(Feb. 2017) This book is so many things. At its most basic, In the Darkroom is an exploration of identity. It’s also an intimate account of a daughter’s reconnection to her parent after decades of estrangement. That reconnection came in the form of an email from her father Steven Faludi that was signed, “Love from your parent, Stefánie.” The email announced that at the age of 76, her father had undergone sex reassignment surgery in Thailand and was now a woman.
I have more than a passing understanding of the multifaceted aspects of gender identity. And yet . . . Susan Faludi takes the question of identity to a whole new level and shows the many layers and overlapping aspects of how we see ourselves. Gender is only one of those facets that creates our sense of self. And she explores how gender can also be conflated with other aspects of identity, like Jewishness.
Faludi is a researcher, writer and journalist and a well known feminist too. Yet, I was not familiar with any of her other books or articles before reading this one. She gives a thoroughly researched account of the science and psychology around the work of early “sexologists.” In 1919 in Berlin, [Magnus] Hirschfeld established the world’s first institute to study sexuality, which issued one of the earliest scientific reports on transsexual surgery.
Yet Hirschfeld espoused an ethic directly at odds with the dualism that would come to prevail in the United States later in the century. “The number of actual and imaginable sexual varieties is almost unending,” Hirschfeld wrote in 1910. “In each person there is a different mixture of manly and womanly substances, and as we cannot find two leaves alike on a tree, then it is highly unlikely that we will find two humans whose manly and womanly characteristics equally match in kind and number.”
And there we have it in 1910 – the concept that gender is on a spectrum and is not just a binary.
There is also a fascinating chapter on how feminism and feminists have dealt with the question of transgender women. That has been quite an evolution and she pulls from many published works to show just how varied and passionate the views are among transwomen themselves.
This book also provides a fascinating history of Hungary. While that was most unexpected, I enjoyed learning the history of this country through the story of her father’s life and his family’s history there. It is the most personal of journeys through a country’s long and fraught existence and it comes to life through the impact it had on individuals whose stories emerge through Susan’s relentless pursuit of surviving family members.Read More
(Feb. 2017) I will never hear the phrase “jobs and the economy” again without thinking of this book. The steady advancement of technology into every aspect of our lives is slowly replacing much of our current labor force. There is no politician, no public policy, no regulatory voodoo or tax magic that is going “bring back jobs.” We need to stop believing that just because someone stands up and speaks those words that somehow they will be true.
Most significantly, generalists—such as planners and, one hopes, mayors—ask the big-picture questions that are so often forgotten among the day-to-day shuffle of city governance. Questions like: What kind of city will help us thrive economically? What kind of city will keep our citizens not just safe, but healthy? What kind of city will be sustainable for generations to come? These three issues—wealth, health, and sustainability—are, not coincidentally, the three principal arguments for making our cities more walkable.
hitting 65 in 2011 and will continue to hit that benchmark in enormous numbers through 2026. These are savvy consumers who fully expect to “age in place” in their homes and not in institutions. Quality of care for this growing population of Americans hinges on less restrictive policies for CNPs and APRNs and supporting healthcare models that are financially feasible for nurses to deliver healthcare in a variety of settings that meet the consumer’s needs.
(Feb. 2017) I loved spending time with Michael Eric Dyson – in my car and in my kitchen. Hearing him read his own words felt very intimate to me.