Man-Made Woman: The Dialectics of Cross-Dressing PDF
Preview Man-Made Woman: The Dialectics of Cross-Dressing
Man-Made Woman Man-Made Woman The Dialectics of Cross-Dressing Ciara Cremin First published 2017 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Ciara Cremin 2017 The right of Ciara Cremin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7453 3713 5 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3712 8 Paperback ISBN 978 1 7868 0141 8 PDF eBook ISBN 978 1 7868 0143 2 Kindle eBook ISBN 978 1 7868 0142 5 EPUB eBook This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America Contents Acknowledgements vi 1 What’s in a Dress? 1 2 On the Lavatory Question 23 3 The Aesthetic of Cross-Dressing 53 4 Everyone’s a Fetishist 83 5 How Popular Culture Made Me (a Woman) 123 6 Full Exposure 179 Notes 194 Bibliography 198 Index 205 Acknowledgements I sometimes read in envy the list of esteemed intellectuals that authors thank in their book acknowledgements. Then I think about those I need to acknowledge and the thought of an episode of The Simpsons comes to mind. It’s the one when in front of television cameras the family are sat around the table for a meal and Bart is asked to give thanks. He does so with the words, ‘We paid for this meal, so thanks to no one.’ I wrote this book, so thanks to no one. But in truth there are lots of people to thank whom I do hold in high esteem and consider intellectuals in the best sense of the word, beginning with the two people who read and commented on earlier drafts of the manuscript: the wonderful and multi-talented Janet McAllister and Juliet Perano, friends to whom I express my indebtedness. The publishing process has been fraught with difficult challenges and bizarre situations, none of which I have encountered with my previous books. There were plenty of low points along the way and few highs. Even close to the end I had cause to consider giving up on the project entirely. Once again, I have David Castle at Pluto Press to thank for taking on this project and having faith in me to deliver a book worthy of such a publisher. It appears that this is a controversial topic for a left publisher, or perhaps any publisher, to take on, and so I am more grateful than ever for David’s support, and all the staff at Pluto Press, including the copy-editor, Jeanne Brady. There are many people who have given me courage during the period that I have dressed openly. Some acknowledged here have been a tonic when my confidence was ebbing and have enthusiastically embraced my gender-variant presentation. But there are many more people over the years that have given me courage in respect to my desire to wear women’s clothes. There are friends with whom I have been on strange and fascinating journeys, some of which I have lost contact with or for different reasons may not want to be mentioned here, which is respected. The following list of acknowledgements is a hotchpotch of close friends through to acquaintances that for different reasons deserve a mention. So in no particular order (and my sincerest vi man-made woman apologies if for some reason I’ve neglected to mention you): Suzanne Lloyd; Caroline Blythe; Flint Whincop; Robert Myles; Selina Mitra and John Garner; Lane West-Newman; Rosie Warren; Suzanne Skelly; Angelica Sgouros; Suzanne Woodward and Luke Goode; Carole Wright; Nick Wright; Tracey McIntosh and Steve Matthewman; Julie Lord; Carisa Showden; Liz Greenwood and Adam White; Claire Meehan; Rebecca Scott Bray and Greg Martin; Warwick Tie; Bruce Edmond; the Auckland social sciences admin posse – Suzanne Powell, Faith Cu, Viola Laban, Yogita Nand, Denise Layzell, Kristen Moana Wineera and Nicole Wallace; Jessica Terruhn and Bruce Cohen; Kellie McNeill; students past and present – Monique Warder, Janaki Somaiya, Shannon Walsh, Nils Makauskas, Naoise McDonagh, Bartek Goldmann, Eliana Boulton, Dylan Taylor and Anna Fielder; and colleagues and students in the social sciences not mentioned here from whom in various ways I have taken courage. To those in my midst who are merely tolerant, inwardly bitter or resentful, or who recoil at the thought let alone the appearance of someone who deviates from the gender prescription: get over yourself. The university has supported me with stipends for conferences and research assistants during this period, for which I am grateful. Finally, I’d like to thank Akiko, the person from whom I derive the greatest strength, affirmation and courage. People say, ‘How does she cope?’ How do you cope? We cope fine. Super fine. vii 1 What’s in a Dress? Out of the Bat Cave Without giving prior notice, on 27 July 2015, after a lifetime of looking and dressing as a man in public, I came to work, the University of Auckland where I lecture in sociology, wearing full makeup, a blouse, a black skirt that ended above the knee, pantyhose1 and court shoes. I walked down the steps of a lecture theatre in front of a hundred or so seated students and, without making any reference to what I had on, gave a lecture on popular culture. Cross-dressing at home had not, as I imagined, prepared me for the effect this change would have on my own sensibilities and relationships to men and women, colleagues, students, friends and strangers. I don’t subscribe to essentialist notions of gender, sexuality, or identity. Yet in those places that seem relatively safe in which I do wander dressed in women’s clothes, I feel more at ease in myself, and my sense of alienation in the world appears, if only momentarily, to diminish. People relate to me differently too and, adjusting to this change, I in turn relate to them differently and see myself in a different way. A shift in perspective has made me more aware of the depths of misogyny in our society but also more cognisant of assumptions I’d made about gender. I didn’t cross that threshold as a one-off performance nor, originally, did I expect it would be a permanent change of clothes. I envisaged dressing as a woman occasionally, regularly at first for people to get used to it, but a little less frequently after a while. I expected the novelty would wear off. But it hasn’t. Blockages in my psyche that I attribute to a lifelong investment in masculine presentations are unplugged and now that they are, I wouldn’t want to plug them up again. The change that that first act of ‘dressing’ has brought about is now, two years later, evidently an integral part of my life. And my mind is still awhirl with the implications of this. 1
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