| View Larger Image | Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us | Paperbackby Kate Bornstein (Author)
| List Price: | $14.95 | | Price: | $10.17 | | You Save: | $4.78 (32%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Page Count: | 272 Pages | | Publication Date: | April 25, 1995 | | Sales Rank: | 68,968th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780679757016
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Part coming-of-age story, part mind-altering manifesto on gender and sexuality, coming directly to you from the life experiences of a transsexual woman, Gender Outlaw breaks all the rules and leaves the reader forever changed.26 black-and-white illustrations. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 20 reviews)
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Gender Outlaw by Nicole Rethman  3 Stars
April 13, 2009
This book is interesting to read, but I would not have chosen to read it, had I not had to read it for a class assignment.
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Comments on Gender Outlaw by Susan Landy (Boston, MA)  5 Stars
January 25, 2009
The subtitle of the book is, "on Men, Women and the Rest of Us." Bernstein's book is not just about a man becoming a woman, but it puts into doubt the whole sex/gender system. Bernstein does not use the term, "biological sex," but refers to all gender identity as "gender": biology does not have any primacy. She pokes holes in the binary gender system by questioning why one has to be one or the other of these, or even remain stable in one gender. This "fluidity" is different from ambiguity, in which it is not clear at a given moment which gender one is. This book is liberating for those who feel they might not fit in no matter what kind of operation they had.
As the New York Times says, instead of being hostile about gender liberation, Bornstein is sweet, sincere, lucid. Her sometimes anthropological point of view is useful in lifting up age-old cultural assumptions about gender and orientations in a section she jocularly calls "The Rulebook." Gender can be assigned, attributed, there can be gender roles or an experienced identity. Bernstein suggests fifteen other models in addition to the usual gay, straight or bi- orientations. The list is fascinating, including: multiple partners models, differently-abled bodies models, reproductive models, models based on sex act preference...leading up to the heading of sex without gender.
After setting up the rules, Bornstein enthusiastically dismantles them. Are there solid definitions of male and female? In addition to the usual two sets of chromosomes there are five other sets. If gender equals what hormones you have, you could buy your gender at any pharmacy. In addition, she tells us several times that in some other cultures it is normal for someone born one gender to assume the gender of the other. She mentions more than once that a gender transformation often accompanies the process of becoming a tribal healer or shaman.
Bornstein namedrops many people of transgressive gender that you can look up - many of whom have written books. In addition, she provides a fascinating bibliography. Her questions are possibly the most interesting part of the book. "Do you `feel like a man'? Do you `feel like a woman'?" she asks. "What does a man feel like? What does a woman feel like?"
There are many other considerations like gender and politics, oppression, etc., but the list is too long for a short review. There is a play included which I did not think was very good although parts were interesting. Nevertheless, I would enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone interested in transgressive gender issues.
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Food for Thought by Amy Graham (Scottsdale, AZ)  4 Stars
December 23, 2007
You know this is not a subject that I know a whole lot about...though I do profess some interest and curiosity about the reasons why people choose gender reassignment surgery. Mostly I was interested in exploring the why's and if's about gender and the myriad of choices and ways of being that people encounter and deal with or embrace in their lives. I wasn't sure what to expect...and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this book, but I've finished reading it and it's time to write down my thoughts about it. First and foremost, this is a book that doesn't just rehash the same debates one sees nearly everywhere these days about how little Tommy can play with dolls and Sally can play with cars or how Molly can be a doctor and Biff can be a nurse...this goes beyond what's considered politically correct or "allowable" excursions outside the comfort zone of the tribe. In Gender Outlaw Borenstein really tries to examine why we need gender at all and how gender is really determined in today's societies, she looks both backward and forward with regards to this issue in a way that is both informative and entertaining. Gender Outlaw is a strange blend of biography and gender theory written with a theatrical flair. The author is really not looking to redefine gender so much as she is looking to toss it out altogether, in favor of a gender model that is more dynamic and fluid. Now for what I didn't like about the book...well, I do understand that the author is an artist and performer at heart, but I read because I LIKE to read and while I like most of what I read to be entertaining and informative, I DON'T like to have to struggle to read it because the author thought it would be interesting and creative to create columns and make the reader have to read from side to side skipping about on the page. There is a serious lack of continuity in the format of the text that makes it a bear to read. Everything does not have to be performance; everything does not have to be art. Sometimes a book should just be a book. Outside of that, I enjoyed reading Gender Outlaw, I think the author wanted to reach the mainstream and this book is certainly readable and accessible to the general public...now if we could just get them to read it and open their minds to the ideas presented. Borenstein certainly got there with me, as I had no quarrel with the gender I've been assigned, but it certainly gave me lots of food for thought and I'll probably never think of gender the same way again. I give it a 4 stars (3.5 really, but since Amazon doesn't allow ½ stars, I'll settle for 4, round up instead of down).
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Gender Outlaw by Rhonda J. Teasdale (Western Australia) 5 Stars
October 05, 2007
I so wish I had read this book at 30 years of age. I so wish everyone would read this book.
Kate Bornstein is right. There simply is no gender. Anima, animus.
Sometimes we do need to have our ideas challenged. I am happy to have had my old ideas changed by this book. It seems to have given me answers for so many vague questions I had in my mind.
Valuable book for heterosexual ppl and homosexual ppl. Valuable book for ppl.
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AMAZING. by Hope Henderson (Providence, RI) 5 Stars
July 31, 2007
This is an amazing, amazing book. It's easy to read, engaging, and the tone is casual but the content is rich and nuanced - both accesible and intelligent. If you only read three books in your life, this should be one of them. I'm not exaggerating.
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
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In My Gender Workbook, Kate Bornstein brings theory down to Earth and provides a practical guide to living with or without a gender. Using a unique, deceptively simple and always entertaining workbook format, Bornstein gently but firmly guides you to discover your own unique gender identity. She also takes aim at recent efforts to naturalize gender differences, putting books like Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus squarely where they belong: on Uranus. If you don't think you are...
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Perhaps more than any other issue, gender identity has galvanized the queer community in recent years. The questions go beyond the nature of male/female to a yet-to-be-traversed region that lies somewhere between and beyond biologically determined gender. In this groundbreaking anthology, three experts in gender studies and politics navigate around rigid, societally imposed concepts of two genders to discover and illuminate the limitless possibilities of identity. Thirty first-person accounts...
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| Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws
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Celebrated transsexual trailblazer Kate Bornstein has, with more humor and spunk than any other, ushered us into a world of limitless possibility through a daring re-envisionment of the gender system as we know it. Here, Kate bravely and wittily shares personal and unorthodox methods of survival for navigating an often cruel world. A one-of-a-kind guide to staying alive outside the box, Hello, Cruel World is a much-needed unconventional approach to teenage suicide prevention for...
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