Hey everybody, time for a gender studies class. Today, or I suppose more accurately yesterday, I was talking about my belief that women drawing mustaches on themselves a feminist statement was fucking retarded and made no sense.

Evie postulated that it's based from some kind of "sex is between your legs, gender is between your ears" kind of thing. Which I'm going on record as saying as bullshit, and articulated to myself before going to sleep, before saying "fuck going to sleep, let's see if I can articulate this in text."

First off, unless sex is being used to refer to the act, sex and gender are motherfucking synonyms. The difference between men and women is one of penises and vaginas, and then how society reacts to whether or not one has a penis or a vagina. The "sex is between your legs..." slogan assumes a homogenity in thought amongst gender lines that doesn't exist. Yeah, there are thoughts that women have that men never will, and vice versa. For example: Women have more of a fear of being raped than men do, which makes perfect sense. However, some girl who thinks of herself as a dude isn't going to walk through a dark alley any less afraid because she thinks of herself as a dude. She's going to have the same fear, because she has reason to have that fear, because she has a vagina.

My point, in conclusion, is that your sexual orientation and your "gender identity" are two very different things. The main difference being that gender identity is, for the most part, and in every sense that doesn't come directly down to penises vs. vaginas, is total bullshit.

Am I being dismissive and overly simplifying the issue? Yeah to the first and no to the second.

In other news, I finished Lolita and it's much much better than Pale Fire. I should read more Nabokov, although I've read the two classics. With records by bands, I feel that all you really need are a band's classic albums- I have Minutemen's Double Nickels On Dime and don't intend to buy any more- but with the great writers I think you need to get more of the context provided by their larger body of work, as opposed to the culmination of what they do and them at the peak of their powers. With mediocre writers you just need to see them at their best, but with ones that can be described as genius, they're more likely to fuck around and experiment with different types of work, and those works need to be investigated.