My rebellion against my assigned gender began when I was very young.The limitations and the rules about what I could and could not do as a girl where excessively frustrating to me.I called bullshit, and I was usually right to do so, but there were some times where I might have overcompensated.I was right in kindergarten to tear off my shirt despite my teachers’ protests and annoyance.We were changing our shirts, and the line for the girl’s restroom was ridiculous.The boys were just changing in the classroom and so would I, damn it.My temper tantrum over wanting to be a boy scout and not a brownie was semi-reasonable, but I probably would have had more fun if I had just rolled with it.Or if someone had explained to me that Brownies do more than bake desserts.That was information I needed.I might have been too busy bitching to hear that explanation from my mom.
It was no different when my parents handed my A Little Princess.I was aggravated.I hated princesses.I hated the girl’s bonnet and fur trimmed coat on the cover.I hated the doll the girl held in some of the pictures.Did my parents know me at all?Turns out, as per usual, they knew (know) me better than I knew (know) myself.I fell in love with the book.It was magical.And the girl was not a feeble-minded, weak, girl-child.She had some tomboy in her, like myself.
This is the exact copy I was given all those years ago.It still has an old bookmark, a $3.00 bill I made for my imaginary town, Snow Town, where I lived as a penguin with my wife who was also a penguin.My name was Tux and hers was Peppy.Magical.It will be hard to let this one go.
I fell in love with Cunt: A Declaration of Independence when I was 16.It got me excited.I proclaimed that I would buy 100 copies and give them all away for free before I died, just to spread the word.I wrote Inga a letter telling her about my plan, thanking her for writing, and asking her to sign a book.She sent back an autographed copy and some Cunt stickers I carried around with me, never deciding on where they would get their best use.
I did buy quite a few copies of Cunt.I gave them to friends.I bought the revised copy.To this day, I still have one of the original yellow books, one of the revised blue books, and the autographed yellow copy.I quit buying them right as I got into college.I was reading so many amazing things.It just kind of faded away.It was not until much later that I found my disappointments with the book.
Despite my growing distaste, I continued to buy her books.It meant so much to me at 16, and that means something no matter what I learn, feel, think in the now/future.
I just pulled Rose off the bookshelves and read it for the first time.I was disappointed.It was all over the place and never seemed to come together in any real way.The chapters were labeled differently, but I so often felt like I was reading the same thing over and over and over.It is her stream-of-consciousness, blunt writing that is her strength, but it can also be her weakness.I like that she does not write as if she is smarter, more educated, wiser than other people.I like that she says things that make sense. I worry when she compares the opening of a Wal-Mart to the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan.It feels like a painful and inaccurate comparison even though I agree that Wal-Mart does terrible things.I could even think of a lot of ammunition/information to throw behind the argument that a Wal-Mart opening could be like a bomb—but I did not get it from her.She mentions is, but she drops it quickly and moves on, like almost everything else.I do question some of the research, statistics, information she sites.There should be a good way to not fall into the rut of academic writing but still give me a clue as to where you got your information that rape has gone up dramatically since the Iraq War (and things like that).I do not doubt that it has, but I want to know more about it and read more about it.
I have disdain for the use of “retarded” in the first Cunt and for the flippant anti-prostitution analogies used in Rose.I just do not see the need.I think it is unnecessarily hurtful, though possibly unintentional.Just, if you are asking us to think about our words then think about yours.
I think Inga is a great activist, a passionate writer, and probably a loving person.I am just not so easily amped up anymore.I have grown and changed.I am no longer moved by the language and voice I once was.Again, I am still thankful for that energy I was given as a teenager, but in the future I hope to read far more useful books on the same topic.We do need to find love in these violent times, afterall.
