I was searching for bloggy critiques of Levy on bois, and was surprised by how little I found. The two best critiques I found were buried in comments; I’m reposting them here, in the hopes of making them easier for future searchers to find.
So what is a boi? For the purposes of this discussion, boi means “a female-born or female-bodied person…sometimes transsexual, transgendered, or intersexed, sometimes not…who generally does not identify wholly or at all as being feminine, female, a girl, or a woman, though some bois identify as one or more of these. Bois almost always identify as lesbians, dykes, or queers; many are also genderqueer or genderfucked. Bois can prefer a range of pronouns, including ‘he,’ ‘she,’ or gender-neutral pronouns; it’s usually best to ask to avoid offence.” (Quoted from wikipedia).
This is a comment that Starfrosting left on the Gender Theory Livejournal, regarding an article Ariel Levy wrote for New York Magazine. Levy later used a slightly-rewritten version of her article as chapter four of her book Female Chauvinist Pigs.
I have read her article “Where the Bois Are” and as it’s one of the most offensive pieces I’ve read in a long time. I’d like to comment on it. Where to even begin. Levy doesn’t critique misogyny there; she simply interviews some bois who are misogynist and goes on to extrapolate that boi-hood is misogynistic. She writes that the ‘phenomenon’ of boi gender is about “young lesbians [going] beyond feminist politics, beyond androgyny, to explore a new generation of sex roles”; that “boihood has nothing to do with earth mothers or sisterhood or herbal tea, and everything to do with being young, hip, ‘sex positive,’ a little masculine, and ready to rock”–
I don’t want to unpack this endlessly, but to do it briefly:
1) All bois are lesbians? Hmm. Considering that Levy consistently mis-pronouns her subjects throughout the article, I’m a little wary of that judgement.
2) Teleological much? Evidently lesbianism used to be all about valuing and liberating womanhood, and now these ‘bois’ who of course are lesbians regardless of how they self-identify have moved into some wonderful apolitical postfeminist space.
3) Because, you know, being transmasculine means you’re antifeminist and misogynist.
4) Throughout the article there’s this really gross and classist set-up where ‘butch’ comes to figure archaic, working class, and piggish and boi comes to signify hip, new, upwardly mobile, and sexy. Again with the teleology.
5) Elsewhere Levy says that bois “have the luxury to prioritize play and pleasure in a different way [since] worrying about things like male privilege seems old-school and uncool.” This sort of facile ‘feminist’ analysis does not give me much faith in her book, or much of a desire to read it at all.
I know the points I’ve made have been somewhat disconnected and only relevant to a bit of the author’s work, but I just had to say something as I found her article not only incredibly transphobic, but not at all rigorous in its analysis of masculinity and sexuality, to put it mildly.
(To be fair, the identification of bois with lesbians is pretty common, not something unique to Levy; see, for example, the Wikipedia definition I quoted at the start of this post.)
The second comment I want to highlight is comment by one by Piny, which he left on “Alas” last year:
I read that chapter, and have read some of the book. I agree with her central premise–that sexualization is not sexual autonomy, and that some people seem confused on this point–and understand that ftms and bois make up a brief chapter in a book that’s about, y’know, women. Still, for fuck’s sake.
She claims that transitioning has become (I may be paraphrasing slightly) “so widespread as to be faddish.” She has a great deal of evidence to believe that people, queer women in particular, fear this and believe it to be true. It’s certainly true that transition is more common than it was when it was virtually impossible. She has no reason to believe that transition is a hot new trend, or any reason to believe that it’s _too_ common, and she doesn’t cite any numbers at all.
She also based her ideas about ftms on an interview with exactly one ftm, IIRC. That’s like using any given lesbian (possibly Susie Bright) to form opinions about all lesbians (including Sarah Hoagland). She took a very heteronormative view of bois, which was disappointing, and she accepted the lone transsexual’s statement that you can draw a thick black line between “boi” and “ftm,” which a lot of people in both groups dispute. She decided that “bois” became bois because they didn’t want to be adults. I also recall a discussion on an ftm livejournal community about her article, “Where the Bois Are,” much of which found its way into this book. Most of the commenters were extremely disappointed by her language and her limited portrayal. One commenter said that a friend of his who was interviewed in the article had done a snarky, sarcastic impression of a stereotypical boi that was then quoted as though in propria voce.
All in all, I wasn’t terribly happy with it.
I’ll just say that I know a lot of feminist ftms and bois. I know a lot of ftms and bois who don’t feel compelled to present that kind of stereotypical brittle masculinity, but I don’t think it’s fair to see that as an act of courage on their part. Basically, we’re like everyone else: when we feel safe and comfortable being gendervariant, we are. When we have role models that aren’t traditional, we feel no need to be traditional ourselves. When our community doesn’t condone woman-hating, we don’t.
Although I think that critiquing misogyny is always a good thing, I’m bothered by critiques that read sexism among bois, butches, and ftms as a special phenomenon or something especially related to transition–or a new thing, considering that butches have been around for a long time. It’s how people behave when they live under patriarchy. Their sexism isn’t much different from that of other men.
Jessant wrote: Levey bothered me because the impression you get from her portrayel of bois and trans-men was that these women were fleeing from their own gender to take on male privilege, and it’s even more damning if you look at it in the context of the book, which is basically arguing that some women are trying to take on more power by stepping on the backs of other women by accepting sexism and women-hating.
Yes, exactly! And don’t get me wrong, ftms get male privilege by transitioning. (There was a discussion of this on livejournal some months back, and one commenter wrote, “People assume I’m competent now!”) And bois _definitely_ receive a kind of male/masculine privilege in queer circles that are sexist. But that doesn’t mean either that we understand that when we do cost/benefit analyses, or that we transition because of it.
(Comment from elsewhere in the same thread: Lauren asking “When the hell are you getting your own blog, Piny?” Heh.)
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.].
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Thanks for the nod, Amp. I really did appreciate the opportunity to have that discussion. Some stuff’s been going on over at my blog about bois and ftms with queer women. I should probably blog about it, but I’m dragging my feet.
Yeah, well, her writing and your experiences have nothing to do with mine. It’s not a good idea to assume that any stereotype is true, or to give much credence to someone who speaks as though they are. That’s my problem with Levy: either she’s talking out of her ass, or I don’t exist.
Sexual and gender communities vary widely. Perhaps you are both accurately classifying the experiences you are having, and are simply drawing your examples from different portions of the population.
Except that only one of us is arguing that Levy’s general statements about all bois are okay. I don’t object to the argument that some bois are immature, misogynist assholes. I object to the characterization of bois as a class as immature, misogynist assholes.
Bean, I get that you referred to your experiences. Then you used those experiences as support for an article that didn’t portray one individual’s experience, but rather attempted to argue a generalization–a really insulting one. Plus, which bois are you referring to? According to thinkers like Levy, Nick and I qualify. We certainly aren’t ftms, as far as she’s concerned.
I misread you, then; it sounded like you were saying that you know you’re not supposed to believe stereotypes, but when they’re so goshdarn accurate, why wouldn’t you?
I have not attempted to negate your experience. My experience has been that some bois are indeed misogynist assholes, while others are not. That has been borne out by personal interaction and the bois and asstd. other transmasculine people I’ve encountered here, at feministe, and at associated blogs. Hell, I take myself into account when I ponder the justice of boi=misogynist asshole.
Can both be true? That Levy wrote about an experience that, within certain communities, is widespread enough to stop being a stereotype, and that you are nothing like the community of bois that others experience?
I’ve learned a lot from you Piny, precisely because you diverge quite radically from the bois and the transgendered kids I know and their philosophies. *If* all I had to go on was my face to face interactions with the bois in my lesbian community, I would not be able to conceive of you or your politics.
And here’s the little kicker (at least for me) — I can see how the bois in my neck of the woods might just very well embrace the truth that you, as Piny, bring to the table. But there seems to be a social pressure at work that keeps this honesty at bay, so that transgenderism and bois are about social positioning, and not about the relationships of individual persons with their own deeply intimate selves. Bois, around here, seem to want the middle-class bad-boi/frat-boi lifestyle. And maybe that’s much more about age than gender. But it is large enough to not be a phenomenom; it is a lifestyle and an ethos. And as challenging as transitioning can be, or as challenging as transgenderism is, a lack of social critique and a blind eye towards community expression is questionable at best.
despite the fact that i too have had experiences with young boi’s that were less than feminist-affirming, ariel levy’s portray was definitely one-dimensional and snarky – only a few encounters of boi’s described – the title of the book should suggest already somebody with an agenda. I think it is also true that boi is “faddish” but so are all the other attitudes adopted by people, which does not cancel the individual gender variances that must be respected in order to provide a truly accurate psychological portrayal, if possible at all.
her attitude hearkens back to the dark ages when men were the enemy – because boi’s have some gender-identification with supposed traditional masculinities, she automatically casts them in an unfavorable light. i think that’s swinging the pendulum too much the other way – that chapter would have benefited from a larger cross-section and a more empathic eye.
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Yes, although I really don’t want to lose sight of the fact that the article was a hack job that didn’t acknowledge diversity in any way, shape, form, or place. (I also don’t think that had to do with an accident of geography for her–New York’s a big place, and the interview with the single ftm was almost certainly just that; I’ve seen that token extrapolation before. I think she was being sensationalistic and lazy.)
However, it seems like there’s probably some observational selection at work. Communities organize around political beliefs, too. I don’t hang out with bois like the ones she describes or the women who seem interested in them, and that means leaving behind a lot of community space they inhabit. I also see a lot of overlap between queer-politicized and preferences outside butch-or-boi/femme.
I appreciate that. I’ve gained a much more diverse picture from interactions with feminists and queer women online, as well–including some of the people I initially dismissed and people I have no access to IRL.
I’m not sure it has that much to do with transitioning per se; I get the sense that the negative pressure has much more to do with being male or masculine. You could argue that there’s even more of a reactive impulse for transpeople to deal with, but I’m not sure it makes that much of a difference given the amount of gender adherence I see on the part of most people. I think that it is possible that this is adolescence, either in terms of youth or new change, but I know that people don’t always grow out of immaturity unless they’re challenged. I don’t excuse misogyny–or apoliticism that condones it–for any person at any point in life. What do you think these bois might look like if they were more in touch with their intimate selves?
And this, of course, has increased the number of feminist and gender-progressive bois and transmasculine people I know. Being young and single and in a position that gets fetishized from many sides, of course I’ve come in contact with plenty of assholes, but I’ve probably had greater opportunities to find people I can stand.
Oh, fine. Lob me the easy question, why doncha?
:p
I get an overriding vibe from my community that transitioning is part of the new hipster scene. Although I don’t think there is direct correlation between the two, that’s how it plays out around here. And what I mean by transitioning is those kids who start out at 17 or 18 sneaking into the lesbian bars/hang-outs, living a few years as lesbians, and then either philosophically transitioning to a transgendered ethos, or physically transitioning through surgery or T to a transsexual reality. So what I meant is that I see what looks like a highly personal (and deeply intimate) transition playing out in an almost pop-culture, club like atmosphere. That being said, transitioning has to happen somewhere!
I’m not trying to imply that these young adults lack insight or self-reflection. What I see is a strange correlation between this intimate transformation and the public manifestations of a roughly configured boi-culture.
Ok, and so in writing that I don’t think I’m any clearer than I was before. I need to think about this.
Piny, you don’t think this is just geographical, as in, NYC – but I might point to her method of selection of subjects – going to the trendiest bar. Natch, this is going to attract more trendy, immature people than going to the local MCC and asking to talk with the youth group or going to a lgbt prom or …. I might also add, what is so wrong about a 22-year-old sounding a bit sex-crazed and ditzy when interviewed at a bar? That’s the nature of the average middle-class-raised childless 22 year old, whatever the orientation. They often sound more mature in daylight.
New York Mag. has been the reporter of NYC trendiness since it began. It doesn’t want to report on FTM lawyers or pastors or scientists or….. (any FTM who spends more time thinking about job, home, partnership or family responsibility, etc than about sex).
Hi all,
I came across this discussion and I thought I would add to it. I have done a research project for an M.A. I interviewed young FTM,butch,and masculine identified trans individuals about their masculinities. I didn’t think anyone I spoke was a misogynist at all. In fact I was told there is intense pressure within some lesbian community circles for individuals to be feminine not masculine at all.FTM’s who had spent a lot of time identifying and living as lesbians noted the cult-like atmosphere of some radical lesbian feminist circles.The individuals I spoke to were very politically aware and their identifications with masculinities and men did not make them misogynists. I read Ariel Levy’s chapter on bois and I think her assumption is that identifying with and acting like a particular masculinity makes you a misogynist,non-commital masculine stereotype.So she just looked for who and what fit her agenda. I see no compelling evidence to the contrary. If I follow her logic then a butch or an FTM who wants to adopt a particular kind of masculinity and for some any kind of masculinity at all it seems then that they must be brainwashed dupes of the patriarchy. That’s what the notorious transphobe Janice Raymond said about FTM’s and wrote a whole book about how evil MTF’s are and how all trans people are sick, duplicitous impersonaters. Butch-femme relationships got the same kind of nasty treatment in the 70’s and 80’s. After reading her whole book I think Levy’s message is the same as that of the gender essentialist cultural feminists like Susan Brownmiller ,Andrea Dworkin,Sheila Jeffreys,and Janice Raymond. They don’t understand irony or subversion,and they believe strongly in two sexes,genders,and sexualities.They hate any desires that don’t fit their views.This is not a progressive or thoughtful group of thinkers to be inspired by and Levy is not an integrative feminist she doesn’t see how everything she discusses from pornography to trans identity is an issue of intersectionality. While I agree that women and bois need far better representation and that people should not embrace roles that may limit them in important ways I find Levy’s book superficial overall,it’s “radical feminist lite” complete with all their flaws.Levy needs to examine her own privilege in speaking about people who lack her institutional and class powers.She is I believe a non-trans white upper class straight American woman.She’s holding a lot of privilege there and does not acknowledge it at all from my perspective.
ooh, really glad someone took this on. will be back to read more carefully later. just off the top: yeah, that’s something that got missed in all the other brouhaha.
i just wondered if someone writing from the perspective of an (out) lesbian/queer person would’ve maybe taken a different tone, not so much maybe the bois per se, but the stuff about the “hetlez” chicks supposedly only making out for the boys’ benefit. i always thought: well, how do we know they’re -not- enjoying themselves, also? that that isn’t a stepping stone, for some of them, the first acceptable chance they’ve had to try being erotic with another woman. or for that matter, just casually bi and/or get off on exhibition?
anyway. more later.
oh, and: I’ve been around the East Village “scene,” not extensively enough to really speak authoritatively, but enough to be annoyed at what at the time of my reading the book felt like a…an anthropological approach, yes. and it seemed an odd leap, sloppy, from all the hetlez, mainstream raunch, blah blah, to suddenly this very specific scene and a factionalization (or something) within an already “alternative” scene.
mostly i thought the book was like the Cliff Notes of what it should’ve been. she left out any reference at all to most of the “sex positive” writers and activists that (as i always understood it) were part of that gap-bridging between those earlier feminists and now; she makes it sound like it’s -all- just corporate/patriarchal backlash. i thought, at the time. i need to read it again, i expect.
Borked the markup again.
By the way, Amp, I’m getting a “Gateway error” when I try to post, although the posts do seem to go through anyway.
Is “choosing to be masculine” a lifestyle choice? If you say it isn’t, then in what way is “choosing” an appropriate word? If you say it is, in what way do you part company from the Rightwingers?
Do you regard “choosing to be masculine” to be more of a choice than other purported choices you identified. Do you regard it to be more of a choice than “choosing to have a gay lifestyle”, etc?
OK, I can see from your use of scare quotes that you consider “masculine” to be a choice and, “gay”, “lesbian”, “bisexual” and “trans” to be not a choice. Now lets go back to what you said:
So you’re talking about FTM trans, and you seem to be saying that the “trans” part of that is not a choice, but the “FTM” part is a choice. But if they could choose not to be FTM, then they wouldn’t be trans, no?
This can get confusing, in part because “transmasculine” is sometimes used to mean, “spectrum of male identities among ftm and ft? people,” which necessarily includes transmale high femmes.
Masculinity =! maleness, which means that you can be transmale for reasons not related to choice but still choose the ways in which you present yourself as male. I certainly didn’t choose to need to transition, but I chose and continue to choose how I behave as a man; at the moment, my choice is to not be masculine.
Moreover, bean is not saying (so far as I can tell) that it’s offensive to her when ftms choose to present themselves as masculine, so long as they do not choose a masculinity that defines itself through abuse or denigration of women. There are other options out there, and other ftms opt into them; not all men are frat boys.
Daran, I believe that what she’s saying is that although being transgendered may not be a choice, embracing the (deeply disfunctional) social trappings of your new gender is a choice.
Masculinity does not automatically come with being male.
Femininity does not automatically come with being female.
So if you’re biologically female but you identify as male (which is not a choice), that’s not an excuse for adopting the misogynist properties of traditional masculinity and hooting at women on the street and attending monster struck rallies and shit like that (which would be a choice).
Please forgive me, Bean, if I’m putting words in your mouth that don’t belong there, but I think this is your meaning. Hopefully this makes things a little clearer for Daran.
O.K., I tried googling “boi” and keep getting “Bank of Ireland” and “Board of Investment” and such. What’s a boi, and what’s an ftm?
Exactly. I mean, assuming Bean wasn’t making a completely different point.
And like you say, I didn’t mean to come off as though I was ignoring the historical connection between conventional masculinity and misogyny; there are other options, but they depend on a more flexible definition of masculinity than is always acknowledged.
Most of us are trained to some extent, and most of us engage in some kind of self-conditioning throughout our lives. If there were no calculated aspect to masculine presentation, or conventionally male presentation, there would be no such things as passing tips.
Ron, FTM stands for “female to male,” i.e., a female to male transsexual. The term “boi” is defined in the second paragraph of the post.
Gosh I hope not. I don’t hoot at women or attend monster struck rallies (whatever they are. Did you mean to write “truck”? I’ve been to a couple of biker rallies, as part of the hired entertainment. There seemed to be a lot of women in that culture, but I am not. I’ve never even ridden a bike.)
None of my male friends hoot at women either; they probably wouldn’t remain friends for very long if they did.
But it never occured to me that I was excluded from traditional masculinity by this. Gosh. Maybe I should practice my hooting. (Not.)
Anyway, back to what bean said:
I don’t see her saying anything about “identifying as male”. I agree that she’s not saying that “choos[ing] masculinity” is objectionable per se. However she quite clearly is framing it as a choice, and it’s still not clear to me how this differs from a typical rightwing framing of the issue.
Maybe there’s no difference in the framing as such. Maybe the only difference is that she doesn’t regard it as objectionable per se, and the rightwinger does. I don’t know.
Gosh I hope not. I don’t hoot at women or attend monster struck rallies (whatever they are. Did you mean to write “truck”? I’ve been to a couple of biker rallies, as part of the hired entertainment. There seemed to be a lot of women in that culture, but I am not. I’ve never even ridden a bike.)
Yes, and you can choose whether or not to do these things. Feminists like bean can criticize you for choosing to do misogynist traditional-masculine things and applaud you for choosing not to do them, without placing a constraint on your behavior that is either as heavy or as unjust as the one rightwingers seek to burden queers with. It’s not transphobic or bigoted in general to say that some things are choices, when they in fact are, or to argue that they are bad choices, when they in fact are.
I know I’ve already weighed in here, but I’m just going to basically repeat myself. I know a number of FTM trans. I certainly wouldn’t assume that all of them are misogynists, and I know a number of them who are out-and-out feminists. However, the vast majority of them are most definitely anti-feminist at best, misogynist at worst. It’s not simply the fact that they choose masculinity that I see this. I see this in what they say, how they act, and what they do. It’s like they’re in competition with the worst of the frat boys — and they’re definitely “winning.”
bean,I wouldn’t deny your experiences with FTM/trans guys.If that’s what you’ve observed then I guess that’s how those particular individuals were in those contexts.However, I think it is problematic to claim the vast majority of any group of people is one particular way. That would be like me saying something like “the vast majority of women are nice”. In order to agree with such a statement I’d have to agree about who a “woman” is and what “nice” means.I think “woman” is a fairly open category while others would say it isn’t at all.Ariel Levy does not distinguish adequately between bois and FTM’s she seems to lump them together unfairly.Some FTM’s do not even identify as trans at all or FTM for that matter. .I really don’t think she did enough research to start characterizing people in the generalized manner that she does.I certainly wouldn’t take my own research to be the universal truth.I ‘m comfortable saying that some lesbians,some FTM’s, act in certain ways or hold certain beliefs but certainly not all or a majority.I don’t think it is a good practice to put people in boxes ,to totalize,or to stereotype,as tempting as it is sometimes,and of course I think the other important question to ask would be why do these people act this way and for what purpose? Feminist theories and practices can alienate people especially if they are misinformed about its purpose and goals to begin with. I would want to hear from these FTM/trans guys or bois who are misogynist as you describe them ,to hear them talk more about their identity and what they perceive their relationship is to those they are attracted to. Levy does not take a richly detailed or deeply thoughtful approach in her book to any subject really.Since Ftm’s and bois are part of smaller communities who face serious marginalization from various parts of society she should’ve treaded very lightly here,but she did not.
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