What is gender? Is it a binary division separating the desiring (active, dominant) subject from the desired (passive, subordinate) object? Then there is the domestic, the private, the personal, the emotional vs. the professional, public, political, rational... Some might see their daughters wearing pink dresses and wanting to join a stereotypically feminine profession- or no profession at all as a symptom of society's oppressive attitudes towards women and something to be discouraged. There is another view of gender, however, in which stereotypically feminine pursuits are not viewed as a symptom of oppression, rather, it is the oppression that stigmatized these pursuits. As I wrote about earlier, this is the view that drives the sex worker liberation movement. Not all sex workers are women, of course, however, all sex workers (I think...) are taking their roles as desired objects and using their subjectivity, their agency, in order to make what is ordinarily considered domestic and private into something professional and public. Sex work lies in the twisting apart of the two sides of the binary division and, hence, is very elucidating in studies of gender. Tomas Almaguer writes about a Latin American phenomenon in which sexual relations between males are not entirely stigmatized historically- the binary division is between the active and passive roles in sexuality, with only the passive role being historically stigmatized. A metaphor is drawn between the active and passive roles in sexuality and the colonizer and colonized in Latin American history. Furthermore, those males assuming passive roles are more likely to have reported sexual violence towards them early in life. In North American society, more women than men report sexual violence towards them early in life. Of course, there is the question of reporter-bias. That aside, when considering psychological trauma as a community experience and not just an individual one (this is something I am very interested in exploring) would it be interesting to consider the implication of this in studies of gender? I think this would yield complexity and layers that could lead to many avenues of study, in fact. Is our goal to be liberated from our roles? Or to reclaim pride in the roles we assume? Our we necessary confined to roles or is something that can change throughout life and situations we are in? Is it within our control? To understand- and both reclaim where it is empowering and be liberated from where it is not- the role of trauma in the roles we play in life could be very empowering, I believe. And, of course, read "Chicano Men" by Tomas Almaguer in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, Henry Abelove ed.