In the book Fun Home, Alison Bechdel displays how her family was affected by human sexuality. Not only did she come out as a lesbian, her father was a closeted gay man. Their contrasting expression of gender is shown throughout their lives and as portrayed in the novel.
Alison throughout her novel shows how she denies her feminine side. She displays several circumstances where she challenges societies stereotypes on how a young girl should display themselves. Although her father tries to project his femininity on her, she rejects every one of his suggestions. Her hair style, clothing choices and actions throughout the text show her progressive increase in her masculine side. This is especially highlighted in the fact that she “cross-dressed” in her fathers clothing. It not only rejects her fathers ideals of how a girl should dress, she takes the most masculine clothing out of his closet to dress herself up in. The progression of her denial of her feminine side allows the reader to relate to her coming out as a butch lesbian.
In contrast to Alison’s masculinity, she focuses on her fathers femininity. The way she writes about him, the reader discovers that he is not a stereotypical father figure. He is obsessed with decorating their home in high fashion styles. Alison takes up a whole page in the book to show how there is evidence of her father dressing in a woman’s bathing suit. In this, she says that he has a grace about him, that although he should look awkward he looks natural. He bends the definition of what a man/father should be in our culture through his feminine expression.
At my old school we had a presentation yearly to reduce homophobia throughout the school. In this presentation defined what gender-bending is. We would have the kids name the most masculine man is and the most feminine woman. Then we would explain how there are many people that are spread in-between the two. The main point of the presentation was to explain how gender is fluid and people fit into the spectrum in many different ways. This is shown throughout Fun Home in Alison and Bruce’s expression of their gender and how it relates to their sexuality.
It is interesting to note that you say Alison's father attempted to project his femininity on Alison. I do not intend to discord, but question what is "femininity". Is femininity solely a social construct? Are there not grains of truth in every stereotype? Why do women wear dresses? Does it have to do actions done, circulation of air, urination, or something else entirely? Why is the embellishment of a house feminine? If you raised a child in a society free of society (I won't get into the argument over the definition of society) would they exhibit "normal" characteristics? Are our social constructs patriarchal or even misogynist? Or do they arise merely from the majority of traits women exhibit? Would such an experiment be unethical?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, that Bruce displayed feminine tendencies (referring to feminine as society's perception of it). I think it's interesting that your school actually looked into gender fluidity, because mine did nothing of the sort. It seemed like they really only cared about racism, not homophobia/sexual perception/gender identity/expression/etc.
ReplyDeleteAlthough we as a class have discussed the idea that Bruce was projecting his femininity onto Alison, there really is no direct proof of Alison saying so in the book, so we may just be veered to assume this by Bechdel.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post, the book definitely highlights their sexuality, femininity, masculinity, or lack thereof. I think it would be interesting to look into the ways in which the characters display the opposite as well. For instance- when Bruce is decorating the house in feminine decor, could we see him as masculine when he is lifting heavy things and working hard in the garden? At what points is Alison feminine? I don't mean to be crude, but is she at all feminine at the points in the novel when she is with her lovers?
ReplyDeleteI agree that the story focused at some points on how homosexuality linked with the level of masculinity of femininity that a person shows. In both her and her father's case, they seem to "gender bend".
ReplyDeletei agree with Stasio, there really is no proof of Alison saying that she was a lesbian in the book, i think we DID veer to assume this by Rechdel
ReplyDeleteConcerning Taty's blog and many comments: also remember how complex all of this is. Although Bruce and Alison both gender-bend and are both queer, some people who are non-gender-normative are not queer, and some queer folk conform to gender norms. So many varieties; the beauty of the human condition (to my mind at least).
ReplyDeleteConcerning Stasio and Troy's comments: Actually, Alison-the-narrator explicitly states that Bruce projected his femininity on Alison. Look again at pg. 98 "While I was trying to compensate for something unmanly in him, he was attempting to express something feminine through me."
YOUA SAID: I wished that my school did something like how school did with the feminine and masculine. The reason why I wanted to do an activity like that one is because I was involved with the LGTB commmunity at my school as a inside speaker for the group. I address what should be done, and how it should done with the events we held at school. Which was not close to yours at all. Most of the events were just volunteering, and fund raising. Not saying that that was not helpful because we told the students and teacher we were fund raising for the club, and not a lot of the students at my school even supported us, mostly teachers.
ReplyDeleteI think it's cool how your school did that and was so open about it.
ReplyDeleteIt was weird how Bruce wanted Alison to be his princess but she still ended up being more masculine.
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