.Talent Development Resources --..home page...site map![[Image]](bluline2.gif){kind=small}
androgyny / gender : page 3 : quotes articles books........
..
Audre Lorde
~ ~ ~ ~
In her book UnInvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representation, Patricia White offers sharp re-readings of films from Hollywood’s classical period (1930s to the 1960s).
Unlike other film scholars who cover the same time span, White concentrates specifically on those films that lend themselves to lesbian re-interpretation by nature of their ‘queer-able’ female stars, like Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, and Ethel Waters, as well as their subtexts, original adaptation sources, or ancillary texts that hint at the films’ queer meanings, including correspondence, film reviews, and audience reaction in that time period.
Written primarily for academics, UnInvited doesn't make for light reading -- but if you're willing to work through the theoretical language, you'll find an illuminating take on lesbians, movies, text and subtext that is just as applicable to many films and TV shows today as the films of the 1930s.> from review by Candace Moore, afterellen.com
> photos : Greta Garbo as the cross-dressing queen and her lady-in-waiting [Elizabeth Young] in Queen Christina (1933)
~ ~ ~ ~
.. .. You know, I'm transgender, and I've been attacked because of it. Melissa Etheridge : What I've seen in the last 20 years is that our society has kind of tumbled in this direction where we can no longer keep these things hidden. In the political arena right now, everyone is making a huge deal out of gay marriage, which is something I thought we would never be able to have in my lifetime. And yet, here it is,, which is amazing to me... but the culture itself is rising, so that when you have these things that are still under wraps, like the transgendered, or the intersexuals who are born neither male nor female, they rise also. |
.. .. Interview, May 2004 more
about J.T. Leroy on jtleroy.com
-
image at left from J.T. Leroy's novel Harold's End more
books:
The Truth Is... : My Life in Love and Music - by Melissa Etheridge |
~ ~ ~ ~
Maureen O'Hara made five movies with John Wayne, including "Rio Grande" and "The Quiet Man," and he gave her a compliment she cherishes to this day: "He said I was the greatest guy he ever knew." Yet despite their many love scenes together, she maintained he never made a pass at her. "Why would he?" she asked. "I could have punched him out. I did judo, I fenced, I played soccer, football. I would've hauled off and hit him."
[AP - CNN.com April 28, 2004] / her memoir 'Tis Herself
~ ~ ~ ~
.. .. There was more acceptance of females having a masculine side (the female warrior), and the male having a more feminine side, which you find a lot more even today in Italy. |
.. .. In San Diego they performed Ariodante, the first baroque opera to be heard there. It was amazing that the audiences accepted me playing the guy [left]... mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux [from culturekiosque.com interview 23 October 2002] photo from Los Angeles Opera site |
~ ~ ~ ~......
My daddy left home when I was three,
And he didn't leave much to Ma and me...
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.
Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid,
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me 'Sue'.beginning of "Boy Named Sue" written by Shel Silverstein,
sung by Johnny Cash - album: The Essential Johnny Cash
Brenda Withers as Matt Damon, left, and Mindy Kaling as Ben Affleck appear in scene from the Off-Broadway play "Matt & Ben" that is attracting celebrity audiences like Nicole Kidman, Steve Martin and Sam Rockwell. Mixing fact, fiction and tabloid fodder, the play takes place in the mid-1990s... about how Damon and Affleck wrote the Oscar-winning movie Good Will Hunting - with the screenplay literally falling from the ceiling into their laps ... [Assoc. Press and imdb.com Sep 5 2003]
Jane Anderson
director / writer
from book:
Great Women of FilmOur ideas about what is gifted behavior for a boy or for a girl are imbued with society's notions of appropriate gender identity. Gifted boys and girls need to learn to cope with their giftedness while careful1y following prescribed gender roles if they want to avoid the rejection of their communities. How were these gender roles shaped, and how did we get our ideas about what gifted girls and gifted boys should be like? This is the story of how these ideas came to be, how they shape the lives of our bright children1 and what we can do to help gifted boys and girls break free of the stereotypes and live their own dreams.
from article: Gender and Genius by Barbara Kerr, Ph.D.
....books by Barbara Kerr:
Smart Girls: A New Psychology of Girls, Women, and Giftedness
Smart Boys: Talent, Manhood, and the Search for Meaning
~ ~ ~ ~
I came out of this with a newfound respect for how difficult it is to be masculine. Because, as the masculine character, the only way it worked was if I seemed sure of myself at all times. If I showed a moment's hesitation, or even quiet introspection, then I seemed feminine. So I had to be bold with my behaviour and my stance and my expressions because, if I gave away that, behind it all, I was unsure of what my next move was, then I seemed like a girl.
Only when I was assertive and seemed very sure of myself was I masculine. Women are allowed to be softer and more vulnerable and indecisive at times. It's very difficult for the male characters.
Mira Sorvino - about playing an Italian princess who cross-dresses as a man
in "The Triumph Of Love" [Toronto Sun, April 23, 2002]~ ~ ~ ~
From childhood, Zuwena (means "good" in Swahili) excelled in many pursuits -- oil painting, the debate team, quick recall, field hockey. 
..
..A math whiz at Seneca High School, she turned down an engineering scholarship to Purdue University and chose Yale only after an uncomfortable pre-enrollment interview at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ...
"Other girls liked dolls, but she liked pads and pencils," said her mother Rose... "She was always drawing or writing. Dolls that walked and talked -- instead of playing with them, Zuwena liked to see how they worked.
"I'd get upset with her tearing things apart and rebuilding them. She'd be interested in seeing how the radio worked, and before I knew it, I'd see this pile in the basement." [courier-journal.com March 29, 2003]
A graduate of Yale, writer ZZ Packer has held Wallace Stegner
and Truman Capote fellowships from Stanford University,
where she is currently a Jones Lecturer....short story collection: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
by ZZ Packer
..also see quotes by ZZ Packer on writing: page 2
~ ~ ~ ~
Richard Chamberlain has decided to reveal his identity as a gay man "because I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not a romantic leading man anymore so I don't need to nurture that public image anymore. ... "When I grew up, being gay, being a sissy or anything like that, was verboten. I disliked myself intensely and feared this part of myself intensely and had to hide it."
Now, the actor says, everything is different... "I love my life just the way it is. I'm proud of my relationship. I'm actually proud of myself," Chamberlain said. .. [Assoc. Press May 30, 2003]
....Shattered Love: A Memoir - by Richard Chamberlain
~ ~ ~ ~
At college I began to get the idea that being macho wasn't the accepted norm in the liberal world, and especially the world I entered into, which was the artistic world.
I had a lot of problems with that because I was struggling with the need to be proud of being a man, which wasn't something I was feeling. ...
I've been reading a bunch of stuff lately - like Joseph Campbell - that has made me realize that people in our culture, especially in the liberal communtiy, often go in search of a foe. It's like we always need a hill to climb up or something to push against, or we feel as if we're not working constructively in the world. I know I'm like that.
Philip Seymour Hoffman [Interview mag. Feb.99] ...
...Joseph Campbell. Hero with a Thousand Faces
~ ~ ~ ~
Lisa Rainen: The mismatch between self and society:
The intersection between gifted and gayHighly and profoundly gifted children may share situations similar to youth that are gay, bisexual, or transgender, including closeting one's self, severe ostracism, and lack of safety at schools.
It seems almost inevitable that these children, particularly young adults, will therefore deal with issues of homosexuality in a more personal and, of course, a more intense manner than other children.
Perceived androgyny in interests, concentration on moral situations, and other common characteristics of gifted children may get them involved in issues of homosexuality in schools. Additionally, there is a possibility that the child who has more self-knowledge may know their own orientation earlier than others and thus face these issues overtly as well as subtly.
The radically accelerated student may be facing sexuality and sexual orientation in their ability peers earlier as well. The mixture of all of these factors requires response from teachers, schools, and parents to help make it safe for highly gifted children to deal with these issues in healthy ways.
from announcement of presentation at conference: Beyond IQ: Gender Issues
Among Highly and Profoundly Gifted Children, Seattle, WA, August 2 - 4, 2002~ ~ ~ ~
The gender problems are pervasive. Gifted girls may become disinterested in academics if they find that boys feel threatened by their abilities... They will fear alienation from their girlfriends who may view them as showoffs... and they may also minimize their talents in relationships with equally gifted peers... What is most ironic about this problem is that gifted females are even less stereotypically "feminine" than nongifted females and gifted males are less stereotypically "masculine".
Piirto (1998) recently investigated this hypothesis of androgyny in the personalities of the talented. In her studies using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Piirto found a reversal of preferences from the norm. The group of gifted adolescent girls preferred Thinking (T) to a greater degree than in the normal population, and a greater number of the gifted adolescent boys preferred Feeling (F) than in the normal population.
from article: Actualization of Giftedness: Effects of Perceptions in Gifted Adolescents
~ ~ ~ ~
"I've gone from someone who had a secret to someone who doesn't have one," says Jennifer Finney Boylan. ... 
..
..She is a transsexual, who chronicles her complex quest for identity in She's Not There...
A charismatic co-chair of the English Department at Colby College, the author spent over 40 years as James Boylan - dedicated husband, devoted father, and celebrated novelist (The Planets). Consumed with an intense desire to shift genders,
Boylan endured decades of concealed feelings before divulging the details of his condition to family, friends, and campus colleagues. "I think in some ways, the biggest change for me is not going from male to female," Boylan observes. "It's going from a person who lives in their head to a person who lives out in the world."
After therapeutic counseling, Boylan underwent sexual-reassignment surgery in 2002. "The surgery is the thing that everyone fixates on, but it's really kind of like the last piece of the puzzle. More than anything else, this is a medical condition," Boylan explains.
"It's something that you're born with and no one really understands why, but it's certainly nothing that you do in order to be clever, post-modern, or strange."
[from Portland Phoenix portlandphoenix.com
interview by Mark Griffin]She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders -
by Jennifer Finney Boylanauthor site
~ ~ ~ ~
It isn't from a gay gene - that's ridiculous. What they're going to find is that certain babies are born with the kind of perceptual openness that can lead you to become an artist. They're perceiving colors, form, and mood - all kinds of things that regular men don't pick up on but women do. Gay men, even if they aren't artists, have such an eye. What discrimination and judgment, what wit!
Camille Paglia .. [Bust, Summer 2003]
books by Camille Paglia
Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays // Vamps and Tramps: New Essays
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
~ ~ ~ ~
Lilly.. wanted desperately to be a movie star so that she could save her mother from poverty and from depression. Instead, she became a pin-up girl, a stripper. ... put herself through college and graduate school at UC Berkeley by working in clubs and doing photo shoots for magazines like King, a precursor to Hustler. ... Lilly, Lil, Lillian and Dr. Faderman were not completely reconciled until the writing of this memoir [Naked in the Promised Land]. "Distance is critical," Faderman, 62, tells her class. "What Wordsworth called 'emotion recollected in tranquillity.' It was only in the process of writing this book that I discovered the connections between the girl, the stripper, the lesbian and the professor."
from article: Feminist professor shares her secrets by Susan Salter Reynolds, LA Times, February 18 2003
Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir - by Lillian Faderman This book is not just about childhood, about coming out, about coming of age. ... It's about the terrible guilt of a mother, the terrible guilt and powerlessness of a daughter; a childhood filled with madness and dysfunctional love... hilarious moments and lovely moments, brief as firelies ... cruelty as a self-defense technique; the sexual predators (male and female) that sidle close on little cat feet ...
but most of all it is about sheer passion --- the passion to "make it better", the passion to *be* something for someone else's sake, the passion to survive and to triumph and above all, the passionate bond that exists between mother and daughter, no matter what. ... No book has ever moved me more. [reader review]
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian FadermanBeginning with nineteenth-century romantic friendships and the first all-women's colleges, progressing through the sexologists of the 1920s and the openness of the war years, on to the McCarthy era, the radical 1960s and 70s, and the more diversified 1980s and 90s, Lillian Faderman documents "the extent to which sexuality, and especially sexual categories, can be dependent upon a broad range of factors that are extraneous to 'sexual drive.'"[from 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister]
....~ ~ ~ ~
At the core of her philosophy was rejection of the category "woman" as a social construct that was inherently oppressive. ... She called heterosexuality "a political regime" that thrives on women's inferiority and exploitation. She believed that real freedom depended on a woman defining herself as "an escapee, a fugitive slave, a lesbian." Monique Wittig [1935-2002] used language in inventive ways to convey her radical ideas. One of the distinguishing features of her novels was her experimentation with pronouns as a means of changing consciousness.
In her 1973 novel "The Lesbian Body," for example, she wrote je (French for the pronoun "I") as j/e and tu ("you") as t/u. These stylistic choices were meant to underscore the way language can inhibit being.
[from LA Times obituary, January 11 2003]
~ ~ ~ ~
That was just a given [that her character in her new series was going to be gay]. I'm so identified with that. And I'm so proud of it too. I struggled for a long time to be proud of it and not hide it. Ellen DeGeneres [The Advocate, Sept 25, 2001]
**My Point - And I Do Have One by Ellen DeGeneres*----Just A Mom by Betty DeGeneres
~ ~ ~ ~
Ian McKellen came out at age 49 during a 1988 radio interview, and though he insists that "it couldn't have been easier," the moment forms a demarcation for the B.C. and the A.D. of his life. ... "I think my work is getting better because I've come out, because I'm freer, more confident. Emotionally freer. And I think that everything that's better about my life in the last 13 years is a direct result of having come out. Just as I would put down anything that was bad about my life before that as the result of my not having come out."
[Washington Post, December 16, 2001] *[from Ian McKellen site mckellen.com]
~ ~ ~ ~
....
....articles:
Gender and Genius by Barbara Kerr, Ph.D.
Our ideas about what is gifted behavior for a boy or for a girl are imbued with society's notions of appropriate gender identity. Gifted boys and girls need to learn to cope with their giftedness while careful1y following prescribed gender roles if they want to avoid the rejection of their communities. How were these gender roles shaped, and how did we get our ideas about what gifted girls and gifted boys should be like?
Gender Issues: Gifted Girls [twicegifted.net]Bright girls who are highly verbal, curious and like to debate, are often seen as aggressive or unfeminine by classroom teachers. The bright boy who manifests these same traits is seen as precocious. In research about schools and stereotyping, Myra and David Sadker (1994) found that boys vocally dominate the classroom. Boys also got more attention and encouragement from teachers. Once gifted girls become gifted women, they are faced with very difficult personal choices regarding those that they love and their desire to pursue a career suited to their extreme talent. Many gifted women may choose a career path that is less demanding if it allows them to spend more time raising their children.
Sandra Bem, PhD The Lenses of Gender : Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality
Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-Reader
Anne Fausto-Sterling. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality ........
Myra Marx Ferree, Judith Lorber, Beth B. Hess. Revisioning Gender
David C. Geary. Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences
Judith Halberstam. The Drag King Book
Judith Halberstam. Female Masculinity
Allan G. Johnson. The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy
Allan Johnson's response to the pain and confusion that men and women experience by living with gender inequality explains what patriarchy is and isn't, how it works, and what gets in the way of understanding and doing something about it. Johnson's simple yet powerful approach avoids the paralyzing trap of guilt, blame, anger, and defensive denial that often result from conversations about gender. He shows how we all participate in an oppressive system we didn't create and how each of us can contribute towards its dissolution. He argues persuasively that something much better is possible and that our individual choices matter more than we can ever know.
> from author site agjohnson.usAllan G. Johnson. Privilege, Power, and Difference
"I adopted this very readable book as one of several required books for my Multicultural Psychology class and it has had a tremendous impact on my students. Johnson explains the concept of privilege, as it applies to race, gender and sexual orientation, in ways that allow my White students and other students with privilege to hear and understand without getting defensive. He describes why change is difficult but not impossible, what we can all do to stop supporting 'the system' and why we should. I recommend it highly for both college and high school students and the general adult population."
Jane Connor, SUNY Binghamton / quote from author site agjohnson.usMurray Pomerance. Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls: Gender in Film at the End of the Twentieth Century
From Library Journal: In this book, you can find out how Tweety Bird became a girl, why real men like musicals, and why the heroines of Hong Kong action flicks are not the sweet, submissive women of yore. Unlike many other film criticism collections, which concentrate on the representation of a particular group or genre, this volume collects a range of writings on a number of very different and specific topics and links them together through the rubric of gender. Pomerance (sociology, Ryerson Polytechnic Univ., Toronto) has divided the book into three main areas: gender in non-American films, gender as coded through actions, and transgressive representations of gender that are held up as "paragons or pariahs."June Singer Androgyny : The Opposites Within
Julie Wosk. Women and the Machine: Representations from the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age
~ ~ ~ ~
...related pages:......androgyny / gender. : page 1........androgyny / gender : page 2.......body image..........identity.............self-esteem / self concept............sexuality.........sexuality : teen/young adult
****home page --.*site contents*****books etc---******** *--- Women & Talent ------Teen / Young Adult talent
