Sample Essay 2:"Transsexuals, the Eternal Feminine, and the Birth of Zoe" by Carissa Neff
English 210 (01)
7 March 1997
Transsexuals, the Eternal Feminine, and the Birth of Zoe
"Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls . . . ."
--The Kinks, "Lola"
When a child is born, its classification as a boy or a girl is usually based solely on its genitalia. Because of this, children learn very early to label themselves "girl" or "boy" and, consequently these self-labels become an important part of a person's concept of self. Because sex roles carry with them prescriptions for behavior with others, individuals often need to know the sex of the person or persons with whom they are interacting--if for no other reason than to feel comfortable. Thus, people use such indicators as hairstyle, dress, facial appearance, language styles, and nonverbal cues like demeanor and mannerisms, to determine another person's sex.
In literature, however, such indicators cannot be physically seen by the reader. Therefore, the author must create gender out of language, and perhaps the easiest way writers create gender from language is to use the ubiquitous Western culture stereotypes of women and men in describing their characters. However, for many years the female stereo-types in literature have been criticized, mostly by women but by some men as well, as constraining, oppressive, and offensive, among other things. In "Better Be Ready 'Bout Half Past Eight," Alison Baker writes about feminine struggle, although the woman she has chosen to portray is not the stereo-typical woman. In fact, she doesn't begin as a woman at all. Nonetheless, this puts an interesting spin on feminist criticism. After all, what if one arrives at womanhood after having previously been a man? Is asserting oneself as a feminist necessarily important to the transsexual? Does the male-to-female transsexual find female stereotypes as disrespectful and insulting? Or, is the female stereo-type revered and even aimed for in hopes of reaching the Eternal Feminine? Finally, how does gender affect identity, particularly when the two are in opposition with one another?
To explore these questions, I'll be using Baker's short story as an illustration of how some gender roles are used stereotypically and unconventionally within the same text. The subject of gender arrives early in the Baker's text with the first line, "I'm changing my sex." The statement is emphatically announced by Zach who, after 38 years of feeling trapped in the wrong body, begins to go through the process of altering his sex from male to female. Consequently, his best friend for over 20 years, Byron, begins to experience identity problems of his own. Byron's wife, Emily brings a female (albeit sometimes stereo-typical) perspective into the story by accepting, more easily than her husband, Zach's metamorphosis into Zoe.
The changing of Zach's gender means different things to each of Baker's characters. For Byron, the change is most difficult. The gradual emergence of Zoe equates to the death of a friend whom he has known for 38 years, so it's not surprising that he initially denies the news. After all, he isn't merely a doctor conducting research, he's an accomplished poet as well--and poets notice small things. That is, unless they don't want to notice. For example, in the beginning of the story, Zach has already been taking hormones for six months, and is developing female attributes, namely breasts. Yet, Byron doesn't notice this until Zach points it out to him. However, once confronted with Zach's newfound form, he can't get it off of his mind. It consumes him. He sees Zach's breasts everywhere. He even feels faint to first learn that Zach is wearing a bra. After telling Emily about his day at work, she asks if Zach's breasts are bigger than her own. Byron replies that he thinks Zach's have just started. To this Emily replies, "You mean he'll keep taking hormones till they're the size he wants?" and then she adds "I should do that" (5). I found this statement to be such a stereo-typical response from a woman who is stereotypically supposed to be disillusioned with her body. As if to say that that which naturally occurs is somehow lesser than what is possible through technology.
Zach, on the other hand, says, "God, I'm starting to feel good" as he looks at his changing form in the office mirror (4). He is feeling ultimately alive and reborn in the face of Byron's loss. After all, he perceives his gender identity as incongruous with his, now fading, anatomical reality. Soon Zach knows he'll appear as a full-fledged woman in the mirror. As Keith Green and Jill LeBihan note, using Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, "The image of the mirror--both the reflection in the mirror, and the representation of the mirror itself . . . and a character's examination of herself or himself in the glass often marks a textual turning point" (166). Noticing these first signs of womanhood in Byron's mirror is Zach's first epiphany. He is becoming.
However, this metamorphosis into a woman has nothing to do with feminism. Zach is becoming the Eternal Feminine Zoe. Germaine Greer explains the Eternal Feminine as:
[T]he sexual object sought by all men, and by all women. She is of neither sex, for she has herself no sex at all. Her value is solely attested by the demand she excites in others. All she must contribute is her existence. She need never give positive evidence of her moral character because virtue is assumed by her loveliness and passivity. (qtd. in Critical Theory and Practice 234)
What's important to Zach is that he be accepted as female. Feminism means the advocacy of women's rights to be equal to men politically, economically, and socially. But the transsexual has already had a taste of what it's like to be male, so it might not seem as important to assert oneself as a female. The struggle to become female is enough for Zach, why would he, after becoming Zoe, want to struggle for equality? He'd rather have the breasts, the make-up, the bra, and the high heels. In other words, to the feminist, Zach is reaching toward the stereo-typical female, so perhaps the patriarchal symbol still exists to a small degree, even though Zach is leaving his male identity behind.
After all, some issues of central concern to the feminist literary critic include recognizing the power struggle between men and women, and refusing to define masculinity and femininity. Yet, throughout the text, the reader is confronted with power struggles between characters, mostly Byron and Zach, and numerous stereotypical examples of masculinity and femininity. For instance, Zach tells Byron that even though he is changing, he is "still the same person" (5). Byron replies that he's not at all sure of that, and we as readers aren't buying it either. After all, if Zach is, indeed, going to be the same person after numerous surgeries, modifications, and hours of therapy, why go through it? Because he feels that his penis is his enemy (6)? Well, if this is true then he won't be the same person, because he'll be rid of this perceived enemy, and furthermore, he'll be rid of everything else, too--mainly his maleness, and with a new sexuality comes a new self-identity.
Byron knows Zach won't be the same person. The reader catches a glimpse of Byron's struggle to accept Zach when he's changing his son Toby's diaper. Byron says to Toby, "You know what you are, don't you . . . a little man. No question about that" (7). But, babies have no identity associated with their gender yet. Toby, in actuality, has no idea "what" he is. If anything, the strength of the desire to know a person's sex is particularly evident when one is unable to tell the difference between male and female, as with infants. Ironically, in the next scene as Byron heads to the bathroom while starting to pull off his shirt, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Yes, the mirror symbol again. As his shirt frames his face and hangs like heavy hair down to his shoulders, he stops. He inspects his jaw line, takes out one of Emily's lipsticks and puts it on. He, to his horror, sees his mother. The previous scene's "You know what you are, don't you?" seems to symbolically echo throughout this private encounter of Byron and the vision of his mother.
But, as Zach develops into Zoe throughout the text, Byron starts to become more open to the idea of the transformation--of Zach's and his own. He even allows a sales woman to put a little make-up on him, he tells Emily her delicate moustache is "sexy" when she asks if she should shave it. Byron is coming to a point of acceptance. The line between the binary opposing poles grows shorter and shorter as his acceptance becomes more evident. Some of these merging oppositions include male/female, gender/identity, life/death, and friendship/romance. To celebrate Zach's coming out as Zoe, the entire cast of characters scrambles to choose the perfect shower gift for the new woman: lace panties, stockings, and perfume--ironically called La Différence, notably close to Jacques Derrida's term différance, defined as a "graphic example of the process at work" (216). One could argue that Zach, too, is a process at work. Byron, too for that matter has come a great distance by story's end.
Ultimately, "Better Be Ready" is a story of personal transformation and growth. But like "women centered" texts, it defines its characters through their sexual identities, and how these relate to society. Cultural critic Ron Coward defines women-centered novels as:
represent[ing] a fictionalized version of our culture's contemporary obsession with autobiography and with intimate revelations . . . at the heart of this multi-faceted phenomenon is one dominant convention, a type of narrative which corresponds to existing (and therefore problematic) ways of defining women through their sexual personhood . . . these novels are sometimes able to explore the question of how female identity has been constructed and how this relates to society as a whole. (qtd. in CTP 238)
It is clear that sex is one of the major components of a person's definition of him- or herself and others. But like the instruments being tuned at the end of "Better Be Ready," we live in an era when sexual identities can be altered, most times to match the inward identity one feels is in opposition with the outward self. However, when one changes their sex, and consequently their identity, masculinity and femininity must be defined. This is in opposition with some feminist thought. However, these terms can be redefined to move alongside one another, instead of being in opposition. As instruments in the Gestalt symphony of life, each unique sound becomes important to the unified whole.
Works Cited Baker, Alison. "Better Be Ready 'Bout Half Past Eight." Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. Ed. William Abrahams. New York: Doubleday, 1994. 1-25.
Green, Keith and Jill Lebihan. Critical Theory and Practice: A Coursebook. London: Routledge, 1996.
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