Andrea Long Chu

I have a lot of thoughts about this book and my understanding of it will change even more from the time I write this, but here's a snippet of a journal entry that gets at what the book is up to. It's good and you should read it if you are interested at all in gender or rhetoric around talking about gender.

I find it challenging to keep her meaning. She plays a language game, redefining “female” to be a totality, which describes the human experience of having your desires set for you, by a lover, by society, by anything other than “the self” (which she does not define). She claims we are all female in this way. Ok. As she says, we are all female and we all hate it. Then she describes the political as being the domain of things that act to perpetrate desires on others. (Whose desires?) In this way, the political is “anti-female.” Ok. I can follow. But then she invokes the term “male,” I think in the way its normatively called upon as apart from her rhetorical frame. But she doesn’t define it. So I’m not sure what she means. I’m also not convinced of the necessity of making what was previously a category demarkation into a unity; it sort of dissolves the meaning. Rhetorically, obviously she’s trying to invoke the connotations of the word female to bear upon her new definition, but if you eschew that rhetoric (because she never says it’s necessary or that that’s what she’s up to) it doesn’t make much sense. Also, isn’t it obvious that if we have self-generated desires, then to achieve those desires we’d need to engage in the political, especially if we find others who share in those desires, as a means to achieving them? Maybe her point is that that sense of political unity _as means_ is anti-female (in her terms). It’s strange, but interesting. It feels like wading knee-deep through a swap of language play, part metaphor, part denotation, part philosophy, part manifesto. Then she’ll say some shit to the effect of “the SCUM manifesto turned me into a lesbian” and I just sigh. But it’s enjoyable to read. Like stretching… (mais)

So I will say this was not as horrible as I was kind of expecting, based on the reviews of folks I trust. I don't know that the form was exactly right for highlighting the most work; I've read reviews about Chu not committing to the bit and I would definitely agree with that; she seems to pull back from her arguments just as they're hitting a real peak, or getting near interesting.

I think what was most interesting for me was Chu interrogating Valarie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto frequent inclusion as a feminist text, and that frankly Chu's argumentation following the logics in Solanas's work reveal the claustrophobic world Solanas's work creates. Probably the other most interesting part for me was the section on pornography, but otherwise I was left kind of "meh" by the end.… (mais)

hmm not sure how i feel abt this one exactly. another work in a long line of (lesbian)feminism's greatest clowns...commitments to a bit (to borrow from chu) that run wild think jill johnston, dworkin, wittig, SOLANAS herself, though she really did put her money where her mouth was bless her heart. we love them because they r so invested in arguing their sometimes bad points til they're outta breath & paper. but they're good writers & we r along for the ride. id almost be offended but im not a female im the bullet lodged in andy warhol's liver. keep on keepin on~… (mais)

ugh. this book

andrea long chu understands the taoist concept "yin" w amazing insight and erudition. the problem is that she, without self-awareness or irony, does not realize the existence of "yang"

there is neither a sustained argument against the existence of yang, nor a paradoxical rejection of it. instead, a lacuna in the text accrues an irritating mix of incoherent nonsense and embarrassing projection

there r some bits of good analysis here and there, like her interpretation of reddit red-pill/incel guides vis-a-vis the SCUM manifesto, her commentary on the feminisms of Catherine MacKinnon and Janice Raymond, her examination of the historical construction of scientific "sex", and discussion of yoko ono's famed "cut piece"

i need not detail chu's embarassing projections and self-exposures, which distract more than they reveal (or rather, they reveal little abt the argument, and reveal quite a lot abt the author)

theres a lot thats bad abt this book, but ill finish by listing her intellectually dangerous and harmful gestures; namely that she (counter)subversively validates the claims of various transphobic, sexist, bigoted institutions, eg: the DSM's listing of "gender dysphoria", bailey/blanchard's theory of autogynephilia, sexist commentary on jamie loftus, liberal-feminist denigration of kink generally, liberal-legalist denigration of independent sex workers specifically, etc… (mais)