Book Review: Trumpet by Jackie Kay

Trumpet is one of the books I have to read for my theories of Gender and Sexuality class. Overall it was an easy read and part of me didn’t want to put the book down. Not because I liked it though, but because I found this book frustrating and infuriating.

The book follows the life of the wife and son of a famous jazz trumpeter Joss Moody after his death. He has a secret though, a secret that not even his own son is aware of. Joss Moody was born Josephine Moore.

I know that there are people who aren’t accepting of queer and trans gender people but I felt like there was little critique of that. It was just kind of accepted as the way things were. Those who did accept that Joss was who he was are presented in a way that they are some how separate from society at large but that their words can be used against them to continue the anti-acceptance diatribe that is present through out most of the book.

I found it hard to like any of the characters. I wanted to like Joss but there wasn’t really enough about who he was for me to feel an affinity towards him. Millie seemed bland and consumed by her husband’s death, which, though understandable, made it hard to connect with her as well, as she did not seem to express her feelings short of living in her own little world. The son and the reporter were infuriating individuals, even though the son is slightly redeemed at the end.

Also, the whole use of pronouns through out the book really got on my nerves. Maybe it’s just me but there is something so disrespectful about using ‘she’ for someone presenting as male, especially after their death. Or assuming that someone is trans because it gets them off or that they were just hiding.

As I always learned it sex is between the legs and gender is between the ears and the two don’t have to “match” in the way society thinks they should. In fact I believe that gender is not a static thing but is in fact fluid and can change.

My Obsession with Ties

Neckties I mean.

As some of you may know one of my friends and I started what we call NeckTie Tuesday. Basically the premise is that on Tuesdays you wear a necktie to question the gendered (and classed) representation of it.

Necktie Tuesday was started because of a coincidence. Both my friend and I decided to wear a tie on the same day. So then we decided that through ties and looking awesome we could start a feminist revolution. Of course we were really only expecting a total of 7 people to join. To our surprise we have over 30 members on our Facebook group. Not many but it’s a start.

The thing that I noticed about my friend and I is that we tend to be much more confident while wearing ties. Like having that thing around our neck makes us a little more likely to say what we are thinking. It actually gives me so much confidence that I have been wearing them to my exams.

So this raised the question. Why? Why does it give us this confidence? What about that piece of fabric is powerful?

For me ties have always been a gendered thing. Only men wore ties. Women were to wear dresses (much to my mother’s dislike I refuse to do that anymore). When I think about ties I generally end up thinking about powerful, rich, white men who get to do or say whatever they want to. So to me by putting on a tie it’s like I get to indulge in a little bit of the power and confidence not normally afforded to me.

Maybe it just ends up gendering the tie even more.

But in the end I think that even when I take off the tie, even if I’m not noticed as much I still get to say what I want to and sometimes I am even heard.

The Pervasiveness of Gender

I had kind of a strange experience today.

I was at the little food shop run by the Student Union today. I was busy using my debit card and the cashier (a female) who was helping me told the next customer “It will be quicker to go to the next cashier because I am still helping him (pointing at me).”

I thought this was weird but brushed it off. Then the debit machine was being weird, just took a long time. When it finally went through I mentioned that I was worried and the 2nd cashier (a male), not the one who was helping me, told me that it was their fault not mine. Then the woman standing beside me said “Oh ok, so we can yell at you (pointing to the cashier) and not him (pointing to me)”.

Now let me just say this, I don’t blame them for this slip up of gender pronouns. I am wearing a tie and my fedora today (yay for Necktie Tuesday). Also I had a pea coat and a scarf on generally obstructing the shape of my chest. My voice was also a little more hoarse than usual as I have a bit of a cold. Overall I might seem more male than I usually would.

I did find it strange that they were both talking about me in 3rd person and that neither of them would look me in the eye. Almost as though I was different and separate, only the guy would look at me and talk to me. I’m not sure it was because everyone thought I was a man or that it was because everyone thought that I was trying to be a man.

More than anything this incident makes me mad because it just shows the pervasiveness of gender in our culture, right down to our very language. There are no pronouns for those of us who don’t “perform” gender “properly”, to use one of Judith Butler’s ideas (though not her wording). One must either be male or female or else you just end up sounding pretentious using words like ‘one’. I believe that our culture (and others) needs an actual unisex pronoun, instead of just using the masculine as such. By using ‘he’ as unisex it erases the femaleness of an object making it completely male.

This can be seen with adrogenous things, my favourite being the trickster Loki ‘he’ actually has both masculine and feminine aspect but by labling ‘him’ ‘him’ the maleness overcomes the femaleness. Thus ‘he’ loses an important aspect of ‘his’ character.

We need something more than he and she.

Why Mulan Isn’t Feminist

Don’t get me wrong. I happen to love Disney Movies, but they aren’t very feminist. I bring up Mulan in particular because I am watching it right now.

It does raise questions about gender roles. Or maybe not questions, it points them out. How odd that the gender roles of ancient China mirror those of today, with a few exceptions (I hope?). But generally Women are still expected to have children and men are still expected to the protectors.

Yes I know that generally this is just historical fact but for me there is not enough questioning of these “facts” to make it seem like it is anything more than just “this is the way it has always been but maybe you can break away from it”.

The first song is all about how the women are hoping to bring honour to their families by marrying a good husband. The songs in the army are about being a man. There are two extremely strict genders in this movie. Men are not women, or girls, they are brave, they fight, and women who are weak stay at home. There is no space for someone like Mulan who doesn’t fit. She cannot please the matchmaker and so tries to become a man. Once it is discovered as a woman she dishonoured and left in the mountains. She fits neither into the role of male or female.

But wait! you say. Mulan runs away from home, poses as a man and saves China. There must be something feminist in that. At least showing girls that they can do anything. Well… yes and no.

Yes in that she over comes many obstacles and is finally triumphant.

No in that she does what she does only out of duty to her father. Selflessness is generally regarded as a female trait. She is not allowed to just be herself in the army. Instead of having to get all dressed up and go to the matchmaker now she must perform to the standards of the Chinese army and be sufficiently “man enough”.

Still she does redeem herself. But when does this redemption happen? Only after she has returned to her role as woman. Once again the reward she receives is honour for her family which she promptly gives to her father. More selflessness rhetoric.

I believe that her return to womanhood is important, as well as her love interest in the Captain Li. It shows that deep down, despite everything she is just a girl and eventually she will learn her lesson and return to “normal”. I believe that this is amazingly illustrated in the Grandmother’s final question of “Will you stay forever?”. As if it doesn’t matter that Mulan obviously exhibits military skill she will get married and raise a family just like every other girl.

Grandmother’s last statement also shows that though Mulan may have challenged society its values have not changed. Mulan is a national hero but yet it is still not accepted that a woman will do anything but marry. She is an anomaly. Nothing more.

To me this movie seems to have less of a rhetoric of “Look girls you can do anything” and more so “Yes girls can do anything but eventually they will recognize their true womanhood and conform”.

This is a sad sad rhetoric for our time. What we need is someone to challenge and change societal values. Someone who is more than an anomaly but part of a larger movement which critically looks at gender roles and revises them, perhaps even making them more fluid.