Product Description: Gender isn't just about "male" or "female" anymore - if you have any doubts, just turn on your television. RuPaul is as familiar as tomato ketchup with national radio and television shows, and transgendered folk are as common to talk-shows as screaming and yelling. But if the popularization of gender bending is revealing that "male" and "female" aren't enough, where are we supposed to go from here? Cultural theorists have written loads of smart but difficult-to-fathom texts on gender, but none provide a hands-on, accessible guide to having your own unique gender. With My Gender Workbook, Kate Bornstein brings theory down to Earth and provides a practical approach to living with or without a gender.
Bornstein starts from the premise that there are not just two genders performed in today's world, but countless genders lumped under the two-gender framework. Using a unique, deceptively simple and always entertaining workbook format, Bornstein gently but firmly guides you to discover your own unique gender identity. Whether she's using the USFDA's food group triangle to explain gender, or quoting one-liners from real "gender transgressors", Bornstein's first and foremost concern is making information on gender bending truly accessible. With quizzes and exercises that determine how much of a man or woman you are, My Gender Workbook gives you the tools to reach whatever point you desire on the gender continuum.
Bornstein also takes aim at the recent flurry of books that attempt to naturalize gender difference, and puts books like Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus squarely where they belong: on Uranus. If you don't think you are transgendered when you sit down to read this book, you will be by the time you finish it!
Amazon.com Review: Kate Bornstein's 1994 book of autobiographical theory, Gender Outlaw, drew a line in the sand about the whole boy/girl thing. "Who needs it?" America's most active transgender activist questioned. Now, in My Gender Workbook, Bornstein has assembled a collage of simple exercises, quizzes, puzzles, and essay questions that systematically break down our ingrained ideas about how women and men--and whoever is in between--should act. Bornstein's breezy, "hey, let's all discover who we might really be" style works to make this potentially threatening material accessible and even intriguing to almost all readers. Just glance down, check out who--or what--you thought you were, and get ready to answer a few questions.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Excellent introduction to nonstandard gender
Kate Bornstein's writing is a pleasure to read! My Gender Workbook is a great way to start looking at nonstandard genders if you're used to thinking in strictly binary terms. While there's room in her viewpoint for girly girls and manly men, there's definitely a bit of bias towards transsexual and genderqueer folks. The quotes from different sources in the sidebar create a variety of perspectives on gender, in case you don't identify too strongly with Kate Bornstein's personal story (which, let's face it, isn't common to most of us).
If you're already breaking the gender binary- that ... Read More
Rating: - Overly simplistic
I used this book in a college class, and from an academic standpoint, I found it simplistic and many of the exercises seemed pointless. Even worse, Bornstein advocates a "gender-free or gender-bent" presentation of oneself, not realizing that because society creates gender rules, becoming gender-free is still buying into those rules through one's rejection of them. I think everyone should work through their gender issues on their own and not feel bad if they do happen to be a very feminine woman or masculine man (this book assumes every reader doesn't fit into any stereotype, or if they do act stereotypically ... Read More
Rating: - Well-Meaning, and Sometimes Well-Done, But Often Flawed
There is stuff here that is good, and all of it is well-meaning. That said, this book is very much a mixed bag.
It suffers from having little sense of who it's audience is. I'd certainly wager that a large majority of people who are reading this book are feminists, queers, or transpeople - or, like myself, *all* of these - and a lot of it is very basic, even frustratingly so, for these people, and this simplicity often shifts back and forth with more advanced stuff. This means that the beginners who do read this may well get lost, and that the people who get the basics will get bored. A lot of it ... Read More
Rating: - She doth protest too much....
...wow, I have to read this book for college, what is higher education coming to? So far I'm a fourth of the way through and have no idea what hir theory is. Ze says one thing and then completely contradicts hirself. Hir Gender Identity/Power Pyramid is so biased. Ze spells pyramid wrong, unless "pryamid" is some play on hir words. One of hir points is that to be at the top of the Gender/Power pryamid you must possess a well-formed, above-average-legnth penis. According to studies on Penis legnth world wide, the Irish are the most well endowed, followed by african americans. So according to Kate's pryamid ... Read More
Rating: - Good book but could be better
The layout of this book -- as a workbook with exercises you can do as you move through it -- makes this a very interesting way to examine gender issues in your own life. However I found two problems with the book. First, not all of the sections flow smoothly and the stream of consciousness moments can be distracting and patronizing on a few occassions. Secondly, I think the definition used of "gender" is far to broad to really give the book a solid foundation to build on. You'll find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with much of the book -- isn't that the appropriate thing for a book of self-growth?
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