Vested Interests: Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety 1st Edition

Read this book in the 90s, and still remember it as one of my favorite books read. One factoid I remember that was fascinating was the fact that before turning into the 20th Century, the colors for little boys was pastel pink and for little girls was pastel blue. Funny to imagine after being "programmed" in this time generation, that little boys in blue would have been ridiculed.Neat book that explores interesting gender topics. I plan to read it again soon. Wish I still had my first copy. This is the kind of book I wish I had author's signature on. Very, very highly recommended, for any gender.

This is a great book, quite interesting and useful for all those who research or who just want to know more about crossdressing and transvestiting through the years.The book arrived in good conditions and very quickly, considering it was an international purchase, it took just a bit longer than a random national one! Just the paper cover involving the hard cover was a bit torn.

This book is superb. Garber not only explores the subject of cross-dressing (which is absolutely fascinating) but also interrogates societal attitudes, challenges categories and categorization, and illustrates why the ubiquitous and often unchallenged binaries of straight/gay and woman/man need to be questioned. It is a book that unapologetically analyzes the notion of whether clothes do or do not make the (wo)man. The verdict? Read the book and fashion your own conclusions.

This book tends to be incredibly essentialist, overly generalizes and homogenizes all trans* people, focuses too much on transsexualism that's essentialist, reiterates the rhetoric of how transsexualism isn't a viable gender identity/presentation, and uses ciscentric, cissexist and transphobic language. Not terrible, but be aware of what you're reading.

I read the original 1992 hardcover edition. Which means, this book is dated. Definitely missing yet is for example the concept of metrosexuality. The newest films analyzed are Tootsie (1982) and Yentl (1983), already a decade old when this book was published.Marjorie Garber uses a very rich vocabulary, some of which I was even able to stump internet dictionaries with. On the other hand, she uses unintended racist vocabulary. She may have known better in 1992.Many parts of the 390-paged book (+ 35 pages of footnotes and 38 picture pages, some of which are in color) are very interesting to read. Usually, when playing topsyturvy with our Western concepts of gender. For example that the pink-blue baby colors were reversed before WWI. When and in what circumstances Muslim societies appear to harbor more gender freedoms than the West. (Though the author doesn't mention everything possible.) Many history lessons are to be learned, e.g. that Joan of Arc wasn't tried under the inquisition for heresy, but transvestism.Lengthy chapters are reserved for classic films, sumptuary laws, Peter Pan, Salome, detective stories, M. Butterfly, the posthumous Harold Washington scandal, Josephine Baker and the image connection among Valentino, Liberace and Elvis. With most of these chapters I had the feeling that they were somewhat arbitrary or that separate long articles, worthy as they may be individually, were compiled for a book, which often loses sight of its overall coherence. Even though I liked reading about all of that, it felt too much like a patchwork text instead of clear messages.If you are interested in gender studies, don't miss out on this one. Just make sure, this will not remain the only one. Some other books include  The Mismeasure of Woman , Myths Of Gender: Biological Theories About Women And Men, Revised Edition , The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine)  and  Nature's Body: Gender In The Making Of Modern Science

Marjorie GarberVested Interests:Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety(New York: Routledge, 1992) 443 pages(ISBN: 0-415-90072-7; hardcover)(Library of Congress call number: HQ77.G37 1991) A wide-ranging book on the public manifestationsof wearing the clothes and adopting the manners of the other sex,especially as seen in the mass media--television, movies, magazines.Cross-dressing for the following reasons:entertainment in the theatre and movies;respect in the workplace;to express the other-gender side of one's personality;for personal sexual interest, arousal, & orgasm;as an element of one's homosexual sex-script;to 'pass' as the other sex;transsexualism--because one believes one is 'really' the other sex; This book explores cross-dressing as a cultural phenomenon,rather than a psychological phenomenon.If you would like to read better books on cross-dressing,search the Internet for this bibliography:"Cross-Dressing Bibliography".James Leonard Park

first off, i can't say i would recommend this book to someone who doesn't have a more academic background, flitting as it does from foucault to freud & back again, but i have to say that it's critique & thesis are well-reasoned, well-argued, & definitely well-referenced! it's like a cross dressing field guide in some ways... i found myself making up a list of movies/books to check out. even moreso, it's a great book for anyone wanting to study gender construction in general... as it gets at that shadowy figure inbetween the genders, who belies/affirms all the constructs...thank you marjorie garber!

Having been directed to this by a reference in an essay on L'abbe de Choissy, I thought it would be equally enthralling. I am not disappointed. Although written for academics, reading and re-reading until the meaning emerges is rewarding. Fantastic to see equal emphasis on FTM: I will be more comfortable trying to help my FTM nephew.