an ideology
of what it means to be not only a woman, but a better person and Christian in
the most empowering way possible: through the truth.
3. The Will to Change, by Bell Hooks
I
was first introduced to Hooks through her writings about education, a couple of
which I had to read while going through teacher education and others which were
given to me by friends. I then delved
into an entire world of Bell Hooks that was amazingly enlightening, and this
one was my favorite. The Will to Change is all about concepts
of masculinity as they exist in society and how damaging it can be for men
everywhere. Hooks started off as a
die-hard feminist who blamed men for most of the problems in society. What she realized through her studies,
however, was that the patriarchy controls men just as much as it does
women. Men are told to be emotionless,
hardened, loveless, and callused, which leaves them with little to no idea as
to how to love or emote. In this book,
Hooks tears apart what it means to be a man and offers a way for men to become
fully themselves.
4. Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, by Michael
Kimmel
If
I could force the whole world to read one book, it would be this one. Seriously, I have three copies and I am
constantly lending them out because I want everyone to read it. Michael Kimmel is essentially the leading scholar
on masculinity. This book analyzes young
men from the ages of sixteen to twenty-six and how those formative years
determine so much, yet it is also where so many boys get stuck between being a
boy and being a man, leaving them in “Guyland.”
Kimmel deconstructs all sorts of social constructions of masculinity
going from sports culture, to pornography, to father son relationships and
beyond. In that, he informs so much
about horrific problems such as gay-bashing, bullying, abuse, and rape. This
book is unbelievably well-researched, drawing upon years of studies,
interviews, and analyses. Somehow,
Kimmel manages to be considerate yet relentless as he destroys false notions of
masculinity and calls men everywhere not only to be better men, but also better
people. Everyone needs to read this
book.
5. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Middlesex won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002
and it was well-deserved. This is the
only book on this list that is fiction, but it is fiction that turns gender on
its head. It is a multi-generational
story about the Stephanides family as they go from Asia-Minor to Detroit and
beyond. This narrative is made
singularly unique by the fact that the narrator, Callie, is a hermaphrodite. Due to the unique sexual and gender identity
of the narrator, things that are normally mitigating factors in fiction become
either ambiguous or obsolete. This queering of gender in the narration allows the real meaning of this phenomenal novel to stand out. Themes such love, loss, and family shine
brilliantly with one of the most delightful voices of contemporary fiction. Even if you aren’t interested in gender
studies, this is still an amazing book with a beautiful story.
