Gender and Art Criticism Essay

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Should Gender be Interpreted?

Kate Bornstein asserts that gender is nothing more than a line in the sand drawn by someone who says, “On this side you are a man, on that side you are a woman.” Kate being a transsexual says that the line needs to be blown away. The person who drew it is making arbitrary claims. However, if we think of gender as a work of art, one could argue that, since all art is open to interpretation, gender can certainly be interpreted as well. Susan Sontag, who writes on the interpretation of art, states that “the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities” (7). The fact is that people are programmed to interpret—they are interpreting everything, from what others say to their own thoughts and feelings. They can interpret their own feelings on sex, sexuality and desire. They can interpret their own gender, as Bornstein does. The big question is whether gender is like art—something that is created on a canvas or on a page or on a screen or on a stage. Shakespeare said all the world is stage—so perhaps everyone and everything is a work of art as well. Should it be interpreted? Should gender be interpreted? Sontag warns that “transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art—and in criticism—today. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are” (13). In a sense, this is what Bornstein says he is doing with his own transsexuality—interpreting his gender in the way that makes him feel most comfortable. What bothers him is when others interpret his presentation of his gender. For example, when other men express admiration for Kate’s beauty, Kate asserts that he does not know how to respond to the attraction of other men—it is not something he ever learned. This paper will show that gender can be interpreted but that at the end of the day there is unlikely to be any agreement over the interpretation just like with most great works of art the critics themselves are often divided.

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Sontag states that “interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for granted, and proceeds from there” (13). Bornstein states that gender is not something that can be taken for granted by everyone, that there is a process of interpretation that goes on even for transsexuals, which Bornstein discovered while in counseling: “For the first thirty-or-so years of my life, I didn’t listen, I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t talk, I didn’t deal with gender—I avoided the dilemma as best I could….it wasn’t ‘til I got into therapy around the issue of my transsexualism that I began to take apart gender and really examine it from several sides” (23). What Bornstein is saying is that his gender was for him something that simply was—and yet its meaning eluded him: he simply did not know what to think. Bornstein was a man? Bornstein was a woman in a man’s body? Bornstein became a woman with a woman’s body—but still had the sensibilities and instincts of a man? Not knowing how to deal with the sex instincts that are associated with the two genders, Bornstein found himself harboring a woman’s body after surgery and yet not having a woman’s mind or instincts—not knowing how to respond to compliments about his appearance from other men. Bornstein writes, “About five months into living full-time as a woman, I woke up one morning and felt really good about the day. I got dressed for work, and checking the mirror before I left, I liked what I saw—at last! I opened the door to leave the building, only to find two workmen standing on the porch, the hand of one poised to knock on the door. This workman’s face lit up when he saw me. “Well!” he said, “Don’t you look beautiful today.” At that….....

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