Should Gender Be Interpreted? Bornstein and Sontag
This essay explores whether gender can or should be interpreted, drawing a sustained parallel between Kate Bornstein's memoir Gender Outlaw and Susan Sontag's essay "Against Interpretation." The paper examines Bornstein's personal journey through transsexuality — including the disorienting experience of inhabiting a new gendered body without its corresponding social rituals — alongside Sontag's argument that art is best experienced rather than intellectually dissected. The essay argues that just as Sontag warns against over-interpretation dulling sensory experience of art, Bornstein's intense intellectualization of gender may have distanced him from the lived experience of it. The paper concludes that while gender can be interpreted, consensus on its meaning is as elusive as critical agreement on great works of art.
- Introduction: Gender as a Work of Art: Gender framed as art open to interpretation
- Bornstein's Personal Interpretation of Gender: Bornstein's lived struggle with gendered identity and rituals
- Sontag on Art, Excess, and Experience: Art's cathartic purpose versus intellectual dissection
- Should Gender Be Experienced Rather Than Interpreted?: Applying Sontag's experiential argument to sex and gender
- The Essence of Gender and the Limits of Interpretation: Essence of gender remains elusive despite interpretation
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What makes this paper effective
- The central analogy — treating gender as a work of art subject to Sontag's critique of interpretation — is original and consistently sustained throughout the essay, giving the argument structural coherence.
- The paper balances close reading of both primary texts, weaving direct quotations from Bornstein and Sontag into the analytical thread rather than merely summarizing each source separately.
- The essay reaches a nuanced, honest conclusion: rather than declaring gender definitively interpretable or not, it acknowledges that disagreement over interpretation is itself revealing — much like the divided critical reception of great art.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates cross-textual analogical reasoning — applying a theoretical framework from one discipline (Sontag's aesthetics and art criticism) to illuminate a question in another (gender studies and lived identity). The technique requires the writer to identify structural parallels between two very different texts and show that the comparison generates insight neither text alone could provide.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by introducing both sources and framing gender as potentially analogous to art. It then moves through Bornstein's personal experience to illustrate what gender interpretation looks like in practice. Next, it uses Sontag's argument about excess and dulled sensibility to critique over-intellectualization. The penultimate section pushes the analogy into the realm of sexuality and procreation, asking what it would mean to simply "experience" gender. The conclusion returns to Sontag's concept of essence and leaves the central question productively open.
Introduction: Gender as a Work of Art
Kate Bornstein asserts that gender is nothing more than a line in the sand drawn by someone who says, "On this side you are a man, on that side you are a woman." As a transsexual, Bornstein argues that the line needs to be blown away — that the person who drew it is making arbitrary claims. However, if we think of gender as a work of art, one could argue that, since all art is open to interpretation, gender can certainly be interpreted as well.
Susan Sontag, writing on the interpretation of art, states that "the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities" (7). The fact is that people are programmed to interpret — they interpret everything, from what others say to their own thoughts and feelings. They can interpret their own feelings on sex, sexuality, and desire. They can interpret their own gender, as Bornstein does.
The central question is whether gender is like art — something created on a canvas, on a page, on a screen, or on a stage. Shakespeare said all the world is a stage, so perhaps everyone and everything is a work of art as well. Should it be interpreted? Should gender be interpreted? Sontag warns that "transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art — and in criticism — today. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are" (13). In a sense, this is what Bornstein says he is doing with his own transsexuality — interpreting his gender in the way that makes him feel most comfortable. What troubles him is when others interpret his presentation of gender. For example, when men express admiration for Kate's beauty, Bornstein asserts that he does not know how to respond to the attraction of other men — it is not something he ever learned.
This essay argues that gender can be interpreted, but that at the end of the day there is unlikely to be any agreement over the interpretation — just as with most great works of art, critics themselves are often divided.
Works Cited
Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw. Digital file.
Sontag, Susan. "Against Interpretation." Against Interpretation and Other Essays. Anchor Books, 1990.
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