Marjorie Garbers Vested Interests: Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety

Marjorie Garbers Vested Interests Cross-dressing and Cultural AnxietyThe tendency to establish rigid companionable codes of gender-determined behaviors is appargonnt everywhere--though specifically present in literary texts. Women are expected to, in essence, be women and act, dress, and behave in a art objectner that distinguishes them from men. While these constructs are rigidly defined, they are easily and recurrently transcended. In her, Vested Interests Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety, Majorie Garber demonstrates the concept of cultural binarisms, illustrating them to be the social and historical obsession with polarizing individuals, male or female, into both one group or the other. In her essay, she concentrates her discussion on the importance of dress in the construction of gender and its power in undermining it. Garber writes that gender boundaries--which she defines as blurred social concepts--can be transcended by the cross-dresser. Additionally, the appearance of a transvestite character indicates that a kinsperson crisis is present, but not limited to gender identity. This category crisis, is resultant of the binarisms which have been disturbed. Herman Manns account, The Female Review Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier, reinforces Garbers assertions about the cross-dressing figure in literature-- once Sampson puts on mens clothing, her identity is changed. She is, therefore, able to transcend the limited capacities of a woman and access her desires to see the world. Mann addresses several instances of binarisms--including gender, class, and status--throughout his text. Through his character of Deborah Sampson, he is able to display a separate, but relevant have intercourse of a socially and politically ... ...and(habit). Also, Mann states about Sampsons desire to become a soldier and in the end, perhaps, she would be instrumental in the CAUSE OF LIBERTY, which had for nearly sextet years, enveloped the minds of her countrymen ( Mann, 233). This statement makes a direct comment on the state of his country and Sampsons impact on its freedom. In this way, he connects her desires of cross-dressing and living as a man to his desires of witnessing American Liberty. Works Cited De Erauso, Catalina. Memoir of a Basque Lieutenant Nun. Beacon Press Boston, 1996.Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety. Routledge New York, 1992. Mann, Herman. The Female Reveiw Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier. Boston, 1797.Rotundo, Anthony. Community to the Individual The alteration of Manhood. American Manhood, 10-30.