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gireads's review
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
3.0
In quanto butch, ho trovato alcuni capitoli molto interessanti e in cui mi posso rispecchiare, altri meno.
Credo che il problema principale di questo libro siano le ripetizioni e i lunghi paragrafi che potevano essere accorciati; ho apprezzato questo modo di scrivere nel primo capitolo perché aveva senso per quello che si stava cercando di dire, ma é diventato presto ridondante.
Leggendolo nel 2024, in alcuni passaggi si sente che questo libro ha 20 anni, ma credo che molte persone possano trovare ancora dei punti di ispirazione, o riflessione, leggendolo.
Credo che il problema principale di questo libro siano le ripetizioni e i lunghi paragrafi che potevano essere accorciati; ho apprezzato questo modo di scrivere nel primo capitolo perché aveva senso per quello che si stava cercando di dire, ma é diventato presto ridondante.
Leggendolo nel 2024, in alcuni passaggi si sente che questo libro ha 20 anni, ma credo che molte persone possano trovare ancora dei punti di ispirazione, o riflessione, leggendolo.
lovesresqdogs's review against another edition
Amazing book that everyone in my community should read. It answers lot of questions in a way i never could. A must read for anyone who wants to know or understand more about people being individual and that we all do not fit into little boxes
circlepines's review against another edition
2.0
Oh, man. I love Bear Bergman. I loved his* most recent book, The Nearest Exit Is Behind You. I saw him give a talk last week and it was amazing, energizing, and thought-provoking. Butch Is a Noun is the work that put him on the map and I wanted to love it, too; instead, I was barely able to stick with it to the end.
It basically comes down to this: for a book about gender, Butch Is a Noun has a really poor gender analysis. Throughout the book Bear uses "butch" and "femme" without attempting to define or explain them, with a wink and a nod, as though their meaning and their relationship to queer identity and queer politics are understood. Yet many of the essays simply map "butch" onto "masculine/gentlemanly" and "femme" onto "feminine/ladylike," then proceed to generalize in ways that would be blatantly sexist if the terms "man" and "woman" were used instead.
What to make of a a paragraph like this -- a paragraph that essentializes butchness and femmeness absent any kind of queer context, and suggests that anyone who is feminine-of-center and interacts with a masculine-of-center person in a way that is assertive and expects respect is femme? In the end, there's a complete failure to separate what is radical, liberatory gender play from what is just a queer reframing of sexism.
I still love most of Bear's work, but I'm glad that I was introduced to him through The Nearest Exit rather than through Butch Is a Noun.
* this is not the pronoun set that Bear used at the time Butch Is a Noun came out, but it is the pronoun set that he is using now
It basically comes down to this: for a book about gender, Butch Is a Noun has a really poor gender analysis. Throughout the book Bear uses "butch" and "femme" without attempting to define or explain them, with a wink and a nod, as though their meaning and their relationship to queer identity and queer politics are understood. Yet many of the essays simply map "butch" onto "masculine/gentlemanly" and "femme" onto "feminine/ladylike," then proceed to generalize in ways that would be blatantly sexist if the terms "man" and "woman" were used instead.
This business of putting a butch through hir paces does not seem, by the way, to be a learned behavior, but rather an instinctive one; little four- and six-year-old femme girls that I meet in airports and ice cream lines regularly assume their command of me, asking me questions, telling me what they want and need. In their ways, they're looking for the right kind of audience, looking to have the right kind of attention; a kind of attention I can hardly describe, but one which I recognize as the sort that butches have for femmes. It is an attention heavy with some measure of restraint, a way of relating that is queered, with irony -- here's the tough guy, the dude, the butch with the flashy moves and the nice manners, the man of things, and yet this butch, if he's a gentleman, and I am, doesn't make a move without the femme's intention being explicit and assured.
What to make of a a paragraph like this -- a paragraph that essentializes butchness and femmeness absent any kind of queer context, and suggests that anyone who is feminine-of-center and interacts with a masculine-of-center person in a way that is assertive and expects respect is femme? In the end, there's a complete failure to separate what is radical, liberatory gender play from what is just a queer reframing of sexism.
I still love most of Bear's work, but I'm glad that I was introduced to him through The Nearest Exit rather than through Butch Is a Noun.
* this is not the pronoun set that Bear used at the time Butch Is a Noun came out, but it is the pronoun set that he is using now
mbzoller's review
informative
2.0
I think this book would have been great at its publication.
There are a few things that no longer hold up due to changing popular culture, such as the distaste for plural pronouns to refer to gender non-conforming people.
There were so many times where I could see where Bergman was going with a story but I found that it was often diverted from that point that would have been impactful. Often at the end of the essay Bergman would qualify hir statement by acknowledging that there are many contrary or differing opinions and a breadth to the identity of butch that goes beyond what they spent the essay building. Resulting in the essay constantly falling flat.
I also found that Bergman refers to any non-butch, non-heteronormative or non-masculine woman as "femme". This struck me as not dissimilar to the term "female" in toxic alpha male culture today. Continually ze referred to butchness in a way directly contrasted to "femme"-ness, as if the butch identity only makes sense as the black to the white of femininity. It felt reductive and misogynistic.
I found that the anecdotes of Bergman's personal life and gendered experiences were deeply moving and poignant, whereas the generalities and prescriptive essays were where the problems persisted. Identity is not stagnant, monolithic, and restrictive, so such definitive ideas of identity necessitated the qualifying statements I mentioned above.
There are a few things that no longer hold up due to changing popular culture, such as the distaste for plural pronouns to refer to gender non-conforming people.
There were so many times where I could see where Bergman was going with a story but I found that it was often diverted from that point that would have been impactful. Often at the end of the essay Bergman would qualify hir statement by acknowledging that there are many contrary or differing opinions and a breadth to the identity of butch that goes beyond what they spent the essay building. Resulting in the essay constantly falling flat.
I also found that Bergman refers to any non-butch, non-heteronormative or non-masculine woman as "femme". This struck me as not dissimilar to the term "female" in toxic alpha male culture today. Continually ze referred to butchness in a way directly contrasted to "femme"-ness, as if the butch identity only makes sense as the black to the white of femininity. It felt reductive and misogynistic.
I found that the anecdotes of Bergman's personal life and gendered experiences were deeply moving and poignant, whereas the generalities and prescriptive essays were where the problems persisted. Identity is not stagnant, monolithic, and restrictive, so such definitive ideas of identity necessitated the qualifying statements I mentioned above.
sourbutchkid's review against another edition
4.0
Cried a little bit reading all the love for butches that love other butches in this book …. (in a positive way)