Gaga Feminism

I read a book recently called "Gaga Feminism" by J. Jack Halberstam and it was amazing! I wanted to recommend it to anyone who wanted a good read over the winter break. It was reasonably priced on Amazon and was all about a new wave of feminism, re-thinking gender and sexual orientation and what is "normal", and how pop culture effects how/what we think about love, sex, gender and relationships. He uses Lady Gaga (among other pop references) as a type of mascot for this new movement.

He references some gender and feminist theorists for those of you who are interested in that type of work, but it's an easy read and very relatable (especially after taking this class). Plus he's super funny! His whole idea on Gaga Feminism is not so much about fighting for women's rights to vote and have equal pay, but more about all of us fighting for equality and breaking down norms. Like I said, he breaks down gender binaries and makes the "abnormal" seem like the new normal. He talks about females in the media like Gaga, Ke$ha and Nikki Minaj and how they are strong and sexy, but own their sexuality and are in full control of it. He criticizes some movies that have come out in the last decade including Knocked Up, The Hangover and Bridesmaids and talks about how they a) further buy into the idea of a hetero-normative society and b) put so much pressure on young people to get married, settle down and start a family.  His whole idea is that we should be representing the diverse society that we live in, and we should not be telling people what the norms should be and making them feel inadequate if they aren't buying into them.

He also explains that in order to start this new revolution, we can't be afraid to go a little "gaga" ourselves. What he means by this is that we need to be a little crazy, foolish, naive. However, we need to do this with purpose. It's not just about being weird; it's about being weird in order to get noticed in order to get people's attention and have them listen up when we have something important to say. It's also a statement about not conforming and being comfortable being ourselves. Some of his ideals involve- Letting go of your basic assumptions about people so you can be open to the unexpected and unanticipated, transformation is inevitable, practice creative non-believing, and don't be afraid to be bold and outrageous.

One of my favorite quotes in the book is "If you don't go gaga soon, you may wake up and find that you have missed the future and become the past." He also suggests that we need to "be loud in a world of silent collaborators, be crazy in a room full of nice and normal people, be unpredictable in a world of highly structured systems of meaning" and that "gaga feminists want to uncover bigger political prizes rather than splendid individualism." We need to be aware, flexible, and accepting. We need to acknowledge the change going on around us and dive in!