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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
As with many non-fiction books, the premise is fine but over repeated through the text ina way that is circular and does nothing to add to the discussion
informative
slow-paced
i've been waiting for this one !!!
challenging
informative
medium-paced
This book made me feel extremely seen, as someone who grew up a tomboy and is now navigating the wild borderlands between butch lesbian and trans man. I don’t agree with all of Halberstam’s conclusions, but I think this is an essential work on the study of queer masculinity.
there is a lot of interesting stuff in this book but unfortunately i couldn't handle the deep current of halbrostamdom that runs throughout it, i.e. the complete erasure of radical femininity. so, shelved "abandoned".
informative
reflective
medium-paced
pretty outdated with its terms and ideas so keep that in mind if you choose to pick it up. i think halberstam needed to expand female masculinity to include trans women's masculinities because if you want to talk transgressive, id say thats pretty transgressive right there. butch trans women are also not a particularly new concept either; knowing this, halberstams focus on 'female bodies' was particularly annoying. the book also lost me a lot by choosing to focus on cinema, an area i have zero familiarity with.
ultimately i found it useful and a pretty great read. the chapter on stone butches and trans men/ftms was particularly enlightening. id say give this a read anyway but i wouldnt call it 'essential' by any means.
ultimately i found it useful and a pretty great read. the chapter on stone butches and trans men/ftms was particularly enlightening. id say give this a read anyway but i wouldnt call it 'essential' by any means.
OK I THOUGHT THE TAKES WERE GOOD it's just that these painstakingly thoughtful gender theory texts are kind of nightmarish i guess bc they try so hard to pin down things that are capital-K Knowable IRL and impossible to prove in academialand
chapters 4 and 5 were the most interesting
i like halberstam and i like that this book is not boring
chapters 4 and 5 were the most interesting
i like halberstam and i like that this book is not boring
Beaucoup de chsoes super intéressantes, ça se voit par contre que ça a plus de 20 ans lol
To the person who read this book before me and added all the annotations,
I'm glad that we were able to go through this book together. Your underlines and comments helped me to be more engaged with the text and clarify my thoughts about it. This does not necessarily mean that I agreed with the thoughts you wrote down, in fact quite the opposite. I often found myself wondering why you focused on what seemed to me to be minor stylistic choices by Halberstam. However, in writing my answers to your questions I did find myself articulating more clearly what I thought Halberstam was saying.
Methodologically, I feel like we both agree that Halberstam's perverse presentism allows for a robust interpretative framework with which to analyze the somewhat foreign concept of female masculinity through history. Pulling from fiction, autobiography, film and performance art, female masculinity comes into focus much easier than if Halberstam had chosen to limit the analysis to only one. It also gives Halberstam the opportunity to really flesh out some of the taxonomies of masculinity that go beyond the masculinity associated with the biological male body. From the tribade to the stone butch and beyond, I feel like both of us were impressed with Halberstam's extensive research and explication of the embodied forms of these alternative masculinities. Personally, and I don't know if you would agree with me here or not, I was blown away by the chapter detailing the border wars between butch and FTM individuals in which Halberstam successfully pinpoints misogynistic strains of behavior and thought in these alternative masculinities that on the surface would seem to resist such traditional modes of thought.
So, while I was often annoyed at your snarky comments, I will say that I appreciated them immensely. Thanks for reading with me.
-Zach Irvin
I'm glad that we were able to go through this book together. Your underlines and comments helped me to be more engaged with the text and clarify my thoughts about it. This does not necessarily mean that I agreed with the thoughts you wrote down, in fact quite the opposite. I often found myself wondering why you focused on what seemed to me to be minor stylistic choices by Halberstam. However, in writing my answers to your questions I did find myself articulating more clearly what I thought Halberstam was saying.
Methodologically, I feel like we both agree that Halberstam's perverse presentism allows for a robust interpretative framework with which to analyze the somewhat foreign concept of female masculinity through history. Pulling from fiction, autobiography, film and performance art, female masculinity comes into focus much easier than if Halberstam had chosen to limit the analysis to only one. It also gives Halberstam the opportunity to really flesh out some of the taxonomies of masculinity that go beyond the masculinity associated with the biological male body. From the tribade to the stone butch and beyond, I feel like both of us were impressed with Halberstam's extensive research and explication of the embodied forms of these alternative masculinities. Personally, and I don't know if you would agree with me here or not, I was blown away by the chapter detailing the border wars between butch and FTM individuals in which Halberstam successfully pinpoints misogynistic strains of behavior and thought in these alternative masculinities that on the surface would seem to resist such traditional modes of thought.
So, while I was often annoyed at your snarky comments, I will say that I appreciated them immensely. Thanks for reading with me.
-Zach Irvin