Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Continuing my project of improving my understanding of what it means to be transgender, I finally tackled Julia Serano's foundational text on transgender politics, sexism, and the intersections between all sorts of gender-related biases. The book was first published in 2007, which makes it dated in some areas, and was updated for the 2014 re-release, which is already 10 years out of date. An afterword written in 2023 helps to keep it up to date and puts things in perspective, as we enter a new period of virulent anti-trans hysteria (made concrete by a lot of laws being floated, too many of which are passing).   Title: Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity Author: Julia Serano  Publication Information: Originally published 2007, Seal Press (390 Pages). I read the 2016 Kindle edition, with an afterword from 2023.  Source: Library Publisher's Blurb:   In Whipping Girl, biologist and trans activist Julia Serano shares her exper...

 I had a yen the other day for a western to read, and grabbed up a copy of Zane Grey's The Call of the Canyon. This isn't a proper review of the book, but more a rant about it.   The Call of the Canyon, by Zane Grey, originally published 1924. I like Zane Grey. Some of his books have very strong female characters, even if they are all destined for matrimony (he was, after all, writing romances, in both senses of the word). I also expect his novels to focus on the male protagonist, and may at times feel impatient with this. So it was kind of exciting to realize that this book stuck pretty well to the viewpoint of the female protagonist. So far so good. But after he paints Carley as a rather modern young woman, independent (in part because she's lucky enough to be independently wealthy), he starts repositioning her as selfish and self-indulgent. Fine. But what's not fine is the reason why: she doesn't want to "fulfill her destiny" as a wife and mother, subsu...