Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Penguin Canada (2018), 96 pages
Description
"A powerful meditation on the damaging effects of masculinity from a trans girl--a writer with celebrated indie roots and a knack for dismantling assumptions and challenging the status quo. Toxic masculinity takes many insidious forms, from misogyny and sexual harassment to homophobia, transphobia, and bullying. Vivek Shraya has firsthand experience with nearly all of them. As a boy, Vivek exhibited "feminine" qualities. The men in her life immediately and violently disapproved. They taught her to fear the word girl by turning it into a weapon used to hurt her. They taught her to hate her femininity, to destroy the best parts of herself. In order to survive, Vivek had to learn to convincingly perform masculinity. As a girl, she's still afraid. Having spent years undoing the damage and salvaging her lost girlhood, she is haunted by the violence of men, seldom dressing the way she wants in public. As a result she is often still perceived as male, stirring feelings of guilt and self-doubt: Am I not feminine enough? Is this my fault for striving to be the perfect man and excelling at it? I'm Afraid of Men is a culmination of the years Vivek spent observing men and creating her own version of manhood. Through deeply personal reflection, she offers a rare and multifaceted perspective on gender and a hopeful reimagining of masculinity at a time when it's needed more than ever."--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member greeniezona
Drawn in by the high-impact book design, I picked this up from the new non-fiction shelf at the library, and seeing that it is essays on gender written by a trans artist, I had to check it out. (The Tegan & Sara blurb didn't hurt anything either.)
The essays are deeply personal, but they go deep on
This book is short, but hard-hitting.
The essays are deeply personal, but they go deep on
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how gender policing behaviors trap everyone, sooner or later. The people doing the policing, the people being policed, and how everyone involved on all sides internalizes the policing and ends up policing themselves. How policing of gender identity intersects in weird ways with sexual identity.This book is short, but hard-hitting.
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LibraryThing member lydia1879
I used to work for an LGBTQ non-profit, and part of my job was reading and researching books, journals and other forms of media.
It was exhausting. It killed my ability to read for pleasure. I was tired, often, of reading the same statistics, experiencing the same pain the community experiences in
I read everything from more recent, modern texts to memoirs from the 80's, historical documents, comics, personal anecdotes. Largely, many of the ways we experience queerphobia and transphobia have shifted, but the way they make us feel is the same.
Of course, there was so much queer and trans joy too, but I was immersed in these videos, books, journals and magazines personally, professionally and emotionally.
A labour of love, and it was wonderful to hear from so many people in my community. But it was a deep and tiring commitment.
Then I read this book.
People always call Vivek Shraya's work raw, and while it was an emotionality all its own, her level of craft, care and execution is exceptional.
How can I even begin to review this book? To talk about how she examines gender and toxic masculinity, how she relates it to her own experience? Shraya is exceptional because she proves that you cannot critically examine something without speaking to its emotional power.
You cannot critically examine the performative nature of gender without speaking to personal anecdotes. Those anecdotes, those experiences make that concept come to life.
As always, lines in this book floor me completely.
“Queerness is associated with freedom from boundaries.”
I read an exhausting number of queer books for my work, and somehow, Vivek Shraya's I'm Afraid of Men triumphed over all of that and gave me back my love of reading.
I'll always be grateful for that.
And imagine, just for a minute, that you are a trans youth. And you read this book.
Vivek's power is immeasurable, but her love is too.
It was exhausting. It killed my ability to read for pleasure. I was tired, often, of reading the same statistics, experiencing the same pain the community experiences in
Show More
such a volume. I read everything from more recent, modern texts to memoirs from the 80's, historical documents, comics, personal anecdotes. Largely, many of the ways we experience queerphobia and transphobia have shifted, but the way they make us feel is the same.
Of course, there was so much queer and trans joy too, but I was immersed in these videos, books, journals and magazines personally, professionally and emotionally.
A labour of love, and it was wonderful to hear from so many people in my community. But it was a deep and tiring commitment.
Then I read this book.
People always call Vivek Shraya's work raw, and while it was an emotionality all its own, her level of craft, care and execution is exceptional.
How can I even begin to review this book? To talk about how she examines gender and toxic masculinity, how she relates it to her own experience? Shraya is exceptional because she proves that you cannot critically examine something without speaking to its emotional power.
You cannot critically examine the performative nature of gender without speaking to personal anecdotes. Those anecdotes, those experiences make that concept come to life.
As always, lines in this book floor me completely.
“Queerness is associated with freedom from boundaries.”
I read an exhausting number of queer books for my work, and somehow, Vivek Shraya's I'm Afraid of Men triumphed over all of that and gave me back my love of reading.
I'll always be grateful for that.
And imagine, just for a minute, that you are a trans youth. And you read this book.
Vivek's power is immeasurable, but her love is too.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lauriebrown54
This is Shraya’s statement of what her experiences of dealing with men have been like. As a trans woman, she has, as the song says, ‘looked at life from both sides now’. As a boy, she was encouraged to be more male. She did body building, lowered her voice, and mimicked the walk of masculine
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men. She gave up color in her wardrobe, sticking to dark neutrals. Later in life she gave up trying to be what she was not, and started expressing her femininity. Now, instead of being harassed for not being masculine enough, she gets harassed for not being feminine enough. The world- and men in particular- just cannot deal with people like her. The majority of men (and women) want women and men to be firmly at the poles of the male/female spectrum, and so find themselves uncomfortable- and sometimes violent- in the presence of a trans or gender fluid person. This is an essential book for the 21st century, as we learn to view the world as non-binary. Show Less
LibraryThing member Lindsay_W
Sharing intimate details of your life is such a brave thing to do. It is braver still to share these in person at readings. Sadly, when Vivek shared excerpts from her book at Vancouver Writers fest, some audience members misinterpreted a story of unrequited love as a meet cute, rather than the
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threat of violence it was. Once I read the excerpt in context of the book, I realized how hurtful the misplaced laughter must have been. You put yourself out there and get knocked down. This is why Trans people need allies, because they cant’ do the work of increasing people’s awareness all by themselves. Hopefully this book will widely read and go a long way to increasing people’s understanding of what it means to be transgender. Show Less
LibraryThing member villemezbrown
When I'm browsing in the library I find it hard to resist short books with provocative titles. This one challenged me to question my own way of thinking and empathize with a person who is very different from me. While it is fodder for much thought, the fact that it is needs to exist ultimately just
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makes me sad. And I'm in the quandary that I find the book frustratingly short, but at the same time, were it longer I doubt I would have read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member KimMeyer
Tiny and powerful.
LibraryThing member JanEPat
I'm not fond of the navel-gazing and gender obsession of trans people, HOWEVER, this book is so informative about toxic masculinity, it had me from page 1. Well written, as are all of my favorite books.
LibraryThing member thewestwing
A very short but really thought provoking read. Glad I saw this recommended on ‘Bookstagram’ as I don’t think I would have come across it otherwise.
LibraryThing member MickyFine
In this short book comprised of a single essay, Vivek Shraya reflects on the various ways men and masculinity have made her fearful, from experiences in childhood, to her time in her twenties as a gay man, to her time coming out as a trans woman in her thirties. In the process she reflects on how
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we might approach gender in the 21st century and how it has the potential to improve the experiences of everyone regardless of their gender expression. While the book is only a brief 85 pages, it's a thought-provoking read with plenty of ideas to unpack and consider. Show Less
LibraryThing member caedocyon
This is in the same mental category as "Everyone Should Be A Feminist," but much much better executed.
Awards
Lambda Literary Award (Finalist — 2019)
Evergreen Award (Nominee — 2019)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2018)
Rise: A Feminist Book Project for Ages 0-18 (Selection — 2019)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2018
Physical description
7.17 inches
ISBN
0735235937 / 9780735235939