gender

In my last post, I critiqued a chapter of Tony Attwood's The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome. Now I'm taking a look at Asperger's and Girls, a slim collection of essays in which Attwood and others tackle the intersection of Asperger's and gender.

Or, rather, in which they attempt to take on that intersection.

My goal in writing this series was to delve into the intersections of feminism, parenting and pop culture, and I did my best to tackle as many topics as possible in my eight weeks here. (Although of course, I’m still left staring at a laundry list of things I wanted to write about...isn’t that always the case?)

With gender stereotypes pervading our TVs, movies, toys, clothes, etc., can't we just have kids' books without adding more labels?

I know I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog looking at subtle forms of feminist art, but it’s only fair to consider the more direct approaches, especially when they’re as thought-provoking as Red Is The Colour. Be prepared to embrace menarchy, or menstrual anarchy...

Now, maybe there’s a bigger subtext that I’m missing. I’m coming at this as a mom and a feminist, not necessarily as a comic book reader, so perhaps I don’t understand all the nuances of this world—I’ll own up to that. But when my son is starting to find himself interested in all things "Super," then I feel my opinion counts for something. We’re barely scratching the surface of superheroes—there is a whole lot more out there that is even more sexist, and racist—but just what we've seen so far has left this feminist mom clutching at her non-existent pearls.

I'm not a fan of McDonald's for a variety of reasons, but beyond their tasty unhealthy food they are a perfect example of how marketing has changed over the years to further push gender stereotypes upon consumers.

Pejic distances himself from queries about gender and sexual identity. When speaking to New York, he referred to his androgynous beauty as "the situation," (which is a "situation" far preferable to Mike Sorrentino's six pack, yes?) and clearly is more focused on climbing the fashion ranks than challenging gender norms:

I know people want me to sort of defend myself, to sit here and be like, ‘I’m a boy, but I wear makeup sometimes.’ But, you know, to me, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really have that sort of strong gender identity—I identify as what I am. The fact that people are using it for creative or marketing purposes, it’s just kind of like having a skill and using it to earn money.

We pay a curious amount of attention to blue jeans specifically, a staple wardrobe item in virtually any wardrobe, both young and old. Despite Lee Jeans proclaiming in 2010 that "real men" suffer from "shop-a-phobia" and couldn't give a hoot about finding the perfect pair, the type of jeans a man slips on nevertheless seems to say a lot about how he projects his masculinity and sexuality (which is probably the culprit of the bogus shop-a-phobia). And who are these "real men," anyway? Are they the ones outfitted in Garth Brooks-y cowboy bootcut Wranglers or skin-tight indie rock frontman fare? Or are they one who prefer the saggy and baggy, or distressed and bedazzled? So many choices, so many (unnecessary?) implications about what started as a practical, durable pant for California gold miners.

Americana artist Gillian Welch has always included southern Christian imagery in her work. Though not native to the South, her music is at its most comfortable when it explores the tragedy and violence of working-class survival in the region. Welch and partner David Rawlings write and record sparse songs unlike any others. In part, this has to do with Rawlings' masterful guitar work, but it also stems from Welch's unuusal singing voice. 

See "The Way it Goes" from new album, The Harrow and the Harvest (lyrics here): 

In May, Religion Dispatches published my first interview with former darling of the Christian contemporary music scene, lesbian singer-songwriter Jennifer Knapp. Then over the summer, I got to meet and interview Knapp in person while covering the Wild Goose Festival, an event that celebrated (predominantly Christian) spirituality, justice, and art. We talked a bit about the limitations of Christian music, feminism and sexuality on the same day she filmed the "It Gets Better" video below. I'll be critiquing some evangelical Christian music later in the series, so I'm very excited to share unpublished parts of our interview with you here today: