Jay Sennett's Blog, page 14

A Life Less Convenient Free for 3 Days

Sometimes you create something you’re so passionate about, something you’re so happy with, something you believe will add so much value to other people’s lives, you feel compelled to give it away for free. This is why we are giving away A Life Less Convenient. A book about lupus and love, chronic illness and sex and dating needs to be in as many hands as possible. We know the book will add so much value to all who read it. We’re giving away A LIfe Less Convenient free for the next three days (8/21 — 8/23 only). In order to make it free on Amazon (where it’s most popular), we had to sign an exclusivity agreement for 90 days, which means it’s available only…

Transgender Memoir: The Ever-Present Memory

My memories of my past trouble me. In writing this transgender memoir, I am reminded of Faulkner’s line from Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” I carry my memories with me in the present moment. The past exists only in mind, and only to the extent the actions in the memory in question aren’t quite happening right now. Yet there are some memories that remain in a category I shall name “the present”; others slip into another category I shall name “the past.” Memories in the latter category include my history as a girl. This part of my life is finished. I do not revisit it, though that is actually rather only a half-truth as it is…

Masculinity and the Feminism of Simplicity, Part Two

Masculinity and masculine roles – and by extension, feminine roles – are interwined with earning a salary or wage. A man is a man if he earns enough to take of his family. A man isn’t a man if he becomes a house-husband. A woman works but her worth is less because she earns less for the same job. A woman of the elite classes can leave work to care for children, unpaid work that is devalued because she isn’t earning a wage. As I said yesterday, the women described in the opt-out generation want back in  value more than their children their own lifestyle. Discussions of being able to accomplish all the housework, child-rearing expectations and volunteer or work part-time by hiring a…

Masculinity and the Feminism of Simplicty, Part One

The latest NYTimes Magazine article tells us that the opt-out generation, the generation of women reaching the first stages of their peak earning potential who then left it all behind them to raise their kids, now want back in. Is anyone surprised they’re having a hard time getting back in? I didn’t think so. Two of them seem baffled as to why they can’t get jobs, and one is resentful that she had to downsize from a mcmansion to a more raffish townhouse she calls an “apartment.” The author does a decent job of talking with husbands, and I actually found their stories more intriguing, because their situations speak to the state of American masculinity for not just the upper classes as well as…