Female Masculinity by Judith Halberstam Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Female Masculinity
Book Review: radical---and dashing!
Summary: 4 Stars
I know this book takes a lot of flak, but I adore it. Halberstam rips through transhistorical definitions of lesbianism to reveal a multitude of queer 'masculinities,' from female husbands, FTMs, butches...She's been accused of fetishizing masculinity and not critiquing it at all, but I find this to be untrue. I think that, in separating so-called masculinity from maleness, she reclaims what can be striking and powerful about the genders we've labelled "masculine" and in doing so critiques the ways domination has been embedded in traditional male masculinity. This book is truly breakthrough, and I urge you to buy it, and read it, and mull it over. Amazing.Book Review: very multicultural, just one complaint
Summary: 4 Stars
The fact that this book was not written by a person of color in no way reduces the racial-inclusion in the book. Halberstam dedicates the book to Gayatri; perhaps having a lover of color influences her racially-diverse perspective. Then again, maybe its the influence of the ethnic studies professors at her college, UCSD. Whatever it was, it's great. Halberstam makes a point of saying how butches of color face different issues from white butches. She states from the start that works on masculinity as it affects men of color and working-class men were much more informative to her research than books on hegemonic masculinity. Halberstam even criticizes white lesbian academics like Faderman when they fail to confront racism in their academic subjects.I only have one big problem with this book: Halberstam's discussion of the Latina character Vasquez in "Aliens" is all wrong. Halberstam implies that Vasquez is lesbian and she goes on to state that Vasquez dies first, dies tragically, and was in general not dynamic. In the film, they show Vasquez panicked over the death of a man, impliedly her lover. They very consciously render her straight. She was one of the last characters to die, not the first. Further, she died valiently (and heterosexually in the arms of a white man) by killing herself in order to kill more aliens. In such a strong book, I don't understand why Halberstam felt the need to fudge the facts.