Posts Written by Emily
By Emily Villano • 10 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Sex Itself

Although gender expression has flourished in the wake of feminist, queer, and trans interventions, our society as a whole still claims the primacy of “biological sex.” From the fetishization of trans peoples’ genitals and tales of “transition” (Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox took down Katie Couric on this point), to constant mis-gendering in mainstream media (as with the treatment of Janet Mock and Chelsea Manning), the policing of trans individuals makes evident a continuing reliance on “biological sex” as the ultimate determinant of identity.

In Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome (University of Chicago Press, $45), Sarah S. Richardson examines the biological grounding of sex at its apparent root: in the X and Y chromosomes. “The visual binary of the XX and the XY signify that part of sex that is thought to be unchangeable and most fundamental,” she writes. “At the level of the chromosomes, the gender rainbow, it is thought, falls away.” Although scientists acknowledge that sex emerges out of a complex “choreography” of biological factors, the association of X and Y with absolute sexual difference has always held the public imagination—and driven chromosomal research as well. It is Richardson’s project to “make gender visible” in this chapter of scientific history.
By Emily Villano • 10 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Do Muslim Women Need Saving?

Do Muslim women need saving? Lila Abu-Lughod’s question challenges what has become, in her words, the “new common sense”: a “moral mainstreaming of global women’s rights” that urges Westerners to intervene on behalf of faraway women held hostage by “backwards” religious beliefs. As feminists, we might see reason to celebrate a global, energized focus on gender. But Abu-Lughod argues persuasively that we have to approach these appeals with caution. Her analysis upsets not only wrong-headed ideas about the “Muslim women” we seek to save, but also fantasies of freedom and consent that form the basis of Western feminism.

Do Muslim women need saving? Lila Abu-Lughod’s question challenges what has become, in her words, the “new common sense”: a “moral mainstreaming of global women’s rights” that urges Westerners to intervene on behalf of faraway women ...
By Emily Villano • 10 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Anything That Loves, Comics Beyond ‘Gay’ and ‘Straight’

Anything That Loves: Comics Beyond “Gay” and “Straight” is a collaborative project at every level.  Charles “Zan” Christensen, the editor, raised the money to print this gorgeous, full-color, two hundred page comic anthology via a Kickstarter campaign that generated a thousand backers and tripled Christensen’s $10,000 ask. Almost forty comics creators contributed work, and some of the comics themselves are the result of writing/illustrating teams. These artists will donate all royalties from the book to PRISM COMICS, a nonprofit that supports LGBTQ comic creators and readers. In a society where bi-erasure remains a ubiquitous problem, the myriad of supporters behind Anything That Loves establishes incontrovertible queer and bisexual presence. But even as it diversifies the terrain of sexuality, ...

Anything That Loves: Comics Beyond “Gay” and “Straight” is a collaborative project at every level.  Charles “Zan” Christensen, the editor, raised the money to print this gorgeous, full-color, two hundred page comic anthology via a Kickstarter ...
By Emily Villano • 10 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Claire of the Sea Light, by Edwidge Danticat

Ed. note: This is a guest post from Emily Villano. Emily is a recent college graduate and a feminist, living and writing in Central Oregon.

Edwidge Danticat has stated that though her body is in the United States, her imagination lies in Haiti. She writes about Haiti in Brooklyn, NY, with her debut novel Breathe, Eyes, Memory; in the Dominican Republic, with The Farming of Bones, her hauntingly intimate portrayal of the Haitian Massacre; in the fraught memories of state-sponsored torture, with The Dew Breaker; in the U.S. immigrant detention center, with her memoir Brother, I’m Dying. Danticat’s books deftly thread personal and political histories, issues of gender, race, class, and nationality, and evoke a Haiti at once distinctive and ...

Ed. note: This is a guest post from Emily Villano. Emily is a recent college graduate and a feminist, living and writing in Central Oregon.

Edwidge Danticat has stated that though her body is in the United States, ...
By Emily Villano • 10 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat

Ed. note: This is a guest post from Emily Villano. Emily is a recent college graduate and a feminist, living and writing in Central Oregon.

Edwidge Danticat has stated that though her body is in the United States, her imagination lies in Haiti. She writes about Haiti in Brooklyn, NY, with her debut novel Breathe, Eyes, Memory; in the Dominican Republic, with The Farming of Bones, her hauntingly intimate portrayal of the Haitian Massacre; in the fraught memories of state-sponsored torture, with The Dew Breaker; in the U.S. immigrant detention center, with her memoir Brother, I’m Dying. Danticat’s books deftly thread personal and political histories, issues of gender, race, class, and nationality, and evoke a Haiti at once distinctive and ...

Ed. note: This is a guest post from Emily Villano. Emily is a recent college graduate and a feminist, living and writing in Central Oregon.

Edwidge Danticat has stated that though her body is in the United States, ...