Leslie Feinberg’s To Be or Not to Be
By Zoe Jeske
After reading Leslie Feinberg’s brilliant piece To Be or Not to Be, I was intrigued by the concept of Gender Theory. I had been facing the consequences of this strict social construct for most of my life, and for the first time, someone had put this shared experience into words. Feinberg writes that gender theory is the socially constructed idea that there are only two genders. As a result, children are raised to believe you either present gender with femininity or masculinity. In the words of the author, “…There are men and women…end of discussion.” Furthermore, society dictates that there shouldn’t be and will not be a discussion around this patriarchal system where men take the lead while women are taught to please. These strict gender stereotypes leave little to no space for those people who do not identify an either extreme of the spectrum.
To say that these ideas are ingrained into us from a young age is a grave understatement. Before we are even welcomed into the world, our gender will put us into a box. The fact of whether a baby is a girl or a boy will determine much of their future. From how they’re raised to how they will be treating the coming years, the gender stereotypes tame us into good citizens of a deeply broken patriarchal system. Throughout the piece, the author, Leslie Feinberg, referenced how we are continuously taught how to perform our gender roles. Much like the author, the bigger influences in my life that taught me how to perform gender were my family, school and the media. This made me question the people and institutions which have taught me how to “do” gender throughout my own life. In the words of another one of my favorite LGBTQ+ feminist authors, Glennon Doyle, “Who was I before the world told me who to be?”
The first people to teach me the fundamentals of gender were my family members. While I know that their problematic attitude stems from the fact that they were raised in the same sexist system, I hated push back I received on my not so girly persona. Growing up as a total tomboy who loved all of the “typical” boy things, I was constantly told to act like a lady and use my manners. For example, my mom would purposely give away or donate some of my more sporty outfits and fill my dresser with more girly options. Since then, she has learned to accept the wide array of my sports jerseys and flannels, but she still buys me some fancy dresses in case I change my mind. I also distinctly remember this causing a problem at school. In third and fourth grade my teachers would call home concerned that I was losing all my friends. This issue arose because I was the only girl who chose to play in the large scale soccer match. My friends argued that they didn’t want to play with boys and get dirty, so they left. My teachers desperately tried to make amends between other girls and me, but I never saw the issue. Yet, I found myself shifting away from what I wanted to do, toward what I had been taught to do. Every outlet in my life was pushing me to become the good, agreeable girl I had grown to resent so much. I had been forced to play nice or not to play at all.
In her novel, Untamed, Glennon Doyle describes these pressures to adapt Feinberg’s gender theory notion as being “tamed.” She argues that many girls eventually will come to face the same dilemma I did. “We know what the world wants from us…Every girl must decide whether to be true to herself or true to the 
world.” In the process of raising a good woman, girls are taught that they must give up parts of themselves in order to succeed. As many of Doyle’s fellow feminist writers dispute, women are trained to be docile, humble, and most of all beautiful. Do these traits actually make a good woman, though? What if we could destroy this “man-made boundary” Feinberg speaks of, and begin to relearn the best parts of ourselves that were lost so many years ago? The spread of radical feminist love and acceptance should guide our journey towards rebuilding the broken system which has tamed us. Pushing against the status quo of gender and sex stereotypes will help to free those of us who identify at every point on the spectrum.
These two amazing feminists, and the countless others we have read throughout the semester, have taught me that life is not about fitting into your “box”. It’s about claiming your own identity, education, and opportunities regardless of what society tells us.
P.S. – Here is an awesome conversation with Glennon Doyle on sexuality and womanhood. I know it’s long, but I promise it’s worth the watch!
Works Cited:
Doyle, Glennon. Untamed. The Dial Press, 2020.
Feinberg, Leslie. To Be or Not to Be.