Occupied Territories

I have called this book Whipping Girl to highlight the ways in which people who are feminine, whether they be female, male, and/or transgender, are almost universally demeaned compared with their masculine counterparts. This scapegoating of those who express femininity can be seen not only in the male-centered mainstream, but in the queer community, where “effeminate” gay men have been accused of holding back the gay rights movement, and where femme dykes have been accused of being the Uncle Toms of the lesbian movement. Even many feminists buy into traditionally sexist notions about femininity—that it is artificial, contrived, and frivolous; that it is a ruse that only serves the purpose of attracting and appeasing the desires of men. What I hope to show in this book is that the real ruse being played is not by those of us who happen to be feminine, but rather by those who place inferior meanings onto femininity. The idea that femininity is subordinate to masculinity dismissed women as a whole and shapes virtually all popular myths and stereotypes about trans women.

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Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

Just started reading this book after discovering Julia Serano, a brilliant thinker, writer, and activist. I was pleased to read this paragraph because in it she says so eloquently what I was trying to express in my critique of Brave and the notion that, within feminism, importance should be placed not only on subverting the exclusivity of those actions and behaviors labeled “masculine” but also on the affirmation of those maligned actions and behaviors labeled “feminine.” Or as Serano says in the next paragraph, “No form of gender equity can ever truly be achieved until we first work to empower femininity itself.”