allison's feminine masculinity

 



Throughout the book, we slowly start to piece together Allison's personality. Specifically, her identity as a lesbian. One such scene that really pieces her together is where her and her dad witness a butch trucker entering the place they are dining at. The scene is pictured here, if you need a refresher. 


Allison witnesses this woman in pure admiration. This may be the very first time, or at least the first time Allison recognizes it, that Allison sees a person who she can aspirate towards. To simplify: Allison is drawn towards dressing/looking/acting as a man, though she is still a woman and identifies as such. This trait is not only something that leads her to cause conflict with her father, for example in the first clip where she protests her new pink flower wallpaper, but it also unifies them.

Allison's father expresses his feminity (as a gay man) through Allison, creating the perfect daughter as if she were a dress up doll to play with. This is crucial in understanding a part of the reason Allison is so offput by her father's puppetry of aesthetics, as it is infact supressing her own self expression. As Allison grows up, they begin to learn that they do like similar things, for example the magazine portion of a feminine man's suit. 

This creates a crucial bridge between their two identites, the bridge father and daughter. Together they are reveling in their identity as queer people, though they are polar opposites in every way possible. This is the bridge that finally allows Allison to break the code on her father in processing her father's death, how she is able to understand her relationship with him and the effects it's had in her life. 

Comments

  1. KaraMarch 28, 2023 at 8:42 AM

    I really like how you included the pages as refreshers. I totally agree with you that they are kind of expressing each other in the other. Allison is not really allowed to express herself when she is younger but her dad is able to dress her up and change her room the way he wants. When Allison gets older she is then able to come out and express herself. I think that uncoding this relationship helped her coped with the death of her dad. Great post!

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  2. Luke YouApril 23, 2023 at 8:42 PM

    I find the comparison between Allison and a dress up doll really interesting. I definitely agree with it as we see many times Bruce being somewhat apprehensive whenever Allison talks about wanting to be more masculine. Although Bruce is simply trying to do what he thinks is best for his daughter, it's just not great for Allison's self-expression. I'd say that it's definitely just a product of their times. In Bruce's time period, being queer was much more frowned upon, so it's understandable why he would end up so shameful about wanting to be more feminine.

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