Molly Haskell’s “My Brother My Sister”

In film critic Molly Haskell’s new book, My Brother, My Sister,” begins in 2005, as John ­(Chevey) Haskell, a 59-year-old married financial adviser, tells his older sister that he has “gender dysphoria” and wants to become female.As reviewed in the New York Times, “The author doesn’t soft-pedal her reaction: “My brother . . . will be a ‘woman on the loose.’ My heart stops. The danger. The grotesqueness. An aging transsexual,” she laments. “Please tell me you’ll still be smart at money and computers, and not dumb like . . . well, like a girl?” she half-jokes.

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“Haskell’s bewilderment is understandable. Having someone close come out as transgender can be disorienting; few realize how attached they are to a loved one’s cheek stubble or the bass timbre of his voice until those traits morph or disappear. Coping with a gender transition — which necessarily challenges binary constructions of male and female — may be even more difficult for Haskell, who in an earlier memoir, “Love and Other Infectious Diseases,” described herself as a “stoical WASP.” Unfortunately, a state of shock and confusion is not the optimal position from which to glean insights.

“And that is the state in which Haskell finds herself not only on Page 1 but two-thirds of the way through as well. Throughout, she frets. She worries that her brother, now named Ellen Hampton, will constantly be “looking over her shoulder for psychopaths.” She worries that her brother will be too attractive as a woman, or not attractive enough (“There’s nothing like a transsexual to bring out one’s latent fashion snobbery”). And she worries what other people — her friends, her housekeeper, the doorman — will think. She even pictures the reaction of their late mother, a dignified Virginia society matron: “I imagine utter devastation, shock, revulsion, a mortification that goes beyond simple shame or embarrassment. Possibly even a stroke or heart attack, or deep depression.” Continue reading “Molly Haskell’s “My Brother My Sister””

The age of discipline

Discipline means different thing to different people.images

But for the sake of this discussion, let’s say it has to do with control – or self-control. At least that is how it was discussed in the piece excerpted below appearing in today’s The Guardian: “We have reached the end game of have-it-all culture.

“Because I’m Worth It has had its day, and discipline is the new decadence. The Nike Fuel Band, which tracks your calorie expenditure and praises you for an active lifestyle, has more smug-factor than a Rolex right now. The dominant meme of annoying Facebook behaviour has segued from the posting of party photos to “inspirational” quotes (American men – Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson – are especially hot right now). Meanwhile, the narrative of reality TV has changed: bad behaviour in the hot tub, à la early Big Brother, has been replaced, from The Voice to The Apprentice, by Saturday-night preaching of the age-old Sunday-morning mantras that hard work will be rewarded, that mentors must be respected and listened to. Even family life has taken on a new set of values. With every issue of Goop, the cosy, cupcake-baking ideal of motherhood cedes territory to the Tiger Mothers (whose children will be more successful than yours) and the Gwyneth Paltrow-esque mothers (whose children will be slimmer and healthier, ergo more successful, than yours.) Continue reading “The age of discipline”