judith “jack” halberstam on drag, gender and fashionable stupidity ...

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W hen I was in high school I could wear a different outfit every day for three weeks. I had a parttime job at a bakery and also made money babysitting. My father was adamant about my putting a large percentage of my salary in a savings account, which I did, but the other part I spent at the mall. Buying cute outfits made me feel good and look good. Or did they? After moving out to live on my own, things sure changed. I did not have the money to spend on clothes, but like many Americans, I got out the good old credit card and dove deep into debt. Consumerism is in full force in our country — we want everything bigger, better, faster. This is even more common in L.A., where people who don’t make very much money lease BMWs, but have no net worth, financial investments or retirement funds. Women spend much more money on fashion than men do. We also tend to have fewer financial investments, stocks, IRAs and long-term financial plans. According to the National Women’s Law Center, women are the fastest-growing and largest group declaring bankruptcy in the United States. Is fashion a gendered form of consumerist pressure that keeps women from being financially responsible and that forces us to depend on a man or to live in debt? Women should be reading The Economist instead of Vogue, because financial independence can LOUDmouth 13 mean power and freedom. There are lots of places your money could go if you cut your clothes budget even a little: Planning for the future: 401(k), 403(b) or IRA retirement accounts. If your company has a retirement plan and matches your contribution, put in the maximum they will match. This money is put into your retirement account before taxes are withheld and therefore lowers your taxable year-end income. If you have no 401(k) or 403(b), open up an IRA at your bank. Donations to non-profits. These days, I’d rather give my money to Planned Parenthood than to Prada. Time. Money I don’t spend on clothes equals time I don’t have to spend earning money. I can dedicate the time I’ve freed up to community service, yoga, hiking and spending time with family. Lora studies nutritional science at CSULA. She has volunteered for NOW and NARAL and has participated in clinic-defense efforts. To learn more about saving, investing and financial planning, visit one of these sites: www.downtoearthfinance.com www.msmoney.com By Lora Paelicke Amount the average U.S. household spent on men’s clothing in 2003: $335.15 Amount the average U.S. household spent on women’s clothing that year: $562.21 Average amount a man who earned under $10,000 that year spent on clothes: $177.70 Average amount spent on clothes by a woman in that income bracket: $291.07 Average amount spent by U.S. men on underwear in 2000: $2.93 Average amount spent by U.S. women on underwear that year: $75.00 —IC Sources: Household Spending Statistics based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Reports; Best Customers 2000 (New Strategists Publications). Text by Angela McCracken. Art by Sam Combellick.
¿QUIEN LLEVA LOS PANTALONES T he day I was born my father swore that I would never wear pants. For the first six years of my life I wore frilly dresses with matching socks, crinolinas and zapatos de charol a la mexicana. Not for parties, not for pictures only, but every single day. I, however, thanks to a pair of jeans passed down by a cousin, stopped wearing such gear. Since then, I have developed an obsession with jeans and images of females who have traded dresses for pants and the behaviors associated with such. I was first introduced to crossdresser female revolutionaries in Elizabeth Salas’ Soldaderas in the Mexican Military. These images immediately made me think about the absences that exist within Mexican Revolution historiography. The majority of Mexican Revolution published narratives and images have either omitted or distorted the female participants in the military. In the rare instances when they have been included, they have been portrayed as passive, secondary, sexualized, highly “feminine” and always in relation to men. The most popular female image associated with the multiple military factions of the revolution is that of las soldaderas (camp followers). The photographs of these soldaderas generally portray females in dresses, skirts and rebozos. The Course of Mexican History (Meyer, Sherman and Deeds) describes the role assumed by soldaderas in the revolution: “They provided feminine companionship, they foraged for food, cooked, washed, and, in the absence of more competent medical service, nursed the wounded and buried the dead.” These photographs and narratives have erased the diversity of roles that soldaderas performed, regional and class differences and their membership in revolutionary and counterrevolutionary factions. In addition to the absence of diversity amongst soldaderas through such interpretations, females other than soldaderas such as soldadas (soldiers), generalas (generals) and coronelas (coronels) have been completely omitted. In the 1980s there was an emergence of feminist interpretations of female military participants in the Mexican Revolution. Some of these books were the aforementioned Soldaderas in the Mexican ? female subversion and queerness in the mexican revolution By Lucila Chávez Valentina Ramirez Sinaloa photographed by Augustin Casasola, circa 1910 (reprinted in Elena Poniatowska’s Las Soldaderas). Military, Emergence of the Modern Mexican Woman by Shirlene Soto and Against All Odds by Anna Macías. These interpretations were critical in that they began the process of creating an archive of females in the military history of Mexico. They portrayed females as central and active characters and examined female networks for the first time. In addition, the diverse roles that females played in the multiple military factions became visible through such works. For instance, an important class and race analysis emerged from these interpretations in which the majority of soldaderas and some soldadas were identified as “lower class” indigenous women, mestizas and mulattas, while those in positions of power such as coronelas and generalas tended to be middle to upper class and lighterskinned. While these initial feminist interpretations introduced the images of cross-dresser female revolutionaries, they did so through a heteronormative lens in which females were automatically assumed to identify as women and as heterosexual. These initial feminist narratives failed to look at the possibility of queerness amongst cross-dresser soldadas, coronelas and generalas. The photographs generally portray armed females in pants and military uniforms. Queerness is often defined as the desire and/or love between individuals of the same sex, but is also representative of the act of subverting or queering gender. The grand majority of cross-dresser female revolutionaries often participated in creating war strategies, participating in combat and leading other military participants. These characteristics have traditionally been considered masculine, while masculinity has been intricately connected with maleness. While the Mexican Revolution represented the questioning of race and class ideals, for the cross-dresser female revolutionaries that subverted or queered gender, the revolution also represented the questioning of gender and sexuality ideals. María Herrera-Sobek, in her book The Mexican Corrido, writes that Petra Ruiz, also known as Pedro Ruiz and a Carranzista lieutenant, “Dressed so perfectly with male attire and with her hair cut short, nobody suspected her sex; and her thirst for adventure was so great, that she would fight over the love of women with her comrades.” This example demonstrates the existence of female-tofemale desire and love, as well the queering of Petra’s assigned gender. There is also the example of Amelia Robles, also known as Amelio Robles and a Zapatistas coronel, who was famous not only for his fighting abilities, but also for his continued crossdressing after the revolution and his lifelong relationship with a woman. In identifying female masculinity amongst cross-dresser revolutionary females it becomes necessary to ask, Did the questioning of ideals during the Mexican Revolution provide greater access to the expression of female masculinity as in the cases of Petra Herrera/Pedro Herrera, Encarnación Mares and Angela Jiménez/Angel Jiménez? And did such masculinity provide access to positions of power? Why look at the possibility of queerness amongst crossdresser revolutionary females in the Mexican Revolution? It is critical to question not only the absence of queer and cross-dresser revolutionary females in history, but to begin the process of creating an archive of queer Mexicanas/Chicanas and to offer an alternative historical eye. Lucila is a Lotería addict from Boyle Heights. Challenge her to a game: lcchavez@hotmail.com. She is working on a larger research project on this topic. LOUDmouth 14
Page 1 and 2: Issue 9 | Spring 2005 JUDITH “JAC
Page 3 and 4: past A note: After publishing “I
Page 5 and 6: DRESS TO KILL FIGHT TO WINBy Dean S
Page 7 and 8: Joanna E. Gaspar, M.S., M.P.H. Ques
Page 9 and 10: Dear Gwen, Congratulations on your
Page 11 and 12: While engagement with sociopolitica
Page 13: COTTONPICKING AMERICAN APPAREL By L
Page 17 and 18: DRAG, GENDER & FASHIONABLE STUPIDIT
Page 19 and 20: when we talk about a nation as bein
Page 21 and 22: By Stephanie Abraham I. Oppression
Page 23 and 24: in widening my fashion consciousnes
Page 25 and 26: more economically vulnerable than I
Page 27 and 28: A PARADIGM SHIFT IN PROGRESSIVE POL
Page 29 and 30: prestige, most 16-year-olds today c
Page 31 and 32: DOMESTICV DOMESTIC IOLENCESE XUALAS

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