You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
zen 's review for:
The Tragedy of Heterosexuality
by Jane Ward
Interesting book, if not for the way it changes your perspective. We're so used to looking at queer lives and experiences as less than compared to cishet lives and experiences, but this book takes it upon itself to look at it from another perspective and to highlight just oppressing heterosexuality can be, and more often than not is, for cishet people.
My main concern with this book is that, for some reason, it focuses so much on toxic cishet masculinity, to the point where there is no space left for toxic cishet femininity—something that nowadays is coming off strong, what with all the TERF/SWERFies who want to dictate what it means to be a woman. And sure, we can probably link the TERF/SWERF ideology back to the same systems that allow straightness, white supremacy and capitalism to prosper, but I still would've liked to see this concept analysed more in depth. Instead, what I got was a general pity towards the poor straight women who are forced into these relationships with men, and although the book tries to tell us to imagine different possibilities for both straightness and straight people, the only time where toxic femininity is even vaguely addressed is soon overshadowed by just How Bad toxic masculinity is. Straight people won't be able to imagine a different future until they're gonna admit that straightness fosters toxicity in both men and women, and that women too fight with teeth and nails to maintain the status quo.
Then again, I feel like this book focuses so much on straightness and not enough on cis-ness, which makes the book a bit lacking, in my opinion. I do realise, though, that this book probably took lots of time to be written, edited and published, so there's a high chance that many of the things I'm complaining about are newer or at least have made themselves more obvious only the last couple of years. I wonder if we'll ever read more of it.
My main concern with this book is that, for some reason, it focuses so much on toxic cishet masculinity, to the point where there is no space left for toxic cishet femininity—something that nowadays is coming off strong, what with all the TERF/SWERFies who want to dictate what it means to be a woman. And sure, we can probably link the TERF/SWERF ideology back to the same systems that allow straightness, white supremacy and capitalism to prosper, but I still would've liked to see this concept analysed more in depth. Instead, what I got was a general pity towards the poor straight women who are forced into these relationships with men, and although the book tries to tell us to imagine different possibilities for both straightness and straight people, the only time where toxic femininity is even vaguely addressed is soon overshadowed by just How Bad toxic masculinity is. Straight people won't be able to imagine a different future until they're gonna admit that straightness fosters toxicity in both men and women, and that women too fight with teeth and nails to maintain the status quo.
Then again, I feel like this book focuses so much on straightness and not enough on cis-ness, which makes the book a bit lacking, in my opinion. I do realise, though, that this book probably took lots of time to be written, edited and published, so there's a high chance that many of the things I'm complaining about are newer or at least have made themselves more obvious only the last couple of years. I wonder if we'll ever read more of it.