The Transgender Studies Reader by Susan Stryker; Stephen Whittle

Review by: Amy L. Stone

Teaching Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 2008), pp. 179-180
Published by: American Sociological Association
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BOOK REVIEWS 179
than men if work
truly
stinks and
staying
home
is such a
great
choice. She also
challenges
stu
dents to think about the economic costs and
benefits of
"opting
out of the work force" for
periods
of time.
But what
happens
when
they
choose a life that takes
away
their
ability
to make
any
further
independent
choices? Then choice bites its own tail. The women
of the Times?and the more than 50
percent
of all
women the census
says
are not
working
full time
are not
independent anymore. They
are
dependent
on the
productivity
and
continuing goodwill
of the
men
they
married.
They
cannot
support
themselves
or their children.
They
cannot decide where the
family
is
going
to live.
(P p. 34-5)
Hirshman
goes
on to tell the stories of women
who were left
by
their husbands and of those
who
stayed
with their husbands but commuted
tremendous distances to work and
ultimately
ended
up dropping
out of the workforce because
the demands at home
coupled
with the commute
were too
great.
She
clearly
makes the
point
that
choice
may
be an incorrect
way
to describe the
decision
many
women make to
stay
home with
small children.
To sum
up my
recommendations
concerning
these two
books,
I would recommend both books
to
professors
who are veteran teachers of sociol
ogy
of
gender
classes or
sociology
classes that
focus on
race, class,
sexuality
and
gender.
While
neither book works as a foundational text
they
both are wonderful devices for
injecting
feminist
theory
and
propositions
into
sociology
courses.
Both books are hard to
ignore.
Gendered Bodies
presents
at least three differ
ent ideas worth
developing
in
any
class. The first
is the
way
in which our
physical,
human
body
is
developed according
to
gender
role norms. A
second idea is that
body development
is not
just
physical.
The
development
of the
body
often
involves work of the mind. The final idea is that
physical
bodies are social bodies both in how
they
are
developed
and in how
they
are
recog
nized and
proscribed by
communities. Gendered
Bodies will elicit discussion and further
explora
tion into the
topics
of
gender, bodies,
disabilities
and
sexuality.
Get To Work is a nice
compendium
of recent
sociological
research on work and
family
issues.
It also draws students and others into the on
going
debate about the future of the women's
movement. It offers at least three
great topics
for
debate. The first
topic
is the
question
of how one
best fulfills his/her human
potential.
The author
thinks that work outside the home
provides
a
better avenue for fulfillment than the
daily
work
of
keeping
house and
raising
children. Students
will want to debate this issue. The second
topic
is the
question
of choice. Do women in US soci
ety
have freedom of choice to the same
degree
as
men?
Finally,
the issue of needs at a micro level
can be examined
against
the needs of
many
at the
macro level. When Hirshman talks about women
staying
home and
opting
out of the workforce
she makes the
point
that the labor and intelli
gence
of some of our best and
brightest
is lost to
society.
She claims that the small losses faced
by
children of
intelligent,
resource-rich women who
choose to work
may easily
be offset
by
the socie
tal
gains produced by
their labor. The content of
the book and
style
of Hirshman's
writing
are
sure to
inspire
debate but it is a debate best han
dled
by
seasoned
professors
who are
knowledge
able about feminist
theory
and
sociology
of
gen
der and
family.
REFERENCES
Friedan,
B.
(1964).
The Feminine
Mystique.
New
York: Dell
Publishing.
Plato.
Republic.
Available free online at
http://classics.
mit/edu/Plato/republic.
html.
Lissa J.
Yogan
Valparaiso University
The
Transgender
Studies Reader. Susan
Stryker
and
Stephen Whittle,
eds. New York:
Routledge.
2006. 752
pages. $95.00.
The
growing interdisciplinary
field of trans
gender
studies is well
represented by
the new
Transgender
Studies Reader. Instructors of trans
gender
issues until now have had to use a combi
nation of obscure sources in hard to find
places
to teach the basics of this
growing
field. How
ever,
this
lucid,
well
organized
reader
may
solve
that
problem
for both instructors and researchers
within
transgender studies;
this reader
may
also
play
a
key
role in the solidification of trans
gender
studies as a coherent field of
study.
In
her introduction from "the
study
of
transgender
phenomena" (p. 3), Stryker
establishes the roots
of
transgender
studies in the social sciences and
humanities,
along
with the close connections
between
transgender community
and academic
research. Both of these characteristics are well
reflected in this
anthology.
The first three sections of this reader locate
transgender
studies within
sexology,
feminist
studies,
and
queer theory.
The first section of the
book focuses on
sex,
gender
and
science,
pri
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180
TEACHING SOCIOLOGY
marily
the connections between classical sexolo
gists
like
Krafft-Ebing
and Hirschfeld and more
contemporary
work such as Donna
Haraway's
piece
on
cyborg
studies. The inclusion of these
older
pieces
creates a
deeper history
of trans
gender
studies than is often
portrayed by
contem
porary
scholars. The second section on
feminist
investments includes several
significant
lesbian
feminist
debates,
including
the debates around
Janice
Raymond's rantings
in The Transsexual
Empire, along
with
early
and
contemporary
feminist
musings
about
gender identity, expres
sion and
performance.
The third
section, Queer
ing Gender,
provides
several short articles that
contextualizes
transgender
studies within and
apart
from
queer theory;
this section is
signifi
cant in its inclusion of activists such as Kate
Bornstein,
Leslie
Feinberg
and
Sandy Stone,
as
well as scholars such as Jacob Hale and
Jay
Prosser.
The second half of this reader
highlights
vari
ous nuclei of
transgender
studies in its
investiga
tion of
identity, masculinity, embodiment,
and
gender/nationality/race.
The section on the con
struction of
transgender
selves within
identity
and
community interrogates
this
topic
from mul
tiple perspectives, including
the historical devel
opment
of
transsexuality, linguistic
understand
ings
of desire and
gender,
and intersections be
tween the
transgender
and
lesbian/gay
communi
ties. The next section on
transgender
masculin
ities reflects the
increasing
academic work con
ducted
by
masculine
transgender
studies schol
ars,
including Gay
le
Rubin,
Henry
Rubin and
Jason Cromwell. The final two sections on em
bodiment and
multiple crossings provide
a win
dow into the future of
transgender studies,
with
the breadth of literature from examination of
race to an
understanding
of
transgender
aesthet
ics. This section includes work
by
notable
gen
der scholars such as Judith
Halberstam,
Vivian
K.
?amaste,
and
Marjorie
Garber.
One
strength
of this reader is the size and
breadth of the
excerpts, along
with the inclusion
of difficult to find
pieces.
For
example,
in the
section on feminist investments the editors in
clude Janice
Raymond's
well known
critique
of
the "transsexual
empire", contextualizing
it for
readers as the
impetus
for
transgender
articula
tion. This is a much more
complex rendering
and inclusion of
Raymond,
who is often referred
to in
contemporary transgender
studies literature
as
representative
of
early
lesbian feminism but
yet rarely
read
by
scholars and students. There
are also
many
treats
usually only
found in ar
chives or difficult to find
books,
such as Carol
Riddell's
pamphlet
in
response
to The Transsex
ual
Empire
and Lou Sullivan's letter to a femi
nist.
In order to
integrate
the
variety
of
excerpts
within the
reader,
the editors have
prefaced
each
chapter
with an excellent contextualization of
that
piece
of
work,
including
the
history
of the
author,
their
disciplinary
or activist
background,
the effect of the
piece,
and it's omissions or
criticisms. This contextualization is
incredibly
helpful
for an instructor
using
this reader. One
thing
that would increase the
usability
would be
the inclusion of the
year
of
authorship
of each
piece;
the
excerpts
included
span
a
considerable
period
of time and the
transgender
studies disci
pline
is
constantly changing.
This reader would be an excellent
primary
or
secondary
text for a
Sociology
of
Gender,
Trans
gender Studies, Queer Studies,
or LGBT Studies
course for advanced
undergraduates
and
graduate
students.
Although
the reader includes theoretical
yet
lucid
chapters,
it
may
be too advanced theo
retically
for a lower division or
introductory
undergraduate
course. For a course
specifically
on
transgender studies,
instructors will want to
include additional materials on non-Western
transgender subjectivity,
several
examples
of
which are included in the "Further
Reading"
section at the end of the reader. The editors de
scribe their intentional exclusion of these
pieces
due to the
inability
to cover that literature in
enough
detail.
Overall,
The
Transgender
Studies Reader is an
excellent
teaching
resource that
provides
a
breadth of
readings
that are in direct
dialogue
with each other and that
bridge
the humanities
and social sciences.
Amy
L. Stone
Trinity University
The Cult
of
Thinness. 2nd ed. Sharlene
Nagy
Hesse-Biber. New York: Oxford. 2007. 271
pages.
$25.75.
The Cult
of
Thinness is a revision and extension
of Hesse-Biber's 1996
book,
Am I Thin
Enough
Yet?: The Cult
of
Thinness and the Commerciali
zation
of Identity.
Often
diagnosed
and treated as
an individual
problem,
Hesse-Biber
expands
our
understanding
of the factors that contribute to the
development
of
eating
disorders in American
girls
and women. She
argues
that current esti
mates
suggest
there are between five and ten
million
girls
and women in the U.S. with
eating
disorders,
a number that cannot be
fully
ex
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