This book was difficult to slog through because it's basically reading a sociology dissertation. There were, however, several important and insightful arguments in it, but I would have preferred a cliff notes version. I'll save you some trouble (gender or not, ha!) and detail what I thought the most important take-home bits were below.
This entire book boils down to the idea that femininity is defined as the opposite of masculinity, therefore anything that negates or works outside of the non-masculine rule breaks the narrative and people's brains implode. This sounds both too simplistic and at first appears difficult to place or understand due to lack of examples, but I'll offer a few from the book that, to me, really cemented the concept.
- Lesbians! What use does a lesbian have for a man? Nothing as far as personal life enrichment is concerned. (Sure, one would hope that no one ignore nearly half the population based on their sex, but men have been doing this for centuries, so it's not like it's unheard of.) So what are the two tropes about lesbians recycled ad nauseam? 1) The two hot femme lesbians who are just showing off for (male) attention. 2) The angry butch lesbo who is there to take down the patriarchy, violently if needed. In both these stereotypes the woman is only relevant in her stance to either pleasure or harm men. There is no sexy lesbian for the bi girls trop. No butch leading hetro women in a feminist movement. There is never any reference to the quiet relationship between two women outside of how it impacts men. Occasionally, you'll hear about some bible-thumper housewife up in arms that her little girl's teacher is a lesbian and she may teach the child to be a lesbian! Then the child will never grow up to marry a man and make babies and follow the #lifescript! I believe we have all heard this story at least once. But how many times have you heard of that bible-thumping housewife freaking out that her little girls teacher is 55 and still not married? I haven't. Because at 55 the teacher is no longer a sex object and doesn't matter to men, however she could still get married to a male and that makes her just the right combination.
- The dreaded childfree! Why do women who chose to be childfree get so much more pushback, from literally everyone, than men who chose the same route in life? The internet is absolutely choking with stories of males walking in and getting a vasectomy nearly immediately (a few exceptions do exist) but females have years long battles spanning multiple doctors and even multiple unwanted/unplanned pregnancies before maybe, finally, getting the snip themselves. The excuse given by these "doctors" to the women invariably falls into the "but what if you change your mind" category, often wandering into "what if a man forces you to change your mind" territory. Parents, friends, co-workers, a random guy on the street, even the rare spouse, all cannot comprehend that a female wouldn't want to go through the most grueling and dangerous natural procedure of humanity, child birth. Excluding the spouse and possibly the parents of only children, someone choosing not to have a child has 0 influence on any of these people's lives. Yet they have to comment, must persuade this woman that she is wrong. Men can get some of this from their mothers/MILs, but not from friends or co-workers and certainly not strangers on the street. Why is everyone so vested in the woman having children then? Because the one thing males cannot do is give birth. Pushing out a child is the only thing a female can do that a male cannot. Making that process the most important thing a woman can do. So when she chooses not to, what standard has society left to hold her to? Simply put: if she's not reproducing (or raising someone's children), she is not dichotomizing herself as everything that isn't male/masculine. Leaving her as ... what? in the eyes of society and social constructs. If she isn't the opposite of a male, what is she?
This is an insightful book, but it could be pared down to a long magazine article and still get as much out of it.
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