I love this shot. I like the intentionality with which she constructs her drag persona.
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Def: Gender Abolitionist
Social Constructivist, Post Feminist, Post Queer movement to abolish the Gender Dichotomy.
July 23 2009
I appropriated this term from an internet profile. I believe that the phenomena we label masculinity and femininity are complex, overlapping, and distributed across both male and female bodies. Gender Abolition is related to the Second Wave Feminism attempt to abolish gender expression and aim for an androgynous, genderless society. Contemporary Gender Abolition fights the Gender Dichotomy rather than gender expression. Expressing identity through fashion is drag. It is all drag. Power operates by conscribing sartorial expression and thus public identity. Enlarging my range of drag expression takes more control of the range of identities and subject positions I can take.
Linked from:Transgender Politics
4 Comments
July 29, 2009 at 22:59
Food for thought. How then does ‘gender’ performance translate in the work place? That’s a question I continuously grapple with, given light that ‘performing gender’ as I see fit subjects me to hostile work environments, while performing in the way I see fit sets me up for disrespect, tokenization–in part because of my ethnic identity.
July 30, 2009 at 23:12
hey G,
My working theory is that the range of genders you are allowed to perform are policed, but also conscribed by what is ‘culturally intelligible’ within a social institution. As a male-bodied individual I can add feminine markers. Instead of projecting straight white man, they may switch to gay white man. In a hostile environment they may switch to fag, dangerous pervert, or they may strip me of humanness.
Part of gender abolition (for males) is to expand the boundaries of non-masculine behaviors and expression that I can exhibit without policing. Right now I am feeling one part confrontation for three parts explanation.
July 30, 2009 at 23:24
hmm, what do you mean by one part confrontation for three parts explanation? Not being understood or encountering indifference and hostility based on your explanations?
July 31, 2009 at 17:27
When I express my femininity by in a wild and colorful way I feel great, and I meet a lot of women friends who support my expression. At the same time I get an avalanche of hate and disrespect, because I am confronting men’s identities.
It is sad but true. So, I settle for much more ambiguous markers which are read as gay male. Then I explain, “no I am not gay I am a straight feminine male.”
I guess I am pseudo stealth genderqueer now. I pass as a gay man. It is not that I reject confronting ignorance and bigotry, I just am scared to confront it alone.