thegayngelgabriel's review
4.0
A rich, broad collection. Some of it's aged poorly, some of it feels exceptionally prescient. Not quite my gender(s) for the most part, but definitely some good folks in the general neighborhood. It's good to know your neighbors, everyone.
I started listing out favorite pieces but it got long enough that it stopped feeling entirely useful as an endeavor, which is a pretty positive note.
I started listing out favorite pieces but it got long enough that it stopped feeling entirely useful as an endeavor, which is a pretty positive note.
necromanticfemme's review
4.0
as other reviews have already stated, this anthology is a mixed bag. naturally, not all of the contributors are a monolith and there is a huge, huge variety of opinions and identity and lived experience contained within these pages. some made me viscerally uncomfortable! some were kind of annoying! and there were many more that made me feel seen, understood, or felt like they helped me see and understand others.
i absolutely recommend this to anyone interested in honestly any kind of queer history, even those who have never identified as lesbians, but especially if you do find yourself in proximinity to the labels of butch or femme then i think you might find some really magical use of language in here.
the main word of caution is to just read it all as an array of different people's viewpoints. there are some heavily transphobic undertones in some of the essays, but also plenty that are extremely vocally trans-inclusive, or by trans writers, so just taking what works for you and leaving what doesn't is probably the best strategy here.
overall really wonderful as a more recent work exploring butch/femme, but read with your critical thinking hat on!
i absolutely recommend this to anyone interested in honestly any kind of queer history, even those who have never identified as lesbians, but especially if you do find yourself in proximinity to the labels of butch or femme then i think you might find some really magical use of language in here.
the main word of caution is to just read it all as an array of different people's viewpoints. there are some heavily transphobic undertones in some of the essays, but also plenty that are extremely vocally trans-inclusive, or by trans writers, so just taking what works for you and leaving what doesn't is probably the best strategy here.
overall really wonderful as a more recent work exploring butch/femme, but read with your critical thinking hat on!
wetdirtreads's review
fast-paced
3.5
This anthology, for better or worse, is nothing if not true to its title (ALL ways butch and femme). It really does encapsulate a diverse array of experiences.
I really enjoyed that there were many contributions that weren't just the standard cis, white, middle class analyses that dominate butch/femme expressions and discussions.
Some of my favourite contributions included:
* Never Be Hungry Again by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
* Home/Sickness: Self-Diagnosis by romham padraig gallacher
* Brother Dog by S. Bear Bergman
* Embodying Hunger and Desire with a Fistful of Bliss by Laiwan
* Split Myself Apart by Redwolf Painter
* Rogue Femininity by Elizabeth Marston
* Futch: Thoughts from the Borderlands by Elaine Miller
* Female Masculinity, Male Femininity, Feminine Masculinity, Masculine Femininity...? by Prince Jei and Misster Raju Rage
The downside to the diversity of this book was that there was…in my humble opinion…way too much limelight given to TERF ideologies. And to a lesser extent, SWERF nonsense, too.
Overall, there were many contributions that I absolutely adored, and I still found value in most of the ones that I didn't really care for, too. The only piece I would recommend giving a miss entirely is the one by Victoria Brownworth.
That aside, this book really does have something for everyone to find themselves in. And for that I am very grateful.
(Review originally posted on Instagram)
I really enjoyed that there were many contributions that weren't just the standard cis, white, middle class analyses that dominate butch/femme expressions and discussions.
Some of my favourite contributions included:
* Never Be Hungry Again by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
* Home/Sickness: Self-Diagnosis by romham padraig gallacher
* Brother Dog by S. Bear Bergman
* Embodying Hunger and Desire with a Fistful of Bliss by Laiwan
* Split Myself Apart by Redwolf Painter
* Rogue Femininity by Elizabeth Marston
* Futch: Thoughts from the Borderlands by Elaine Miller
* Female Masculinity, Male Femininity, Feminine Masculinity, Masculine Femininity...? by Prince Jei and Misster Raju Rage
The downside to the diversity of this book was that there was…in my humble opinion…way too much limelight given to TERF ideologies. And to a lesser extent, SWERF nonsense, too.
Overall, there were many contributions that I absolutely adored, and I still found value in most of the ones that I didn't really care for, too. The only piece I would recommend giving a miss entirely is the one by Victoria Brownworth.
That aside, this book really does have something for everyone to find themselves in. And for that I am very grateful.
(Review originally posted on Instagram)
plumeriade's review
2.0
with something so heavily theorized, it's nice to get personal narratives; but then, personal narratives can also be just as grating, self-indulgent, and/or obnoxious as theory sometimes. I liked a handful of these essays: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a wonderful, powerful, smart writer; Victoria Brownworth's commentary on how lesbian identities in the mainstream are being so straightwashed, and the forcing of lesbians to be viewed as sexually available to men, is extremely important; I also enjoyed Sasha T. Goldberg's and Chandra Mayor's pieces, and while I wasn't personally drawn to their essays, Amy Fox's and Elizabeth Marston's inclusion are notable.
that said... now there's a whole lot of essays left that I don't like and/or find terrible. There's the inclusion of a self-centered misogynist (who will go unnamed... their essay in the book may not be so grossly misogynist -- I refuse to read it -- but they sure are on their popular blog); the debatable inclusion of people who are not queer women (by which I mean men); blaming feminism for setting back butch identification by the feminist practice of hating all things male/masculine (Ivan Coyote in the introduction, and also Jeanne Cordova in "The New Politics of Butch"); offering these identities up to cis straight people ("Rogue Femininity"); and then there's the bizarre essay where a gay man talks about doing lesbian porn with his bisexual woman friend -- no, you identify as a man, she identifies as a woman, that is not lesbian in any way!
I wish there was a place for people to read the essays individually, because the essays that are good are really good, but I'm not sure that they're good enough to justify buying the whole thing in all its messy undefined glory.
p.s. alright, I'll admit "Hats Off" still gives me butterflies sometimes.
that said... now there's a whole lot of essays left that I don't like and/or find terrible. There's the inclusion of a self-centered misogynist (who will go unnamed... their essay in the book may not be so grossly misogynist -- I refuse to read it -- but they sure are on their popular blog); the debatable inclusion of people who are not queer women (by which I mean men); blaming feminism for setting back butch identification by the feminist practice of hating all things male/masculine (Ivan Coyote in the introduction, and also Jeanne Cordova in "The New Politics of Butch"); offering these identities up to cis straight people ("Rogue Femininity"); and then there's the bizarre essay where a gay man talks about doing lesbian porn with his bisexual woman friend -- no, you identify as a man, she identifies as a woman, that is not lesbian in any way!
I wish there was a place for people to read the essays individually, because the essays that are good are really good, but I'm not sure that they're good enough to justify buying the whole thing in all its messy undefined glory.
p.s. alright, I'll admit "Hats Off" still gives me butterflies sometimes.
margaret_adams's review
Picked up a copy of this at my friend Dave’s house in Santa Barbara – never met the roommate who it belonged to. A mix of stories, analysis, & stories-as-analysis, some very good, some much less so. The personal is political, etc.
caseythecanadianlesbrarian's review
4.0
Edited by the impressive team of Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman—an adorable married couple (see photo below)—the collection Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme (2011) certainly does live up to its name. It’s refreshing to see an anthology reflect a remarkable diversity of perspectives on these two loaded concepts and identities. It’s exactly what you’d expect from the Vancouver-based Ivan—a storyteller and writer—and Zena—a radical government bureaucrat and gender researcher, and from the fantastic queer-friendliest publisher Arsenal Pulp Press.
See the rest of my review at my blog: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/239/
See the rest of my review at my blog: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/239/
whizzer's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
3.75
Such a fun good read. As a baby butch it was always important for me to reconnect with the history of LGBT people. The book makes sure to not only center cishetero white abled writers, which I appreciate, as someone who is none of those.
The short stories were a therapeutic read for me, the relationships between butches and femmes warmed my hard.In one story, a Femme described perfectly the isolation my attraction to woman caused me after I started presenting as incredibly masculine. My heart goes out to all the femme gays who feel isolated in their own community.
The short stories were a therapeutic read for me, the relationships between butches and femmes warmed my hard.In one story, a Femme described perfectly the isolation my attraction to woman caused me after I started presenting as incredibly masculine. My heart goes out to all the femme gays who feel isolated in their own community.